My grandmother always said: “Baba obrn ključ,” when the smoke from the fire was blowing in your face and if you wanted to change its direction, you used those words. It translates to:”Wise woman, turn the key.” I still think about that sentence often, because I believe it is hiding more meaning that is currently being revealed to me. I will continue researching this meaning until I found a wholesome, wholly – holy meaning to it. Words carry much more than we think and I keep reminding myself that. My women lineage comes from free thinkers and old religion women. I am so proud of that. 

I was never allowed to moan the lawn, chop or cut wood, and things like that. It was in my family’s system, I am not strong enough for doing it as a woman, or not clever enough. I was allowed to sweep the floor though. Not being allowed was translated (by me) to ‘you are not good enough’. It was deep, so deep that I decided to visit technical gymnasium and a manly technical university for civil engineering and geodesy. To prove myself as being able to do manly work and be manly. Few years ago I also bought myself a chainsaw, that I now use to prepare wood for firing kiln for producing ceramics. I cried when I got it, for allowing myself to do what I want.

I met a super interesting lady last year. She wrote me if we could meet for a cup of coffee. That rarely happens, so I went to meet her. She was visiting Slovenia, coming from UK, where she now lives and works. She was born in USA, but her grandmother was Slovenian, so she was hoping to get to know our – her culture for the first time. She was a healer, a accupressurist, but a different kind. She also used names and visualisations of places from nature, like energy point from real location and related them to energy points in the body, looking for correlations. This is how I can describe her work, or how I understood it. She wanted to meet me, since she heard and saw what I do with energy points and locations from all around Slovenia and how I use that clay to produce ceramics that resonate those locations. We met and we both instantly knew we are speaking the same language, reading same books, listening to similar music. I pointed her to more locations that I find interesting to visit, and she pointed me to new authors and writers. I gave her a suggestion about an old Slovenian ritual song Dajbogec, performed by Zvezdana Novaković (my singing teacher) and she gave me names of books about Mary Magdalene. We met again the following week and had tea in my studio, she bought some pieces and I gifted her an oil lamp, inspired by Illyrian ceramics. That summer I read four books about Mary Magdalene.

Like with baba, Mary Magdalene was also turned from apostle of the apostles to a prostitute. It was only in 2016 that she was formally identified as ‘Apostle to the Apostles’, their equal by the Vatican. Today I change her name from whore to an expression of pure female consciousness, a goddess. In one of the books, the one I cried the most when reading it, it was mentioned that she came from a royal bloodline, educated in all sciences, music, psychologies, art and spirituality that was taught int the great school of Egyptian mysteries: The mysteries of Isis.

I am slowly changing my perspective and beliefs what it means to be a woman. I am finding inspiration in noble queens, warrioresses, holy women and lovers. As I am absorbing and discovering new knowledge and knowing, it is natural for me to embody en express this through my ceramics. This is how Magdalena tea cup was created.

At the end of that week, I am not joking, someone called me ‘baba’. In a good way, I double checked.

We were in the meadow that used to have a potato field and now belongs to my uncle and we took mushrooms. No one is farming there any more. I was observing and walking around and one thing that attracted me was a patch of land that was overgrown with shrubs. There were small young bushes and trees that started growing. They started growing because nobody cut the grass there because it was not possible, because there were rocks lying around, different in sizes. It looked like people were clearing the field for farming and while doing so they removed the rocks that were laying around the whole area and discarded it at the small area at the side of the field. 2 large linden trees also started to grow there and since they were huge, they must have been at least 100 years old, so even older than my grandfather. One was damaged and it fell down, and it was cut into smaller pieces, waiting to be picked for fire food. I went there and sat on one of the wood blocks. As I sat there I observed what was going on here and the question that arose in my mind was: why was I attracted there, to this part of the land where people were placing things they didn’t want: rocks from the whole plot of land, belonging to my family. I started laughing out loud because in my mind my grandmother was there and telling me: “You Anja, you get to take care of all the things in your family that all the rest don’t want to deal with, for all the things people in this family sweep under the rug and hide it. Including and especially feelings.” Ok, mama Stanka, I understand. So that was the message received during that time, I am the one to take care of things people in our family discard. 

