The first pottery class I attended was in 1997, almost 40 years into my life. At the time, I had no sense of what kind of commitment and passion it would become; I simply wanted to try something creative I had never done before.
The school I attended was a very small, private ceramics studio in the center of Hamburg. It was qualified to train students through the German ceramics apprenticeship program to become ceramics masters, as ceramics here is considered a handwerk, or skilled trade, much like woodwork or plumbing.
At the time, pottery hadn’t risen to the coolness it enjoys today. The Ceramic Art School on Humboldt Strasse in Hamburg was rather old fashioned, but in a good way. It was the best place to learn the basics of making and wedging clay, hand building, throwing, glaze chemistry and firing.
Learning at this particular school was quite esoteric. We’d drink tea, discussing everything from world geopolitics to religion to geography and geology, under soft pendant lights on tables built to the 1 to 3 Japanese proportion standard of all things in balance, under the watchful eye of the school’s owner. The wheels were motorised kick wheels that were large and powerful. You could walk through the drying room into my late pottery master Christoph Hansing’s private glazing atelier, where he had spent decades developing glazes, doing all the calculations by hand. It’s there in the that I learned how to calculate glaze chemistry, also long hand, in German. We worked on the correct balances of raw materials such as kaolin, bentonite, feldspar, quartz, dolomite, calcium phosphate, oxides and carbonates.
In that room was a 300 liter, front loading, 30 year old electric Nabertherm kiln, which I called the Monster. Absolutely nothing was automated. When there were enough pieces to fire from the school, Christoph would set himself up for the night, literally controlling the Monster by turning the power on and off, and checking portholes in the side to see where if the temperature-sensitive clay cones had started to slump, indicating the kiln had reached the desired temperature. After a 24 hour cycle, he’d take a day or two off as the kiln cooled. It was a huge event when he fired that kiln. All of our work, plus all of our glaze samples, plus all of his work and his new glazes, would be on display for us to see the following week.
Christoph’s influences, and therefore my influences, stem from the Japanese stoneware tradition of Shōji Hamada and the British stoneware tradition of Bernard Leach. These men are two of the most influential figures in the history of modern stoneware.
I see my own aesthetic reflected in these pieces. Leach and Hamada both used natural clays found in their environments. They traveled to visit each other and learn from each other at the turn of the 19th/20th century, and wrote many letters concerning clay bodies and glazes to each other. I always come back to their work when I want to re-ground my aesthetic.
Christoph taught me so much about the power of proportion in all design. It was there I learned to think and create critically, always with his valuable opinion to guide me.
I learned through him how to make a cylinder on the wheel. Let me rephrase that. First, I learned how to center a ball of clay on the wheel. I did this by using several two hour classes and doing nothing but forming balls of clay, going to the wheel and entering them. It wore out my nerves and the skin on the outside of my right pinkie.
Then, I learned how to pull up a cylinder. At first they were short, squat, all over the place. But with the same discipline used to master centering, I mastered the cylinder. And when you can throw a quality cylinder on the wheel, you can make cups, bowls, vases, plates - any vessel you want. I learned that every well thrown pot starts out as a well thrown cylinder.
It didn’t take long for me to focus almost all my creative energy on those classes and trying to understand what kind of potter I wanted to become. In 2000, I rented a small studio space in the cellar of an old train station that a group of artists had taken over in Hamburg. It was there I really started to challenge myself. I loved my classes, but I needed to experiment and develop my own style and glazes, apart from the school setting.
I stayed at the school and in the cellar studio until 2003 when we left Hamburg forever to move to Italy.
My journey went on from there, on my hill in Italy, where I worked at honing form and trying to understand what my style of pottery actually is. Pottery is a craft of patience and acceptance. So many parts of the process can go wrong - and do. I believe I’ve had every bad thing happen to me that can - from ceramic explosions in the kiln (from water left in the pot coupled with air bubbles in the clay) to glaze nightmares and just plain ugly pieces, to cracks and shivers and all the things. The journey is hard and long, and in my case, solitary. All of the problems were complicated by a highly irregular electricity supply and a very demanding job running our B&B. But I perservered.
My first pottery studio in Italy, in our yet-to-be renovated barn:
In this two hundred year old stable, I grappled creatively, technically and emotionally with what it meant to be an artist and a potter. I loved this space. I practiced the art of repetition by making the same form over and over and over again, to the sounds of birds and tractors and bees.
I learned this: I could not determine my own style of pottery without first mastering how to make forms through repetition. During these years, I pushed myself to improve, not to develop a style. I lost my way often, and wondered why I was even doing it at all. I made pots and sold them every season to guests around the world, but I knew I had yet to find my own brand of design.
About half way through our time in Italy, we restored the barn into an open kitchen and dining space for guests, and we built out part of the structure as a professional studio for me.
It was at this time that I started to find my real footing as an independent potter - more than a decade after taking my first pottery class.
In 2014, we sold the B&B and moved to southern Germany, which meant starting again. I carefully thought about whether I wanted to make the investment and create what would be my fourth studio. It turned out that the house we bought had been owned by a professional carpenter who had installed a studio / office for himself in the cellar of the house.
I donated my large, front load kiln I had bought in Hamburg to a professional art school in Acqui Terme, the town we lived close to in Italy, and sold my very large pottery wheel. In Germany, I bought a small top loader very efficient kiln and smaller pottery wheel, better suited for my new space.
I started again.
I am so happy I made the decision to continue. This house and studio are where I have completely found my pottery style. I’ve grown more here than I ever could have imagined, and this space, although in the basement, has incredible light and an atmosphere that’s ethereal and warm. It’s my safe harbor.
Pottery has surged to become such a popular craft over the last ten years - I feel like I was actually on trend with it! I understand why people are so taken by the craft. It seems magical, centering, peaceful, creative and powerful. It’s all those things. It’s also expensive, demanding, confusing, frustrating and physically exhausting.
Pottery is literally everything.
I will do other posts with lots of process videos. But I wanted to start my pottery writing journey here - where I began - so that you can see the evolution that takes place in mastering a craft. It’s been a gift of extraordinary proportion to be able to be a potter, and I will continue as long as I have the physical ability to do so. I now make pieces for wineries, restaurants and private collectors. It’s actually a dream come true for a creative person.
If you have questions you’d like answered, processes you’d like to have explained, or anything else regarding pottery, ceramics and glazing, put them in the comments and I’ll be sure to include your thoughts while developing content.
Have a beautiful day!