Blog
Here we’ll share with you a bit of everything: current issues, history, curiosities … and you’ll be surprised as everything ends in … ceramics!
Meet the artist: Sophie Aguilera
como hacer flores en porcelana, con Sophia Aguilera Sophie Aguilera: Porcelain Flowers, Observation, and the Art of Preserving the Ephemeral Some artists work with materials. Others work with the way we see the [...]
Carrèment Moi – breaking the square
Carrèment Moi - breaking the square Thank you for joining us to view this group show presented by members, teachers, and ex-members of ElTorn. The proposal for this show was to give artists an opportunity [...]
Meet the artist: Guy Van Leemput
Belgium Artist Guy Leemput Fragility as Form — The World of Guy Van Leemput In the delicate balance between control and chance, Guy Van Leemput’s work pushes the limits of porcelain. His pieces, [...]
Meet the artist: C.A. Traen
C.A. Traen ceramicist artist Interview with the ceramicist artist C.A. Traen: The Body as a Space of Tension and Transformation Before building an international career as both artist and educator, C.A. “Cat” Traen [...]
Meet the artist: Robert Lawarre III
Workshop en ElTorn con el artista Robert Lawarre III Interview with Robert Lawarre III, When Mechanics Meets Clay Before dedicating himself fully to ceramics, Robert Lawarre worked in the world of mechanics and [...]
Porcelain, the material once guarded as a state secret
Ten Centuries for a Secret... Ceramics were created to solve practical problems: storing water, cooking food, transporting goods. Nothing particularly mysterious.But one material —porcelain— transformed this everyday act into an object of absolute desire. [...]
What’s so special about porcelain: Its cultural heritage and modern applications
"Porcelain is brittle, hard, resistant to compression, and weak in tension. It is made with two substances: kaolin and petuntse, or 'ceramic stone,' which gives the ceramic its translucency [...]
What are the origins of sculptures: A journey through the most enduring forms of art?
The belief is that sculpture is one of the oldest forms of art, as it existed before the discovery of painting. Being in three dimensions, sculpture is necessarily more durable. Made of terracotta, ceramics, [...]
How to Sit on a Potter’s Lathe? Improve your Comfort and Technique with these Tips
Do you want to keep throwing? Well, straighten up! Throwing is a whole experience, but it can also be physically exhausting if you don't pay attention to proper posture. Whether you’re an experienced potter [...]
Kintsugi
The beautiful breakage Hi again! happy to be back here... we're very inspired this month with our posts - hope you like them 🙂 This time we'll talk about Kintsugi, this ancient art of [...]
The marketing side of your ceramics
Sell your pieces and have fun with it! Hello! I hope you're well. I'd like start with a new series of posts here on the blog. With so many projects happening at the studio, [...]
firing methods
The good, the bad and the ugly of firing methods When we talk about firing methods, we’ll often talk about oxidation and reduction. Oxidation and reduction are different processes. Therefore, the same glaze can [...]
5 tips to be happy with your glazing process
5 tips to be happy with your glazing process I hope you’re doing well! This is the first post of the year. And this time, we’re diving into something a bit more “technical”: glazing. [...]
The “trues” and “falses” about stereotypes
Here at ElTorn we have people from all over the world: England, Ireland, France, Switzerland, Germany, Russia, Brazil, Greece, Argentina, China, Canada, US and from different parts of Spain. Coming every week; working on [...]
The story behind the pottery: Pompeii’s plaster casts
How were the molds of the bodies of Pompeii formed? Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD. During this terrible day, there was probably a smell of sulfur and noises coming from the mountain, but [...]
Looking for an original job?
Few years ago, Google paid a huge sum of money to a select group of its employees to figure out which shade of blue users liked best. It sounds like a frivolous job, but the investment paid off: [...]
Ban sugar from your kitchen, but keep some in your studio…
We can say many things about sugar. First, it tastes great. Second, it’s quite a confusing subject… While we can agree that sugar isn’t exactly a health food, there’s a lot of misinformation about [...]
What year are we really in?
Today you woke up thinking you are in 2020, right? That’s not totally true… According to Webexhibits.com, there are approximately 40 different calendars worldwide... but, the most used ones are 3: the Gregorian, the [...]
Better be tickled pink than browned off
The way different cultures see and describe the meaning of colour varies dramatically around the world. Also the way we use the colours in our language: I’m sure you had, at least once in your [...]
Orange is the new black
It all started at a restaurant in Geneva, back in 2004. Martin and I lived in Lausanne (Switzerland) and decided to play “tourist” and spend a weekend in Geneva (like 40 minutes by train [...]