In my studio

When spring is lingering in the air, I always feel the urge to fully open the windows and doors. Not only to let the fresh air and sweet fragrance of blooming blossoms in but also to hear the beautiful bird songs.

But my doors are open for you too and I would love to share with you what I’m up to this month in my studio.

It’s a productive time in my studio as the market season will soon start at the first weekend of May. You can check my Agenda which ceramic markets I will attend. There are a lot of new ones (to me) in Germany, so that will be exciting!

I’ve been creating a new collection of spring jewellery. Tiny flowers, raspberries and colourful beetles will be part of this new jewellery.

Here are some flowers in wet porcelain, ready to be coloured. Once they’re dried, I will fire them, glaze and fire again up to a very high temperature to make the porcelain strong and white. Then they are finished off with fine silver.

There are also some new porcelain notebooks in the making. Every notebook is unique and filled with the most beautiful types of paper and botanical treasures.

Nature is my biggest source of inspiration and I’m drawn to what’s growing in the season at that moment. It gives me the opportunity to use the plants and flowers as real examples instead of looking at botanical illustrations.

This spring season has inspired me to make a new specimen box filled with spring flowers and elements such as hyacinth bulbs, feathers and blackbird eggs.

I love to use porcelain in its pure form for my botanical stories and don’t add any color but in the case of the eggs I made an exception. Maybe because I really like its turquoise color!

Porcelain is such a wonderful material to work with. There’s this softness and flexibility, but also its white color and delicacy that really appeals to me.

Ceramics is really a slow-paced art, especially working with porcelain.This soft and delicate material requires patience and attentiveness. I can’t rush the clay, it takes time and focus to shape every aspect of it. Working with porcelain is quite complicated. One’s mistakes, bumps or careless decisions will be revealed in the end after the firing process. But when one uses other types of clay these bumps often won’t be a risk or even visible.

Much can go wrong during the whole process; there can be cracks, deformation, the high percentage of shrink to keep in mind… It’s only when the porcelain is high fired that it’s strong. But at this point the clay is also unalterable. I love the fact that porcelain (and clay in general) is a most natural and earthly material.Its components are from natural sources and are part of the earth we walk on. As long as it’s not fired, it can be used again and again. And when it’s dry, it just become dust and part of the earth again.

I’m currently reading ‘The white road’ by Edmund de Waal and it’s so fascinating to discover the origins of porcelain. There’s still so much I don’t know about this material I’m working it!

The reason I hugely love to work with this wonderful material is probably because I recognise so much of myself in it. The sensitivity, the fragility and the possibility to create delicate beauty with it.

Creating my botanical pieces in porcelain is revealing myself in a very fragile and personal way. It takes courage to show

myself to the world through my work. The stories I write, not on paper but in porcelain, are a reflection of who I am.