In the universe according to Hana Rucker, boredom is the perfect catalyst for creativity. “If my kids come up to me to tell me they’re bored,” she begins, “I tell them, ‘How amazing! What do you think will come of it?’” Unlike today’s youth, this welder-sculptor-ceramicist was not afforded the distraction of a television, the stimulation of a smartphone, or even the company of a consistent friend throughout her childhood. Born in California’s Bay Area, Rucker (née Kaufman) was raised by self-proclaimed “hippies in hiding”—a couple appearing as conventional yuppies who were anything but. When she was eight, Rucker’s family sold their belongings and packed everything into a trailer hitched to a van, where they lived for the next two years as they roamed the United States.