katrin-maier-ceramics
Katrin Maier Ceramics is a Cotswolds-based studio specialising in premium, handcrafted porcelain tableware, one-off sculptural pieces, and expert pottery workshops. Katrin’s multidisciplinary practice combines an academic social anthropology background with traditional wood-fired techniques using high-fired clays, brushed slips, and soda glazes. These expressive tactile vessels provide beautiful functional pottery rituals designed perfectly for discerning contemporary craft collectors.
Since October 2021 Katrin works full time as one of the resident potters at Winchcombe Pottery near Cheltenham. She helps making the historic wood fired range of Winchcombe standard ware. Alongside making Winchcombe pots, she (like all Winchcombe potters past and present) makes her own individual pieces in a Winchcombe aesthetic. These are fired in the wood kiln or the new soda kiln alongside the standard ware and are stamped with both the Winchcombe and Katrin’s own maker’s mark. Katrin’s one-off pieces can be purchased in our gallery/shop on site in Winchcombe in the Cotswolds (Mo-Sat 9-5) or through the Winchcombe Pottery online shop.
As a consequence to Katrin being a Winchcombe potter, the making of her own collections has taken a back seat and she does no longer replenish her stock levels regularly. To find out about her own pieces for sale or to discuss orders and commissions, please get in touch directly.
HOLDING A WELL BALANCED HANDMADE POT IS A SENSUAL THING. IT IS AN ENCOUNTER WITH THE POT, WITH YOURSELF AND WITH THE MAKER.
My ceramic forms invite you to use them in your daily life, to hold, look, touch, to pause, and to be in that moment. They are inspired by ceramic processes and materials, by everyday life rituals and by the relationships we have with nature and with each other. All pieces are designed and made by myself to a high craft standard.
Katrin Maier Ceramics
About Katrin
“I aim for my ceramics to add joy and beauty to people’s daily lives; on the table, in the kitchen or on a mantlepiece; filled with food and drink or personal treasures. I strive for every one of my pieces to be well made: functional, durable and aesthetically pleasing. I make my pots with these intentions in mind – and hope you can feel them when you hold a finished item.”
Katrin makes all pieces herself, using traditional pottery techniques. They are designed to be bought and used either as individual pieces or as matching families. They are thrown and turned on the potter’s wheel. Pouring lips and handles are hand pulled. Their surfaces are finished with brush work and scratching (sgraffito).
Katrin continuously experiments with ceramic materials. She develops all elements that make up a collection, such as clay bodies, glazes and decorating slips. Due to circumstance, she currently fires in an electric kiln but has great passion for reduction firing methods in gas and wood kilns.
Katrin trained for two years (full time) in traditional wheel thrown production pottery techniques and studio pottery in Ireland at the Design and Crafts Council of Ireland’s renowned Ceramics Skills and Design Course. Since 2018, she lives, teaches and makes in London.
Katrin is influenced by an early connection with nature and by making and mending as a child. From her first career as a social anthropologist and her time in Berlin, West Africa and London springs an interest in how people live their everyday life within wider socio-economic circumstances, and a fascination in how functional and ritual objects such as ceramic vessels feature in this. In 2015 she found clay as a material and a way of life that can bring together all these aspects that are important to her.
Speckled grey tableware
All pieces in this collection are made from a grey speckled stoneware clay that Katrin mixes herself. She throws and turns all pieces on the potter’s wheel. The forms share clear, timeless contours and a round base. Their handles, knobs or pouring lips are made using traditional production pottery techniques.
Surfaces are decorated either with misty-white slips and scratched lines or with several layers of coloured slips in earthy, and stormy hues creating depth. Finally, the pieces are sealed with a food safe transparent glaze. After the final firing, their bases are sanded silky smooth to be pleasant to the touch and to protect the wooden surfaces they may be used on.
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