Good thing about things people don’t want is also the silence and the peace that comes with it. I will explain on one example: when I was a kid, in kindergarten, we were offered toys for example. Most of children jumped into getting the coolest one, the most colourful one or the biggest one. I was waiting and looking for the most uninteresting one – the one that I could get in my own time in peace and quiet. That points out to my other features, but let’s focus one one that is interesting here: I would then challenge myself how to get the most out of this seemingly boring toy or how would I create environment or something creative with it that I could prove to myself and others I can make beauty out of anything. This also points out to few other challenges from my childhood, but keeping focus here, the point here is this: I can make beauty out of anything. I have the ability of transforming.

Even my grandfather used to collect things that people threw away or didn’t want anymore. Partly because he couldn’t afford everything: he came from a family of wealth that lost everything, and partly because he still could recognise features of quality and beauty in things. For example, he collected old oak wood, furniture and things made of metal. He would then fix it, clean it, paint it and create a new pieces – like recycle them. He was the recycle king. I also noticed that my brother, who is a carpenter, doesn’t use a lot of newly bought wood. He just brings home small cutting from their factory and makes small things from it. 

Affinity for scraps comes from many sides and corners. And what I love now in my own studio is very much using leftover clay. Using clays that is left after finishing a project, after it is left after students finish their work, pieces of dry or moist clay left from past work that are left here and there and so on. I collect all those pieces in one big bucket through months and after the bucket is full, I cover leftover clay with water and leave it. For days or months too, until I decide to recycle it completely. 

After it has been thoroughly soaked in water and so made soft, the clay can be mixed either with hands (that is more in the case if all the leftover clay was first super dry, then soaked, then it breaks down completely on its own) or with a electric mixer (more convenient if the clay was still plastic before soaking in water). 

Then comes my favourite part: pouring and pushing the sticky but still considered liquid (best somewhere in between, like it can still be poured, but super thick) clay through sieve. Doing that is optional or not necessary if your clay don’t contain any sands or impurities. Since I use all sorts of groggy clays, sands and unclean local clays I prefer to eliminate all the bigger size particles. Choosing different mesh size of the sieve also gives finer and grainier clays. 

Features of single clays are then combined in the mixture of the bucket: not only colour of course, but also plasticity – stickiness, firing temperature and graininess. And I just love mix-it all-together clays! They are smooth, clean again, OCD-satisfied recycled clays that usually fire in taupe sandy shades. Again – depending on the mixture. 

One of those clays is also used for Magdalena tea cup into which I also added Straža galaxy sand:

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Povabim vas, da si ogledate nova in trenutna dela, ki so na voljo za nakup v studiu ali po pošti. Studio je po predhodnem dogovoru odprt do petka, 17.12. Poštnina v Sloveniji je brezplačna. Naročite tukaj: studio@anjaslapnicar.com

We were invited to visit our host’s estate up in the hill. We heard her house was a former Roman fortress. And she had peacocks in her backyard! If her house and peacocks have half of her presence, then we were about to see something magnificent. She wanted to show us clay, or something that she thought it might  be clay. We imagined terra rossa, red earth well-known in Adriatic coast.

We entered the estate through simple organic gate made of branches. A short drive followed slightly up the hill and even as we driving the land was promising us something beautiful to see. Young oak trees were nicely cleaned and cut, set aside in neat piles. Big trees were left and ground around them was being taken care of. Scenery was harmonious with all the old ancient stone walls that were left from earlier land owners and keepers. I noticed natural rocks too in small gatherings around the estate which were part of terrain, looking sleek like the rock gardens of Japan. The road led to the tower house. It was all that we imagined and more, especially since we were looking at it from the lower ground and that made it stand in an even taller grandeur. A Scottish deerhound was guarding the entrance and the breed was worthy of the tower. We hesitated for a moment, but after the tail was wagging, we left our fears about the giant medieval dog behind us.

