Anja Graefe

The pots for this project have been made from two parts, a lower bowl-shaped part and a top cylinder part that has either been thrown on the wheel or rolled out as a slab and attached to the lower part and pulled up on the potter´s wheel.

I was interested in exploring different kinds of clay (from the very fine nature of porcelain to the very rough surfaces of sculptural clay) to see how they behave when making the same shapes.

I took the clay to its limits around the rim area by making it thinner and thinner until it started to rip. This action feels freeing and challenging at the same time and a certain amount of courage seems necessary to risk functional and aesthetic ruin, yet creating a vessel that can stand proud in its own scarred self.

A parallel research has been to explore the surface of a pot. I feel particularly attracted to aged surfaces, rough or smooth, to cracks and marks that over time form and thus experimented with slips and glazes, in particular with crackle slips (different recipes, different application from pouring to dipping, brushing and spraying) that might emulate the natural aging process.

Lastly I was interested in the reduction firing process and special effect glazes like celadons and ash glazes. I made up a celadon glaze for the porcelain pots and an ash glaze from ash I was given by the owners of the campsite I am staying at, a mixture of different trees and shrubs from around their property.