Plants +
People
Ren von Hasseln is a ceramicist based in Ojai, California. With a background in architecture and biology, Ren uses the hand-building method to create large-scale ceramic works under the name Ren Ceramics.
Ren's vessels possess an untamed spirit, with hand-formed grooves and sinuous edges formed in coarse stoneware mottled with remnants of pre-fired clay. While her pieces may pass from hand to hand, the maker is always present.
For the launch of the Raked Clay Collection by Ren Ceramics, we spoke to Ren about her practice and the essential nature of improvisation, imperfection and touch in the dance of hands and clay.
ren von hasseln
015 ren von hasseln
region: ojai, california
material: clay
photography: ethan jones
“The texture of the clay is one of the most important parts of my work to me now — letting the marks made on it during the making, all the incidental imprints of process, be legible in the final piece."
What were your first forays into working with clay? How has your relationship with it changed since that time, if at all?
It’s so interesting to think back to this! I started seriously making things out of clay about four years ago, and most of the things I made at the beginning were tiny — many smaller than the palm of my hand — and I was trying to make them as “perfect” as possible. Perfect meaning very smooth surfaces, clean joins, sharp orthogonal corners. Basically, as I see it now, eliminating a lot of the character of the material.
The texture of the clay is one of the most important parts of my work to me now — letting the marks made on it during the making, all the incidental imprints of process, be legible in the final piece. I’ve come to see these as adding interest and meaning, rather than signaling imperfection. I’m actually actively trying to build more “imperfectly,” with more wiggle and wobble, showing more humanity and touch.
You've spoken about the bodily experience of working with clay. Can you share more about that?
My studio practice represents a wildly, madly contented space for me. There is such deep satisfaction in the tactility of the material, in scoring and smoothing and stretching and smooshing. Mundane things like laying freshly extruded coils out on a work surface give me ridiculous amounts of pleasure. I smooth small blips in coils out as I build with them for reasons that, if I’m honest, have more to do with my own want to smooth them than for any practical, technical reason.
I once counted the number of discrete times I touched the clay during the process of building a large pot. I gave up at 10,000. This is part of the magic to me — how much touch there is in the process; literal touches of hands, palms, fingers. Even feet! (I jump on big slabs to compress them.) The imprint of this high touch quality is something I think is really special about handbuilt pieces.
Poet and potter M.C. Richards once wrote:
"Sometimes the skin seems to be the best listener.... how it bursts into inner pictures as it listens and then responds by pressing its language, its forms, into the listening clay."
How does this aspect of working with clay feel different from the other fields and forms of expression you've worked in in the past, if at all?
Oh, that passage is such an amazing description of my process. I do often sketch as an initial stage of design, but I find that ideas/forms don’t really resolve until I’m working in clay. The first pass at building something feels a bit like dimensional sketching — it is not a linear process but a very responsive one, and I often end up with something quite different than the paper sketch.
This is very different from architectural design, which is my background. In architecture the design part of the process is mostly separated from the build, and the designer rarely has their own hands on the materials themselves. Just some of the reasons clay is a better fit for me.
Can you share about the experience of creating large-scale pieces?
There really is something about a piece approaching human scale…it starts to take on a different stance, it has a different presence. I feel myself relating to the work differently as it gets closer to my size. Physically, for sure. At some point the pot gets to a size at which there’s a lot of clambering around it at its level — climbing on stools to add coils, getting up on top of the work surface — and that feels right. Now the pot is in charge!
One of my favorite things is taking a really big pot out of the kiln. It’s warm, and to carry it I have to hug it. I often talk to my pots as if they’re my creatures, but they’re never more creature-like than in these moments.
Tell us about the clay(s) you chose for these pieces. Does it have certain particularities?
The clay I work with for large pieces needs to have a lot of “body,” meaning it can hold its shape well under its own weight, it’s structural. I use stoneware clays that are relatively coarse with a lot of grog in them. Grog is previously fired clay that has been pulverized and added back to the wet clay to give it stability -—that body. It also makes it quite gritty, which adds an element of texture I like to the finished work.
