Metamorphosis
Stories about clay, material exploration and new work
As much as I love archeology, I long for the things I cannot get: the first hand-accounts of the moment our ancestors discovered clay. What did they think as they dug mud from the ground and made objects with it?
Mirjana Stevanović talks about the Neolithic period as the “age of clay”, a time when, as our ancestors moved to living in permanent settlements, clay was the material of choice for a number of purposes1. Clay was used for housing, cooking, storing, ceremony and much more. Clay was available in abundance and easily prepared for usage. As people settled, they opened up the earth, they excavated and dug out clay, this humble material that could undergo various transformations and was a lot more durable and suitable for long term use2. The value of clay has always been in its potential for becoming something else.
It seems to me that transformation is an omnipresent word when we talk about clay. This material, which we appreciate for its ability to withstand extreme transformations, changed our own relationship with the earth and our ability to store food or build stable settlements. Clay itself is the result of transformation, of the chemical weathering of silicates over time.
However, this material does not always come out of the earth ready to use. It requires preparation. Clay often needs to be sifted, filtered and wedged. From a lump of material will emerge an object which may not survive the drying process. Once the kiln was invented, we learned to master the dangerous passage through the fire at high temperatures. Ceramics came into being.
What happens in the kiln, largely invisible to us, is another kind of metamorphosis.
Edmund de Waal talks about what happens in the kiln as “fluidity before stasis… the kiln [as] a zone of the transitory”3.
The idea of change, metamorphosis has been at center of my own work lately. Knowing I could never hear those stories, I imagined my own. Over the last three months of residency with the Berlin-based institution GlogauAIR, I sculpted blocks of creation that look both familiar and alien, earthy and not of this world. The work is visible in an online show-case from today.
The idea emerged from my fascination with material. I have been investigating the many ways to integrate metal and ceramics, something I also wrote about in historical context. Metal and ceramics have had a long and complex relationship: ceramics replaced metal due to its inexpensive nature, and metal is used to decorate special ceramic pieces.
My work for this showcase was all about continuous transformations. I used the process of electroforming to add a layer of copper to the non-porous, fired clay. I imagine these pieces as building blocks of a far away civilization. We do not quite know how they were used or why they look the way they do. We do not quite understand how they fit together.
The lava glaze represents another process of transformation these pieces have gone through as they rested underground. I imagined something growing on them and taking over. Not moss or mold, but lava and metal, insinuating themselves in crevices and structures, forming new layers.
In this world, metal grows like ivy. These pieces were plucked away from a strange underground dig and are now kept in a secure space, temperature controlled. Whatever transformation was occurring has been stalled, interrupted. We now see them in an ongoing state, not quite what they could have become had they been left untouched for another millennium.
Thank you for being here as I took a little break from writing. A non-voluntary break due to an array of life events that occupied my time and mind. I am not going anywhere: clay is all I think about. Thank you for your continued support.
My work in the world
Online Open Studios at GlogauAIR
View my online show-case, along with the work of my fellow artists, on the GlogauAIR website.
My new winter collection, Texture Edit, is available on my website
In honor of the theme of transformation and texture, I have updated my website with a few pieces I have been holding on to and some that I made for this season. This is not something I do often, as I spend more time doing material research. I ship to most places.
Winter Market and open studio in my studio in Berlin, Germany
If you are local, on December 21st we will be hosting a little winter market at our studio, Kleistone Studio, in Berlin (Germany). My other fellow artists and myself will be selling some old and new work. A great opportunity to grab last minute gifts.
Mirjana Stevanović, “The Age of Clay: The Social Dynamics of House Destruction,” Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 16 (1997): 334–95
Susan D. Gillespie, “Clay: The Entanglement of Earth in the Age of Clay”, University of Florida, https://ufl.pb.unizin.org/imos/chapter/clay/ accessed on Dec 11th 2025.
Edmund De Waal, “Playing with Fire: Edmund de Waal and Axel Salto”, Forlaget Press, 2025 p.114