RAW BEAUTY
Timeless Dutch character is captured in the home-studio of ceramicist Anouk Kramer
Anouk Kramer isn’t a woman enamoured with the fast pace of modern urban living. Found most days beavering away in the barn that acts as her ceramics studio in Holland, she has succeeded in creating a balance that perfectly suits her rural family-oriented life.
However, as with many of us, Anouk’s journey to creative fulfilment began in an office. Frustrated with her indoor existence as a children’s clothing designer, she decided to make the leap to freelance, which was when she found time to pursue her passion for ceramics. ‘My love for pottery began when I was a child sailing with my parents in Sweden and Denmark,’ recalls Anouk. ‘There was a real culture of making ceramics in the villages there that I was somehow drawn to. Pottery is less common in Holland than you might think. In fact, it’s far more popular in England.’
As one of the few people in the country working in this medium, Anouk quickly found a loyal audience and after two years of training, invested in her own potter’s wheel, transforming the old barn attached to her home into a studio. ‘I now have three ovens and mostly fulfil orders for about 40 to 100 pieces, although recently I was commissioned to make
1,000 gold hearts for a childhood cancer charity benefit,’ she says. Her most famous popular work, now sold internationally, is handmade tableware. A translucent white glaze allows the black clay she uses to be seen underneath, with gold trims another of her distinctive motifs. ‘Most of what I make, you can use,’ she says. ‘Everything is turned by hand, but it’s not rough; it’s actually quite fine tableware.’
Working in her studio for around seven hours each day, Anouk divides her time between making the pieces on the wheel, and catching up on admin while these dry before glazing and firing them in the kiln. ‘On an average day, I can make around 35 plates or 30 small bowls, although the hand-painting takes longer,’ she explains.
Anouk moved to her bucolic bolthole with her husband, Leo, 20 years ago. Surrounded by farmland and dykes, the run-down cottage offered the pair an opportunity to leave Amsterdam, but not without the upheaval of a major renovation. ‘The house had been previously restored in the 1960s, but it was unsympathetic to the original character so we decided to strip everything back and clad all the interiors with wood, as they would have been originally,’ says Anouk. Their timeless interior, filled with the roughly hewn textures of the original farm, has changed little since the project was completed. ‘I don’t buy much for the house, but when the girls became teenagers they asked for a sofa and, fortunately, a friend who was moving to India gave us theirs,’ says Anouk. ‘Previously we had always used a bench and cushions.’
Rejecting any objects too new or flawless, Anouk relishes the imperfect. ‘I take inspiration from the photographer Bruce Weber’s book A House is
Not a Home,’ says Anouk. ‘Our house has so many narratives that make it a home, such as my husband coming home from hunting and me preparing the meat for a hearty family meal, the skating we can do on the dyke behind the house and the swims we eagerly await as spring comes around,’ she says.
The couple’s three daughters, Pipilotti, 18, Riva,
16, and Lieve, 15, were born here and each of their birthdays is commemorated with a hand-decorated plate hung on the wall in the hall. With Anouk’s work and family so integral to the soul of her house, it seems impossible to imagine this little corner of northern Holland belonging to anyone else.