My love for eating and the right presentation of food, has led me to the art of ceramics. I've collected dishes and other ceramics ever since I began traveling the world as a fashion model. I started designing my own pottery after enrolling in a ceramics class some 20 years ago. Although most work remains purely functional, it is no longer limited to culinary use. I am currently working on my Artifacts Collection - a collection of vases and artifacts inspired by (post) Bronze Age Mediterranean, Asian and African cultures. This is an ongoing fascination - dating back to my college days studying Cultural Anthropology in the Netherlands.
I usually start by browsing online museum catalogues and sketching shapes. After I do several studies on the wheel I pick the clay, glaze and firing temperature combination best suited for that particular form. I am not too interested in simple forms or glazes; I love the process of altering and adding on hand-built parts to the thrown forms as well as adding or removing glaze to accentuate curves and reliefs.
In western culture art is mostly separated from daily life. Ceramics in the form of bowls or vases can bring back the possibility of that connection.
Pottery has the unique quality of being able to be handled as opposed to paintings. In fact it is vital and inescapable because of it's use. The surface marks I make, create the physical connection between your hands and the shape of the pot. They are what give each pot it's own personality. Each pot tells it's own story. And through it's use, placement or grouping with other pieces it has the ability to become part of a new story.
My pieces are - like myself and my children - the product of a cultural melting pot. Created equally, with the same set of genes so to say, but absolutely not from the same mold. I give them form, but each one is encouraged to develop it's own character. I may look at them in a certain way; I may have had intentions on what they would become, but I expect them to take on a life of their own when they leave my house.