Upcoming resident artists

2 February – 27 February 2012

Markus Böhm
Markus Böhm lives and works as potter in Alt Gaarz, a rural hamlet on a peninsula between Berlin and the Baltic Sea. There he runs together with his wife Ute a workshop Gallery, Bed &Breakfast and courses. In his rare spare time he writes articles, produces sparkling apple cider and organises strange things, like i.e. a wood fire conference.

In 2010 I had the possibility to take part in an EU-financed soda firing course at the International School of Ceramic Art »La Meridiania«, Italy, together with a few other potters from all over Europe. Until that I only fired with wood and salt. But at this workshop I saw that the differences and potentialities of gas fired soda glazes are very interesting and the resulting colours point into a direction I would like to go in the future. Im my opinion Australian Ceramist Gail Nichols uses very interesting technics which I would like to try and maybe use for my own forms and firings. So I would like to use the wheel and the gas fired salt kiln with soda at Strathnairn.

Ute Böhm
Ute Böhm makes mainly vessels with crystalline glazes in her studio near Zwickau. During the past years she taught apprentices and is head of the Saxonian examination board for potters.

I'm working with Crystalline glazes for more than 20 years and much of the process became routine. Crystalline glaze potters have benefited greatly by the advancement in computer technology. By being able to pre-set firing programs, firings have become less labor intensive and more accurate, encouraging more potters to experiment with these glazes. Consequently, there has been far more development in crystalline glazes in the last few years than in the past. So I would like to get out of my workshop routine to get a bit of a connection to the development that occurred during these last years. Especially firing/refiring crystalline glazes under reduction conditions seems to be an interesting field do develop. It looks to me as if Strathnairn has excellent conditions for such experiments with the small electric kilns, but also the smaller gas kilns and the raku kiln sound interesting. In any way it would be a great challenge for me to develop crystalline glazes with different raw materials and in different kilns.