Category Archives: Personally

Inspiration, Personally

Paulus Berensohn: Dancing with clay

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When the young dancer Paulus Berensohn first saw a potter throw a cylinder in the late 1950s, he knew: “that’s the dance to learn”.

From then on, he swapped dancing on Broadway for dancing with clay. June 15 2017, at the age of 84, he exchanged the dance of life for the dance of eternity.

“I knew how to dance on a stage, but how was I going to dance in life?” (documentary “To Spring from the Hand”, 2013)

thumbs jar ceramicsI got to know Berensohn only through his in 1972 published book “Finding one’s way with clay”, interviews and a documentary about his life. In it, he advocated a slower, mind-full and integrated approach to working with clay. He has had a big influence on me and many other ceramists.

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Inspiration, Personally

Ceramics by the sea, exhibition Picasso

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Not everyone knows the ceramics of Pablo Picasso. With the exhibition “Picasso aan Zee” (Picasso at sea), the museum Beelden aan Zee (Sculptures at Sea) bring ceramics to the Sea. Until 5 March 2017, fifty ceramic works and twenty sculptures by Picasso will be on display in this dune museum in Scheveningen.

As a ceramist, I couldn’t miss  this “Ceramics by the sea” exhibition. At the end of 2016 I had a look…

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Inspiration, Personally

Höhr-Grenzhausen: Ceramic tradition in motion

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Has the handmade ceramic tradition disappeared in Western Europe?

That’s what it looked like when I visited Höhr-Grenzhausen last summer. This small town is the center of the “Kannenbäckerland“. This region in Germany is known as “Pottery Country“. It grew from the 14th century into one of the most important ceramics centers of Western Europe.

Westerwald stoneware

From the 15th  century onwards, the “Westerwald stoneware” was developed here. Stronger (and fired much higher) than the common produced earthenware in Europe at that time. But what made it unique in the world was the “salt glaze” with which the pots were finished.

I love and make stoneware ceramics. In addition, I get a lot of inspiration from traditional pottery shapes. I like to be in woodland. In short, reasons enough to visit this region and to get to know one of my European ceramic roots.

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Clay, Inspiration

Glück auf: Westerwald stoneware clay

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Stoneware clay is is the material which I use to form my ceramic sculptures on the wheel. And I’m not the only one who has daily contact with this natural product. An average human uses in his lifetime according to the BKRI about 18 tons (18,000 kg) of clay. It is difficult to make an accurate estimate, but that it is much, I am more than willing to believe.

Clay is the main component of plates, bowls and tiles (“fine ceramics”), for bricks, roof tiles and drainpipes (“coarse ceramics”) and as auxiliary raw material in among others soaps, toothpaste and cosmetics.

tonbergbauIn addition, clay in modern times is used in technical ceramics such as implants (bio-ceramics), insulators and superconductors (electro-ceramics) and in various ceramic composite materials (such as solar cells and heat shields on the space shuttle).

So a life without clay is not only unthinkable for me. Where does all this clay come from? For this blog, I went on a journey to the source.

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Inspiration, Personally

Ceramics in Paris, Cité de la Céramique

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Paris, center of fine arts in Europe, perhaps of the world (that is, in any case, the view of the “Parisien“). But it is also the city of ceramics, or as the French say “Cité de la céramique”. We visited the ceramics in Paris.

Also for the “céramique” Paris is “Tze place Tzo be“.

CeramiqueBetween Paris and Versailles, on the Seine lies Sèvres; the porcelain capital of France. Here, since 1740, the French porcelain is produced for the state’s rulers. From Louis XV (“Le Bien-Aimé”) to Napoleon (the god of clay). But also for  (court-) nobility and the rich bourgeoisie.

Nowadays, the museum “Sèvres-Cité de la Céramique is located in there. Just across the bridge “Pont de Sèvres” on the banks of the Seine at the gateway of Paris. In this museum you will find porcelain. But you can also see also a wide collection of historical and contemporary ceramics.

For a ceramist in Paris it is not a choice, I had to go here. But for the ceramics enthusiast it is also highly recommended.

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Inspiration, Opinion, Personally

Wabi-Sabi Ceramics: imperfection as a beauty ideal

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Wabi-sabi is a beauty of things imperfect,
impermanent and incomplete
It is a beauty of things modest and humble
It is a beauty of things unconventional
(Leonard Koren)

This is the intriguing introduction to Leonard Koren’s book “Wabi-sabi for artists, designers, poets & philosophers“. He introduced the term “Wabi-Sabi” in 1994. But the roots of this concept are much older. Its origins lies in Chinese Taoism and Zen Buddhism. Koren describes the Japanese aesthetics in art, literature, poetry and wisdom of life. From its growth in the 15th century until now.

