Ellen Rijsdorp
Ellen
Rijsdorp born December 5th 1962, The Hague The Netherlands
After finishing High school, I went to the Art Academy in Kampen,
but very soon I found out that if I wanted to be a real potter I had
to go to the Ceramic School in Gouda (1984 -1991). There I learnt
how to throw for production. When I attended at Ceramic School (evening
school) in the meantime I travelled up and down to Ghana to work on
an ecological agricultural project.
After finishing the ceramics school I followed workshops in various
raku techniques so that I could apply these techniques in my own
work. I have done this for years in order to build a balanced
collection of work. In this work you can see straight polished areas
together with the random lines of the raku firing. The reducing
firing was a difficult and unpredictable process but also delivered
a nice palette of colours.
After a year of experiments I returned to wheel-thrown stoneware.
The shapes are made upside down and are consistent with previous
work, but round shapes have replaced flat areas, making the objects
more suitable for my decoration techniques. The shapes are double
hauled. The areas are painted with various body stains. Rhythms are
added by pushing tools in the clay during spinning of the objects.
These patterns are filled with a little glaze and fired at 1200
degrees.
When I finished my ceramic school I started teaching at ceramic
centre 'Kerade' in Delft (1990 - 2002). I've worked at the Delft
Blue Pottery , 'De Porceleyne Fles', the famous Delft Blue porcelain.
I was a demonstration thrower to show people how you can make
something out of a piece of clay (1991 - 1995). Since 2002 I teach
at the Technical University Delft. Students with various backgrounds
like architecture and industrial design follow courses in ceramics.
I live in a monument, a former gunpowder house built in 1660 (you
can look at internet at
www.kruithuis.nl) together with my husband and two children (boy
17, girl 14).