After cake and wine and short talk with a restorer, physicist and other people, who visited the tower coincidentally too at that time, we hurried further up the hill because the storm was coming. We crossed the beautifully groomed landscape behind the tower, seeing old trees with chairs and lanterns under it and after we walked into the young black oak forest. Two young cats were following us and we saw some sheep in the distance. The owner was explaining about the land all the way up. Forest was cleared of its undergrowth and piles ob round small wood were stacked all over. Neatly.

We stopped and stood in front of an elevated red earth ring and inside the ring was a pit. Storm was getting closer. What is this? Who made this? “It was already here,” she and I answered. The pit did not meet our expectations. It was bigger, deeper, and more powerful than a normal lime pit. When I first heard that there might be clay behind the house I thought that maybe they are having some construction site, some pipes being laid in the ditch or so. I did not expect an ancient pit. There were 5 of us together with the owner. I started to pull a bag out of my backpack, instinctively. I descended on the west side, since part of the wall eroded and a small part of the vertical cut collapsed. On the east side I also noticed burnt walls and recent fireplace. West side also had a partial arc around the ring made from stones. What is this? We were all wondering. The owner answered smilingly:”Well perhaps it could also be a ritual site.” Two of my friends joined me in. We didn’t even have tools, so we just dug in. It was better this way too, because this way we touched the earth and tried to feel it. We tried hard to sense it. We even touched different parts of the pit. I said, use your left hand, the one that is receiving. We tried with both. Clearly we were all impressed by the size, shape and presence of the pit. Storm was now around us. We could see the lightning in the round canopy opening above the pit.

Clearly this is not just a lime pit. What else could it be? My wish would be that this is a sacred ground. The three of use started to collect the clay. It felt like the right thing to do, since the owner invited us, and we had her permission. If we have hers, perhaps we have the permission of the land too. It felt like she could give this permission. “Can you feel it buzzing?” my friend asked. I said: “No, but I can feel hairs going up my spine.” The other friend was quieter and kept observing. After we collected, I stood on the ring, bowed with my hands together, saying thank you in my head and my eyes watered. At the time I didn’t knew what that meant. Obviously, the pit set our emotions on the move. This is the physics of it.

Later, after we sat around the table in the tower, all we could talk was about the pit, about the magic of it, while heavy rain, thunder and lightnings were raging above us. The sky knew something. Did someone else knew it too? The tower was as equally impressive as the pit, but impressiveness came from the impressive people who sensibly restored the old ruin in a way it felt like walking into ancient halls of Alexandria. The textured lime walls, stone, larch wood, drapped linen, and peacock feather flower arrangement was incredible. But the pit in its rawness and pureness made most of our attention being poured into it in the many conversations we had among us in the following next days. I meditated, cast cards, and even had lucid dreams about it. I asked my dreamscape: “What is this pit?” Answer came from around me from many sides, quietly. When I woke up, I did not remember what they said.

The pit is very old. It could be a lime pit too at some point. But it is also much older. From the times just after the cave man started living outside the caves, few thousand years ago. Celtic people were there too. Fighting over the land where this energy point laid. They knew the importance of this point, there are many other spots on the island just like that since the island lies on the dragon line. Slaves were being murdered there, children sacrificed in a ritual to cleanse the energy of the previous desecration. The hole was deeper and the walls had stones. I wonder what lies under the collapsed earth now. Could we find some remains? Or did the locals already took all they could find together with stones from the walls? The pit was a ritual site. But can we unlock its power and make it a sacred space again?

In this course we will explore the world of glazes with a very empirical approach: testing materials – combining them to create absolutely unique glazes. In that way you will get to know your materials with their outstanding properties. It is a very rewarding process to understand what brings glazes to melt and what kind of surface happens with different chemical blends. Besides that you will get to know what kind of glaze textures you find appealing. The beauty of making your own blends is that you can gather your own materials as well. Knowing what is in your immediate surroundings creates a closer connection to the geology of the place you are living and it is always an adventure to find new test materials.

