Mindelser (Recollections)
An exhibition by designer Bess Kristoffersen and ceramic artist Susan Lange in the gallery Rummet at Dina Vejling – Dansk Kunsthåndværk in Odense
from 13 September to 9 November 2024.
I have the honour of giving the opening address on 12 September at 18.30.
September 2024
Bess Kristoffersen is portrayed in bookazine no. 11, which comes out on 26 September 2024.
(You can preorder your copy of the bookazine here or take out a subscription here to make sure you will receive not just no. 11 but all the future issues too.)
Until my recent visited to her studio, I only knew Susanne Lange from seeing her ceramic objects in the shop at CLAY Museum of Ceramic Art Denmark and encountering her work in exhibitions.
Studio visit
Susan graduated as a ceramicist from Kunsthåndværkerskolen i Kolding (the School of Arts and Crafts in Kolding, now: Kolding School of Design) in 1994 and has worked full-time as a ceramicist ever since.
In addition to creating both utilitarian and non-utilitarian ceramic objects, she also offers courses.
For the past 30 years, Susan has lived with her family in a former merchant’s house in South Jutland, which is also home to her ceramic studio.
The courtyard offers a view of the Little Belt strait, and behind the house, a large garden has room for functional as well as recreational activities. The former warehouse and shop are now home to a number of different workstations, kilns, shelves with finished and semi-finished ceramic objects, a rich collection of hand tools and a classroom for her courses.
We begin in her classroom. Tomorrow’s group consists of an 80-year-old woman and her three daughters. The mother has some experience with ceramics, the daughters have none.
‘I ask my course participants to give up any ideas they might have about what we’re going to do here. My focus is not on the outcome but on the process, on opening a path to the joy of creating. If you already have a specific idea for an object you wish to produce, there are many other courses you can choose,’ she tells me, kindly but firmly, explaining that the focus of her courses is not the ceramic product. Her course participants include companies wishing to use the creative element as part of team building, residential institutions using it for therapeutic purposes and groups of families or friends seeking a shared experience.
We continue into the next room. ‘I thought I would take the objects of out the kiln while you’re here,’ says Susan. ‘I bisque-fired some of the pieces that will be included in the exhibition in Odense.’
‘Bess and I have worked with the fairly open exhibition title “Mindelser” (Recollections). We are both fascinated with nature and with all the conscious and unconscious sensations and memories that stay with us after we spend time in nature and which have resulted in objects with traces and references.
We were paired up by Dina Vejling and didn’t know each other prior to this project, but we met during the process, both here and at at Bess’s place.’
Next week, Susan is going to glaze the bisque-fired pieces. She points to her pysical outcome of her preparations for this phase: a large collection of glaze samples with meticulous notes about clay type, glaze and firing conditions.
For the glaze firing, she is going to use the large soda kiln in her garden.
The kiln belongs to the Soda Kiln Guild, a community of ceramic makers and artists from Jutland and Funen with a shared passion for exploring the aesthetic qualities of soda firing.
Susan explains that soda – more specifically: sodium bicarbonate – glazing has similarities with salt glazing but presents its own possibilities and challenges, which it takes both knowledge and experience to master.
Not least among its advantages, soda glazing is more environmentally friendly.
While salt (sodium chloride) glazing releases chloride, sodium bicarbonate releases water in the firing process. Moreover, soda glazing requires a lower temperature than a similar salt firing and therefore uses less gas.
It takes a long time to prepare, load and fire the soda kiln – a week, says Susan. But it is well worth the effort.
She begins to take pieces out of the bisque kiln, while she explains how the sculptures, which are intended to hang on a wall, have been modelled from a single lump of clay. She also tells me how she imposed restrictions on her creative process by limiting how much she was allowed to touch, push and mould the material. She chose this approach in order to preserve the spontaneous expression and in respect for the intrinsic nature of the clay and the recollections of nature that her hands unconsciously transferred to the objects – not as lifelike representations but with clear references to seed pods, gnarled plants and crooked branches.
Lunch
When all the pieces are out, Susan serves lunch in the garden.
She has baked rye bread, and we pick a courgette in one of the plant beds and tomatoes in the greenhouse.
Susan knows the origin story of every tomato plant; whenever she has a particularly tasty tomato, she always saves a few seeds to be sown, grow and produce flavourful treats.
Over lunch, we talk about this and that, from one woman to another, including recollections from our – rather long – lives.
I notice some interesting purple ground covering plants that I have never seen before. Susan promptly digs up a couple that I put in my car, before we say goodbye and ‘See you in Odense!’.
Mindelser
En udstilling af designer Bess Kristoffersen og keramisk formgiver Susan Lange
Som vises i Rummet hos Dina Vejling – Dansk Kunsthåndværk i Odense 13. september – 9. november 2024
Jeg har fået æren af at holde åbningstalen 12. september kl. 18.30
Bess Kristoffersen har jeg portrætteret i bookazine 11 som udkommer 26 september 2024. Du kan forudbestille bookazinet her,
Susan Lange derimod, kendte jeg, frem til forleden hvor jeg besøgte hendes værksted, kun til, fordi jeg har set hendes keramik i butikken på Clay Keramikmuseum Danmark og er stødt på hende i udstillingssammenhæng.
