English

Garden outside workshop in summer

Resinous wood in kiln during reduction

I work with classical shapes and find inspiration in nature, when travelling and in the study of ancient, islamic and asian arts and crafts.


My clay is the very sandy red clay from the South of Denmark. In my large trays and bowls I add stoneware clay. I mix and clean it myself and store it for more than a year before I use it.


I throw all my pieces on the wheel, after which I pull or draw lobes, make facets, cut, shape and/or stamp bands. I give most pieces a slip - often several layers. I'm very fascinated by glazes and the hues derived from the slips and the ash and clay glazes. I use ash and clay glazes and the hues are derived from the slips : many types of different ashes like from beechwood, straw, oak yield different hues and colours. I much prefer bright pastels, turquoise and blue-black colours.


My bowls with friezes are inspired by ancient pots. They are challenging forms, as they change properties depending on the position of the friezes. The frieze is modelled onto the thrown piece, then formed using my own stamps and finally I scrape the friezes free. There are many hours of work in this process; the level of waste is high, because the relatively thin body is manipulated in many ways and then fired to the very melting point of the clay.


I fire my electrical kiln to around 1210° C until the clay crystallizes and melts body and glaze into one body. Reduction is quite heavy all the way to maximum temperature, which makes the clay very dark. Reduction is done with resinous wood. To add depth and intensity many pieces are glaze burnt several times.


GUIDE TO OTHER PAGES IN DANISH: FOTOS1 and FOTOS2 are image galleries of pieces and processes; CV means "Biography"; "Arbejdsproces" is this page.

Workshop Photo; post-wheel work making bowl with frieze