I would like to create line blends and triaxal tests with geological materials from our immediate surroundings with you and I will bring some glaze materials which I use not in the way most people use them.

Workshop Content:

Theory of Glazes and Melting processes
Learning about the properties of materials
Making and Firing of test samples
Discussing fired results

Target Audience: Beginners, Intermediate and Advanced Ceramists

Language: English with Slovenian translation

Timetable:
October 18th – Monday: 5.30PM – 9.30PM
October 19th – Tuesday: 5.30PM – 9.30PM
October 20th – Wednesday: 5.30PM – 9.30PM
October 21th – Thursday: 5.30PM – 9.30PM
October 22th – Friday: 5.30PM – 9.30PM

Price: 350eur

Sign up via e-mail: studio@anjaslapnicar.com

Oil lamp (with wick, you add olive oil)

Small: 25eur

Medium size vase

42eur

Celtic inspired ritual cup

42eur

Mug

35eur

Yunomi

28eur

Tea cup

24eur

Espresso cup

28eur

Medium size bowl

32eur

Tumbler

32eur

Shipping in Slovenia: +5eur
Shipping in EU: +10eur
Shipping world: inquire for price
studio@anjaslapnicar.com

Oil lamp (with wick, you add olive oil)

Mini: 25eur
Small: 30eur

Yunomi with Shino glaze

28eur

Horse sculpture

Shino (left): 62eur
Unglazed (middle): 84eur
Unglazed (right): 84eur

Large mug

34eur

Coffee dripper for V60

35eur

Netsuke (tiny object)

15eur

Chawan

120eur

Tea cup

26eur

Espresso cup

24eur

Bowl

34eur

Potter’s choice

Coffee set: 62eur
Tea cup: 30eur
Mug: 38eur
Vase: 32eur

Location: abandoned clay pits of brick factory Zalog.

Clay bed in Straža valley is approximately 20 m deep. And because of that so many brickyards were built here in the past. If you know me, you know how psyched I am about clay that I find and collect in nature.  I was born less then 5km air distance from these pits – in Novo mesto. Pits are located between Straža, where I spent early childhood, and between Cegelnica, where my family moved later. So this clay can’t get any more local than this.

Bricks have been brought to Slovenia by Romans in first century. People have been manufacturing bricks ever since, in the middle ages especially for castles, churches and monasteries. It is known that in the area between Novo mesto and Straža there have been several brick factories. Bricks have become more widely used construction material in 18th century and in that period Zalog brickyard also started producing bricks. In 20. century Zalog brickyard was ran by Faleskini family. In the beginning of 21. century it was closed and later turned into garbage recycle factory, which burned to the ground in 2017. This spring Municipality of Straža received EU funds to turn these abandoned clay pits into ecological reserve – a secondary biotope, because flora and fauna here are very diverse and special.

I have tested this clay before. It was also featured in exhibition Clays of Slovenia in 2018. I made cups for my uncle who is also from here. When he celebrated 50th birthday I made him 50 cups from clays he was connected to it. Well 46, because 4 got broken during the firing.

This clay is insane. I fired it to 1230 and it came out bright orange (see two orange cups in the photo). What does that mean, you ask? This means it will still need a whole lot of more heat before it starts melting. I was also hoping this clay will be appropriate for wood firing. Melting point of this clay is so high, because it contains a lot of silica sand – or quartz sand. The more quartz it has, the hire you can fire it.

I always look for bigger particle size of the same material in one location. Bigger size stones or rocks can show me what this clay is made of, without using microscope. Because bigger size stones are the same material clay is made from. Clay is just smaller in size – in fact that is also the definition of clay – the smallest particle of geological particle. All smaller than 2 microns.

