Banksia Plate
It must be the week for beautiful ceramics this week, as we continue our Spring theme of design inspired by nature and the beach. Today we have a chat with artist and potter, Elke Lucas. Her life as a potter began when she married into a family of potters, and worked as a studio potter on the North Devon Coast in the UK, where she made slip decorated earthenware inspired by the pottery tradition in that area. She says she has always felt drawn to porcelain though.
“I love the translucent delicate quality of the clay. I was particularly influenced by the great studio potter Lucie Rie and longed for an opportunity to experiment with different clays” she says. After a long break from pottery due to raising children and moving countries, Elke started working with clay again. With encouragement of friends and family she set up a small studio on the Sunshine Coast a couple of years back and began working with the wonderful Australian porcelains, fulfilling her dream of experimenting with different clays and creating beautiful quiet tableware.
Here is her story.
Is art and design in your background?
In my former life I trained as an architectural draughtsperson and I think it does influence some of my forms and shapes. Symmetry seems quite important to me when I design my shapes but at the same time I’m trying not to be too tight in my work.
Banksia-Square Platters
Your range is a result of the treasures you find on your morning walks – do you look for particular things, or do they just stand out and grab you? Where do you take your walks?
Every morning I walk my naughty little dog Lulu along the beach and I take long walks through the national parks around the Noosa area. I don’t necessarily go looking for things but being out in nature makes you look at things a bit closer and you can’t help looking at texture, shapes and colours around you. This influences your work and shapes some of the designs you’re working on. Leaves, shells, stones, bark, flowers, seaweed, the sand and the sea, all play a part in how I work and what work I create.
decorated MaC dot bowls
Do you have a favourite source of inspiration in particular from your finds, something that really makes your heart sing?
With the different seasons you find different leaves and plants that seem to thrive at different times of the year. On the beach you have different bits of coral, shells and seaweed washed up depending on the swell size and direction – I love those changes, you never quite know what you find but you can guarantee that somewhere along the way you’ll find some treasures to take home. Or you will look at them and take the feel and image home with you – all of it is such a joy to me and it helps me focus on the day ahead.
dish-wedding
The range is decorated with natural oxides and a clear glaze- can you explain a little about your process?
Ceramics requires a lengthy process – decorating and glazing is quite far down the track in the process. It all starts with a lump of muddy clay that I shape either on the potters’ wheel or flatten out in a slab roller that works a bit like a pasta machine. Anything shaped on the wheel usually needs a second turn on the potters’ wheel, where I trim the bowls back to reveal a foot or to refine the shape of the vessels. The work that I make in the slab roller gets cut out with hand drawn templates. Leaves or grasses get imprinted at that stage and then shaped into plates and dishes once the clay has dried slightly. After that the pieces have to dry out and then I apply the oxides almost like a watercolour wash over the imprints. Once the pieces are fully dried they go through the first firing process in the kiln. After that they get dipped into the glaze and fired for the second time to a high temperature of 1260C.
Do you collaborate with other designers and artists?
I’ve recently had the chance to work on a collaboration project for a local gallery, which was fun – I produced the vessels that a local candle maker filled with soy wax and essential oils to create a unique local candle blend. In the New Year I’m hoping to work on a collaboration project with some metal workers. I’m always excited about the possibilities that collaboration work brings.
What is your favourite thing to make?
That depends on the mood I am in – throwing on the potters wheel takes much more mental effort than doing the flat ware with the slab roller but when I feel good, the work on the wheel is totally absorbing and satisfying – it puts you in an almost meditative state whereby you can’t think of anything else apart from being right there with the shape and form you’re creating, in the moment and totally aware of the now.
Fall Platters
Do you work in any other mediums?
Ceramics at the moment gives me such an amazing amount of creative outlet as there are endless possibilities of range of work and materials that I’m not really looking at any other mediums – until my head stops spinning with ideas I might just stick with clay!
MaCDot-plate
MacRim-Squareplattters
What is in your range and where can people buy?
There is an extensive range of designs that I offer at the moment.
There is the botanic range, which features a variety of imprinted plants on plates and dishes. The glamour punk König Gold Range with the studs of clay under the glaze, hand decorated with real gold. The MaC Dot has a matt glaze which, when combined with the Manganese and copper indented dot decoration, gives a lovely quiet feel to the pots – the effect is reminiscent of a piece of sea shell that has been scoured by the effects of sand and waves and washed up onto my local beach. The MaC Rim range has a simple decoration of manganese and copper oxides on the rim, the fascination with this range lies in the organic way in which the decoration moves and flows as the pots are fired resulting in unique individual pieces.
Spoon
The newly developing Sgraffito Range is a result of my current love of manganese oxide and the beautiful rich warm colours and texture it provides when fired at high temperatures. The range plays with the contrast between the tactile white scratched Sgraffito and smooth dark glaze surface.
My work can be bought directly in my online store at elkelucasceramics.com
I also supply a number of stores and galleries throughout Australia and a list of these outlets can be found on my website under the outlets page.
What a beautiful range of work. I am loving the natural theme and the idea of buying pieces inspired by other people’s foraging. Are you enjoying our Spring nature inspired theme?
Helen
xx