Creating with Mud, Fantasy and Christel Brumme

Pottery Class Workshop Lebenskunst Schwarzenbek

Lebenskunst – Art of Life – is a place where you find the most intriguing pottery.

I have known about Christel Brumme when I came first here in March during the weekend of open pottery workshops. And I instantly fell in love with her way of pottery. As she is just an hour drive away from the place I live currently I enrolled the three of us (me and my two friends) for a weekend workshop. Unfortunately with the Corona-virus story it was dismissed. In the beginning of May Christel Brumme called me to tell me she is working again. We enrolled immediately again for a weekend course.

The day we had to go we were so excited and didn’t know what awaited us. I was the only one who worked with clay at least when I was a child. I never did again unfortunately. Two of us thought we would be a disaster. And in the end all the three of us created amazing pieces!

First day we learnt how to work the clay to get a structure. We all tried with a simple pitcher. Only the next day we could do the finishing of it (a little decoration). Then most of us started to create a bird-bath. Mine is more a deep plate only. But then we used the rest of the clay for little decoration figures. I created a funny looking fish and bird and another plate maybe for my food-photography pictures.

We had to wait another three weeks before all was kiln-fired. Then we could colorize all our pieces.

The day came and I was very excited to see my ‘babies’ again. I still liked them when I saw them waiting for me on a table. It took us not that long to say hello to each other, but a long consideration of the colors we wanted. Especially because the colors or pigments are often completely different to what they would be after another oven-session. We trusted Christel and started to paint. Most of the jugs/plates/figures looked very pastel, light-colored.

It took us nearly 4 hours before we finished, and in the end accelerating our brush-work. So I ended up to paint my little bird in black what I never planned and maybe to choose a color for the little plate that is not thought through right. But then: all will be so beautiful anyway because it is made by us and our very first work!

Pottery in preperation - smartphone upload

Only 4 days later we could come to see our babies and bring them home. They are kiln-fired again and the result is pretty different to what we left only a few days earlier.

We had so much fun doing and learning pottery and for myself: I would like to do many other objects. I am sure it won’t be the last time I worked with ‘mud’!