I hope we can create more videos about collecting clay in nature soon! Thank you Klara from Curry and Love for your help. You can read more about how to collect clay in nature in my previous articles here: part I, part II and part III.

Engineering a porcelain body: Intense 5-day workshop about sourcing local materials and creation of sustainable porcelain body with Antoinette Badenhorst

June 3rd – June 7th in Ljubljana, Slovenia

More info here.

Pričetek: 22. januar 2020 med 17. in 22. uro

Termini se nadaljujejo do decembra 2020: vsako predzadnjo sredo v mesecu.

Komunikacija je pomembna na vsakem koraku življenja in za vse ljudi. Večja fleksibilnost, ki jo prinašajo komunikacijske veščine, pripomore k hitrejšemu reševanju konfliktov v človeku in v odnosih.  Kadar razvijamo komunikacijo po vrednotah mediacije, to je, da imamo vsi prostor za komuniciranje, je veliko večja možnost, da se bodo dogovori in pogovori speljali z manj konfliktov, do njih sploh ne bo prišlo, če pa že, se bodo nesoglasja reševala sprotno in ne bodo več konflikti, ampak samo hitra in jasna komunikacija.

Komunikacija je temeljno človeško orodje in osnovni del človeške strukture. Veščina, ki nastaja in se oplaja celo življenje in tudi po njem. Človeku omogoča interakcijo navznoter med njegovimi osnovnimi potenciali ali vrlinami in interakcijo navzven z ljudmi in drugimi živimi bitji. Bolj kot je človek ozaveščen in izmojstren v komunikaciji navznoter, bolj kvalitetno se bo to odražalo tudi v odnosih.

Zakaj laboratorij?
Ker je komunikacija alkimistični proces v katerem skuhamo svoje življenje. Svoje potenciale raziskujemo, prerazporejamo, preobražamo in jih uporabimo po ravno pravem receptu svoje namere, da naše življenje manifestira izraz duše in duha. Kadar je proces opolnomočen z ljubeznijo, so izpolnjeni vsi pogoji, da živimo v radosti.

V Laboratoriju Pogovori se sam s seboj se podrobno poglabljamo v posamezne teme in področja osebnosti in kako osebnost uskladiti z dušnim zapisom ter ga živeti v vsakdanjem življenju. Je trening poznavanja lastnih potencialov. Učenje, kako na vseh ravneh poskrbimo za svoje potrebe in znamo uporabiti potenciale v pravem trenutku in pravih kombinacijah. Je trening vsenivojske komunikacije. Posameznik se opolnomoči v poznavanju sebe ter razvije svojo avtentično naravo. To mu omogoča samoizpolnitev, zadovoljstvo in ustvarjalnost, posledično pa  tudi njemu primerno zaposlitev, s tem materialno varnost in ustvarjalnosti polno življenje.

Laboratorij  Pogovori se sam s seboj zajema 50 ur in je razporejen na 10 srečanj po 5 ur. Od 22.januarja 2020 do decembra 2020, z odmorom med počitnicami.

Cena programa je 600€, možnost plačila na dva obroka. 

Laboratorij poteka vsako predzadnjo sredo v mesecu med 17. do 22. uro.

Studio Anja Slapničar, Tržaška cesta 36, Ljubljana

Začetek: 22. januar 2020

Za podrobne informacije pišite na barbara.novak444@gmail.com 

Število mest je omejeno.

Delavnico vodi Barbara Novak.
Barbara je iz vseh izkušenj, ki jih je pridobila s petindvajsetletno prakso dela z ljudmi in za ljudi, razvila več programov. V program Pogovori se sam s seboj je vključila tehnike vsenivojske komunikacije in razvijanje orodij za samopomoč in opolnomočenje posameznika ter vzpostavljanja stanja avtentičnosti. Praktikant  napreduje iz osebnostne ravni do dušnega zapisa in se uči kako dušni zapis živeti v vsakdanjem življenju.

Več o Barbari Novak najdete tukaj.