På værkstedsbesøg
Susan er uddannet keramiker fra Kunsthåndværkerskolen i Kolding (nu Designskolen Kolding) i 1994 og har siden da været fuldtidsbeskæftiget som keramiker.
Hun arbejder både med brugskeramik og objekter uden brugsformål og hun underviser.
En gamle købmandsgård i Sønderjylland har i 30 år dannet rammen om hendes familie-og arbejdsliv.
Fra gårdspladsen er der udsigt over Lillebælt, bag huset byder en store have sig til med plads til både det nyttige og det behagelige. I de gamle lager-og butikslokaler er der forskellige arbejdsstationer, ovne, reoler med halv-og helfærdig keramiske objekter, håndværktøj i mængder foruden et rum indrettet til undervisning.
Vi begynder i undervisningslokalet – i morgen består holdet af en kvinde på 80 og hendes tre døtre. Moderen har nogen erfaring med keramik, døtrene har ingen.
”Når man kommer på kursus her, beder jeg om, at man lægger alle forestillinger om, hvad det skal ende med, på hylden. Her handler det ikke om resultat, men om proces, om at åbne vejen ind til skaberglæden. Hvis man ønsker producere noget man på forhånd ved hvordan ser ud, er der mange andre kursusmuligheder”, udtrykker hun venligt, men bestemt, og lader mig forstå, at formålet med hendes kurser er et helt andet end det keramiske produkt. Her kommer virksomheder, som bruger det kreative arbejde i deres teambuilding, institutioner som bruger det terapeutisk, og som sagt familier eller venner som gerne vil dele en oplevelse.
Vi fortsætter ind i næste rum, ”jeg har tænkt mig at tømme ovnen mens du er her”, siger Susan. ”Jeg har forglødet en del af de objekter som skal med på udstillingen i Odense”.
”Bess og jeg har arbejdet med den ret åbne udstillings titel ”Mindelser”. Vi er begge optaget af naturen og af alle de bevidste og ubevidste sansninger og minder, som vores ophold i naturen har lagret, og som har resulteret i objekter med spor og referencer.
Vi kendte ikke hinanden på forhånd, men er blevet sat sammen af Dina Vejling. Vi har i processen mødtes både her og hos Bess”.
”I næste uge skal det som pakkes ud af ovnen glaseres”. Susan peger på sit forarbejde som er lagt frem på et bord – en stor samling glasurprøver, hvorpå der systematisk er noteret lertype, glasur og brændingsforhold.
I den fase skal den stor sodaovn, som står i haven i brug.
Oven tilhører ”Sodaovnslauget” et brændingsfælleskab mellem et antal jyske og fynske keramikere, som deler den passion at udforske sodabrændingens æstetiske kvaliteter.
Susan forklarer, at soda eller rettere natronbikarbonat glasering minder om saltglasering, men naturligvis også har sin egne muligheder og udfordringer, som det kræver både viden og erfaring at udnytte.
Ikke mindst er sodaglasering et bedre valg ud fra et miljøperspektiv.
Hvor saltglaseringen (natriumklorid) udskiller klorid, udskiller natronbikarbonat vand. Desuden brænder sodaovnen ved lavere temperatur end en tilsvarende saltbrænding og forbruger dermed mindre gas.
Det tager lang tid at forberede, pakke og brænde i sodaovnen – en uge, forklarer Susan.
Men det er det hele værd.
Hun går i gang med at tømme forglødningsovnen, og forklarer under vejs hvordan skulpturerne, som er beregnet til at hænge på væg, er modelleret ud af én klump ler og hun fortæller hvordan hun nærmest dogmeagtigt har opstillet regner for hvor lidt og hvor meget hun har måtte røre, trykke og bearbejde, for at bevare det spontane udtryk, i respekt for lerets iboende natur, og i respekt for de natur-mindelser, som hænderne ubevidst har overført til objekterne. Ikke som naturtro gengivelser men dog med tydelige referencer til frøbælge, knortede gevækster og vildtvoksende grene.
Frokost
Da ovnen er tømt, byder Susan på frokost i haven.
Hun har bagt rugbrød. Vi plukker en courgette i et af bedene og tomater i drivhuset.
Susan kan om hver tomatplante fortælle en historie om dens oprindelse. Når hun får serveret en velsmagende tomat, gemmer hun altid et par kerner, som senere kan sås, vokse og blive til velsmag.
Over frokosten deler vi stort og småt, blandt andet mindelser fra to efterhånden ret lange kvindeliv.
Jeg får øje på nogle interessante rødviolette bunddækkeplanter, som jeg ikke har set før, Susan graver et par stykker op, som jeg får med mig i bilen, vi hilser af og siger på gensyn i Odense.
Related stories
bogen HÅNDVÆRK
pre-order bookazine no. 9
LET’S DO ART TOGETHER!