Wabi-Sabi, imperfection is beauty

The first description of these aesthetic values from Japanese culture, is by Japanese auteur Kakuzo Okakura. In an attempt to close the gap between the aesthetic values of the east and the west, he wrote “The Book of Tea” published in 1906. Because he wrote it directly in English he made it accessible to Western readers who can’t read Japanese.

Where the West strives for greatness, perfection and the denial of decay, Wabi-Sabi embraces the human measure, the irreversible and the cycle of all that lives. This concept of life has not only much to offer the ceramist.

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Inspiration, Opinion, Personally

Ceramix Ceramic Art in the 20th and 21st Century

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Until 31 January 2016 the exhibition “Ceramix, Ceramics in Art from Rodin to Schütte” runs in the Bonnefantemuseum in Maastricht.

View ceramic art

Ceramix tells the story of ceramic art from the beginning of the last century to the present day through more than 250 works of art. In the spring of 2016, this exhibition will travel to Paris and Sèvres.

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to visit the Bonnefante Museum. A great experience. If you haven’t been there yet: grab your chance, it’s a unique exhibition not to be missed.

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Inspiration, Personally

Zen Ceramics, not a style but a technique

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I was interested, but also a bit skeptical when I saw “Zen drawing – a new way to become an artist”, written by the Dutch Michelle Dujardin (Rockpoint publishers, 2014), in a bookstore in Den Bosch (Netherlands). We were in this city during an inspirational museum trip a couple of weeks ago (food for another blog). My interest was bigger than my skepticism so I bought the book immediately.

Back in our hotel I was pleasantly surprised; It’s a good read. The book has valuable insights into the creative process,  which are not only applicable to realistic drawing or painting practices. The technique described is not new, even for ceramics.

[en] zen keramiek, goudbronzen uil

Zen ceramics; designing and making of ceramics with “body intelligence” is described by the American auteur/potter Kenneth R. Beittel in “Zen and the Art of Pottery” (Publisher Weatherhill, 1989). He emphasizes that ceramics should be designed from the mind and then carried out with the body (yourself or someone else). According to Beittel, (hand thrown) ceramics must be designed and implemented with “unity of being”.

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Personally

La Borne; The French Way

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Almost everywhere in the world there is a very long ceramic tradition. The techniques have been discovered independently in many places in the world. Historians nowadays assume that people used clay some 20,000 years ago to make pots that were fired into ceramics (10,000 years before the discovery of agriculture).

La Borne Village de PotiersThe first ceramic objects were probably fired by chance in open wood fires. Nowadays ceramics are fired in very many ways,  gas, oil, coal, electricity and still with wood, such as in La Borne (France). And you guessed it: I experienced the local ceramics traditions up close this summer …

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Inspiration, Opinion, Personally

In contact with the past

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Sometimes  you feel suddenly connected to the past. You see an old photo, you whistle a song your grandfather always whistled or … you make ceramic birds.

Ancient-Iranian-Cermamics
Ancient Iranian Ceramics, Sackler Gallery

A few months ago I read an article in Ceramics Monthly about the exhibition “Ancient Iranian Ceramics“. It was a small exhibition of ceramics from about 3,000 years ago (!).  These ceramic objects where excavated in the area south of the Caspian Sea in what is now modern Iran.

The small installation showed a number of treasures from the collection of the Sackler Gallery. It celebrates the talents of the ancient Iranian potters and shows the high quality of their works.

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Inspiration, Personally

Art about or for man?

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If I may believe the selection of the weekly dutch art program “Avro’s kunstuur“, most of the art has the human being as subject.

Whether it is video art of Priscila Fernandes or the photos of Vivianne Sassen; man is central. And if it is not the human itself, then it is its effect on the planet, as manifested in the architecture or the landscape.

ceramic art, is clay or man the inspiration?Does this bother me? Of course not, everyone is free to have his own muse. But where most artists use these goddesses as a reflection of humanity as inspiration, I think for the ceramist only one of the nine muse “Urania” (the muse of astronomy, forerunner of all science), is a source for his or her work.

Not for nothing ceramics is known as the most scientific of the arts.

In ceramics is, after all, the control of the material of the utmost importance, and science has a great influence on the development of this art form.
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Personally

Every beginning is difficult

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Starting a ceramics blog is as difficult as your first glaze test; you have no idea how to do it, but if you do not try, you surely will not succeed…

Glazuur avontuurIn short, here is my first blog , where I want to take you to my first glaze adventures …

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