CULTURE EDITION
Now, since opening her first workshop in Cambridge over 15 years ago, Katharina’s new studio – which is located at her home in Girton – is proving to be the perfect vessel for her craftsmanship. A new sanctuary Katharina’s home studio journey began with a self-built wooden structure in her old garden that gave her approximately 30 square metres of space to play with. “I would always run out of space and as you can imagine, being a potter, space is critical!” she recalls. “I spent years complaining to my partner that I needed more room, and we set ourselves a goal to find somewhere suitable when we started to look for a new house.” After a property search which lasted several years, the couple struck gold with an 80s-built house that channelled the simplistic design elements of mid-century architecture with a nod to the prevailing fashions of the 60s and 70s. But best of all, the garden had enough space to accommodate the studio of Katharina’s dreams. “It was difficult to find anything on the market that would fit the requirements of a pottery shed – so we just thought to build another one.” Despite the simplistic intention, a lengthy process ensued involving years’ worth of planning and getting the right permissions in place. The design itself is the result of much consideration, with Katharina and her partner consulting an architect to draw up some plans for a space which complements the existing property. “We came up with what we thought was an interesting structure and were lucky enough to find a brilliant, local, family-
essels are a theme that bleeds strongly throughout local ceramic artist Katharina Klug’s body of work. In myriad forms, she toys with shapes and endless variations, manipulating white clay by hand on an electric potter’s wheel – as she has done since the days when she would use her mother’s own wheel during a childhood back in Austria. “I come from a family that has always been busy working with our hands, making things,” she informs Cambridge Edition . “I find white clay to be the perfect canvas for patterns, shapes and contrasting colours.” True works of art, her one-off pieces hark back to the styles of ancient Korean pottery and Japanese ceramics, but are also strongly influenced by mid-century designs with their striking simplicity. However, beyond the art itself, one is led to contemplate the concept of the artist’s studio as the ultimate vessel – a kind of cauldron for creativity. It is the stage for the maker’s process, the nucleus of conception and the space which holds both the many instruments and outcomes of the artist’s practice.
CLAY’S ANATOMY Katharina uses clay as both a medium and a narrative instrument,
blending form and function
CAMBSEDITION.CO.UK JULY 2024 15
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