Inspired By Nature, I Turn Porcelain Into Artwork

As a child there were two things that I was very passionate about, one was art, the other nature.

Both art and nature have always been magical and inspiring to me, with new things to discover every day. From a very early age on I was interested in just about all forms of arts and crafts, making something with my hands was the greatest feeling ever. And I also have always had a great love and curiosity for nature, as a child I would collect just about anything interesting that I could find: colorful snail and sea shells, nuts, rocks and pebbles and so on.

So naturally my inspiration comes from all the beautiful shapes, textures and colors nature has to offer, in particular corals, fungi and seed pods. I strive to make objects that are not only beautiful to look at, but that also invite a person to touch it, to feel it and to pick it up. For me texture is a thing to experience, not just by looking at it but particularly by touching it. And it's important to me that my work creates that same feeling of wanting to touch it.

I start out by making a basic smooth shape to which I add all kinds of texture. The objects are completely hand-built from either porcelain, porcelain paperclay and sometimes stoneware. Depending on the object I may add color pigments (stains) in order to color the clay itself. Besides these stains I also use glazes, gold & platinum luster and oxides to either accentuate or offset the texture on an object.

I tend to work quite intuitively, starting with a general idea or feeling beforehand, but letting the clay and object itself tell me where to add a certain texture or color or shape during the progress of creation. For me the process of creating is a spiritual thing, it lets me pour a little of myself into each object that I create.

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