On Solid Ground
Ceramics keeps us connected to past generations, to each other’s cultures and to the earth.
Without paying much attention to it, we walk, every day, on stony ground that’s solid under our feet. Around 90% of the Earth’s crust and mantle are comprised of minerals known as silicates. These rocks weather into clay, which, when fired at a high temperature, becomes a permanently hardened and insoluble material known as ceramic. I believe that this ancient material keeps us connected to past generations and cultures in all corners of the world. That is at least what I, as a ceramicist, like to think in the face of this unpredictable world: solid ground is what we need.
While design currently encompasses a vast variety of different materials and technologies and operates within immaterial domains too, ceramics seems to remain relevant. In my work as a teacher, I get to meet a new generation of students every year. My students are full of passion and dedication for the material world and the creative process.
Ceramics is a fascinating, versatile, and inexhaustible frontier that positively invites further exploration.
Some of the subjects we study in ceramics reflect not only current trends but also permanent phenomena that have endured throughout human history, like bowls, bricks, human and animal figures to mention just a few. For me, it is useful to examine trends even when the term itself is perhaps not all that relevant to ceramics. Can the making of a pot, for example, be considered a trend? Or is it actually a megatrend that has kept going for more than ten thousand years? A ceramic item, when well cared for, is almost eternal; an eternal item had better be in fashion for a long time and not just a fad.
No field or industry, however, can remain fixed and unchanged, survive in a bubble of its own. In fact, every industry and every field of specialism will always reflect the spirit of their era. My conviction is that these themes describe things that have evolved naturally. Many of them are archaic, as their prototypes may have come into being millennia ago. To come back to the pot, as an example: it seems obvious that the act of pot-making is associated with a special instinct or profound meaning, which explains its enduring appeal to ceramicists across time and all over the world. A pot embodies a sense of permanence. A container consisting of nothing more than an inside and an outside and an empty space within has the power to evoke intriguing ideas, like concealing, preserving and sheltering.
My own favourite subject, beside the pot, comes from the same family of objects: A simple cup — one of the elementary objects most of us touch every single day.
But a cup is never merely a cup: it reflects who we are as individuals, as members of a family.
It makes reference to the culture and the time we live in. With its tangible shapes and materials, these vessels have become inseparable from us humans. When a cup is made by hand, it becomes more than personal. Dishes embody the communal dimension of our mealtimes, ones of caring, sharing and togetherness. We are what we eat, as the old saying goes. Food, like clothing, has become an expression of our identity. In this context, dishes have a role to play too: we express ourselves through the coffee cup we have carefully chosen for ourselves. We take care of each other by serving a cup of coffee. An emotional brand of sustainability is very much at play here: when we become attached to an object — because of its aesthetic appeal, its texture and feel, its sheer usefulness (or lack thereof) or any other emotional response — we will take care of it.
In our field and in our present time, observing and pursuing profound knowledge of the material world is fundamental to what we do. For me, clay is satisfying, addictive. The repetitive and monotonous process of working with clay is slow, and the process slows you down (or at least I would like it to slow me down). At the same time, you feel intensely alive. This connection with the material is what grounds us. I believe that what really matters when it comes to clay — or any other material we work by — is that, whether we’re aware of it or not, it keeps us connected to our origins by providing us with primitive, tactile experiences.
Extraordinary things can happen in a kiln, and a student working on glaze-making in a ceramic laboratory can quickly start to feel more like an alchemist. Getting sidetracked during experiments will provide them with greater insights and furnish them with the sort of valuable information that will help them pursue new discoveries. And yet, the thought of having that rocky ground to stand on and to use for our own, sometimes selfish, purposes, makes us modern humans humble today. Where did all this — the soil, the minerals, and the stardust — originally come from? This very question was posed to the cosmologist Kari Enqvist, who investigates how ceramics and other matter came in to being for a living. Having considered the matter, he chose to describe ceramics as “the art of stardust”:
Atoms do not disappear. Therefore, even the humble clay is a cosmic miracle. When potters sprinkle water on clay, they supplement it with matter that was already present in the days when the newborn universe emitted its first cries. When we mould these minerals, we’re moulding eternity itself. Thanks to humans, the ancient stars are not dead. They live on in our hands. We make them come back to life in new forms and in new locations in space. With each new form, we give stardust not just a new function and a new aesthetic form, but new meanings that twinkle bright in our consciousness.
Nathalie Lautenbacher
Nathalie Lautenbacher is a Finnish-French ceramist and designer who works as lecturer at Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture. Lautenbacher has received much recognition for his work, even internationally, and has active exhibitions in Finland and abroad. In her design work she focuses on the aesthetics of everyday life.
