Artwork description:

I designed this little vessel specially for the fine art Singer Museum in Laren, Netherlands, which was founded in 1953 by Anna Singer. The American art collector William Singer and his wife Anna Singer once used to live in this beautiful villa which they called "Wild Swanes", while at the same time leeding a life of traveling and trekking, dividing their years between Europe and their homeland.

The personal background of the Singers and their identification with swans inspired me to design this little art object “Zwanenblauw” (Swan Blue). The broken surface of its thin, white porcelain layer with its symmetrical structure reminds me of a swan plumage, which safely surrounds the hidden content of the vessel.

After preparing the blue stoneware clay with the help of blue pigment the vessel as well as the lid are both created on the potter’s wheel. At the start of the process the shape of the vessel is small and slender like the shape of a little cylinder. In the next step the surface of the vessel gets covered with a thin layer of white porcelain slib. Then, a layer of waterglass (natriumsilicate) is added, forming a thin, hard surface after letting it dry a bit. Only now, the vessel gets its final round shape by slowly pushing the clay from inside of the vessel to the outside on the potter’s wheel. While doing this the white surface, which had been sealed by the layer of waterglass, will burst open like dry earth after a heavy rain. Depending on the thickness and the dryness of the different layers the white craquelé will always turn out differently. Thus every item becomes totally unique and gets its own special character, and at the same time it is always a surprise and fun for me as the maker as well.

Because every item is handmade and unique you will never find an object which is exactly like yours. And best of all: they are dishwasher-proof:)!

Materials used:

blue stoneware clay

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