Category Archives: Ceramics

Craftie Style

One of the things we love about Japan are the numerous workshops available.  They also have dozens of online projects like this one from Craftie Style which we will attempt to make.  Instead of stone plastic clay we will be using air dry clay available at most craft stores. After concentrating on making similar pins we hope to graduate to larger projects like hanging ornaments and coasters.  Incidentally, use Google translate since Craftie Style is in Japanese.

Images:  Courtesy of Craftie Style.

Heidi Anderson

Heidi Anderson makes ceramic pottery, vases, planters, and sculptures. After painting in 2D for the majority of her time as an artist she wanted to create in a different way and to experiment with sculpture completely becoming immersed in clay. She is influenced by folk art from the Southwest and Mexico. However illustrative her figures appear, they are not painted at all, they are produced by a process called agateware. On an interview with Glaze Magazine she explains what drew her to ceramics:

“My interest in ceramics started around 2011. I was intrigued by some of the art that I was seeing happening around me. A resurging interest in ceramics was just beginning to happen and it sparked my imagination. I took a ceramics class in high school and used to make things out of fimo clay when I was little so I was just naturally drawn to working with clay. I’d been a painter for a long time before working in clay, mainly focused on 2D, and I felt newly inspired by the idea of branching out and exploring work in 3D. Working with clay was complicated but so full of potential that I became completely immersed in trying to learn how to use it. I began by making rings using sculpting clay and taught myself how to make molds and do ceramic castings of them. When firing became a challenge I was invited by a friend to take a class at East LA community college where she worked and that is where the figurative sculptures came about by learning to throw on the wheel.”

More of her work can be seen on her website and on Instagram.

Images:  Courtesy of Heidi Anderson.

Marianne Hallberg

Gothenburg-based ceramicist Marianne Hallberg graduated from the University of Design and Crafts, Gothenburg in the early 1980s. She creates everyday objects decorated with playful, sketchy designs that appear to jump off of the flat surfaces of her pottery with distorted-looking forms. Her material is stoneware with a white tin glaze, decorated with cobalt oxide. She has always been interested in ornamentation studying flowers, exploring symbols, squares, dots, stripes and combines them like patchwork quilts. Her ceramics are sold all over the world but mostly to Sweden and Japan.

More of her work can be seen here in her Instagram page.

Images:  Courtesy of Marianne Hallberg.

%d bloggers like this: