Barbara_Brouwers_Natur_Studien_Porzellan4

The pulse of nature!

How do creative processes arise?

For the German product design­er and nature artist Bar­bara Brouwers direct con­tact with nature plays a major role in her artist­ic work. ‘Fruit shell - bee hotel - serenity - flower tower - cell circle’ The names for her hand made ceram­ic pieces reflect import­ant nat­ur­al themes for her. They are humor­ous and enig­mat­ic!

Does design 'just happen'?

Bar­bara explains how the tact­ile aspect plays an import­ant role in her design pro­cess. Ideas usu­ally come to her while she is exper­i­ment­ing with dif­fer­ent mater­i­als.

“When I explore the unique­ness of a mater­i­al – sur­prises can happen. I do need that excite­ment! I am then fully awake and work intu­it­ively, observing very closely what hap­pens. This way of work­ing con­tains often many failed attempts, but with patience some­thing new will emerge!"

For Bar­bara, the play­ful, search­ing pro­cess is char­ac­ter­ized by her intens­ive rela­tion­ship with nature. After gradu­at­ing from high school she decides to work as an organ­ic farm worker for sev­er­al years. She remem­bers this as a valu­able and form­at­ive exper­i­ence.

“Living with nature, enga­ging with the chan­ging sea­sons, work­ing hand in hand with others and tack­ling the chal­lenge of 'the greatest pos­sible diversity in a closed organ­ism'. Pre­par­ing the soil, sowing, plant­ing, tend­ing and at the same time sowing again...harvesting and selling at mar­kets all year round. Ground­ing and cycles - obser­va­tion and vigil­ance - good plan­ning, yet flex­ib­il­ity and impro­visa­tion. This is also how I reflect my design pro­cesses.”

What is so special about a plaster cast?

The pro­cess of cast­ing fas­cin­ates Bar­bara ever since her stud­ies at the Uni­ver­sity of Fine Arts & Design in Maastricht. The ori­gin­al designed ‘form’ - also known as the “mother form” - is cast in plaster firstly and then trans­formed into anoth­er mater­i­al.

“I was work­ing with this pro­cess during my master thesis. I was fas­cin­ated by the ele­ment­al forces: water - fire - earth – air. So I made plaster casts dir­ectly on the Dutch sea­shore. My idea was to cap­ture the tex­tures mod­elled by the sea overnight in plaster. Then later on I casted them in vari­ous mater­i­als or melted them in glass. The res­ult­ing pieces are abso­lutely time­less in their relief char­ac­ter and want to be touched and used.”

Barbara’s work shows a uni­ver­sal power that does not follow market trends. Cre­at­ing objects with a unique tex­ture, resem­bling forms of nature - that is still some­thing that trig­gers Bar­bara cre­at­ive pro­cess.

“How can I create a nat­ur­al form without dir­ectly repro­du­cing nature? My 'PURE PORCELAIN' series reflect my artist­ic answers.”

Which materials surprise you in the design process?

Bar­bara sees sur­prises in many common things.

“When I vis­ited a recyc­ling center, I also had a ‘sur­prise’ exper­i­ence. The pressed bales of worth­less pack­aging mater­i­als inspired me to exper­i­ment with them. Can I trans­form the res­ult­ing sur­faces into por­cel­ain? A model made our of stacked and pressed pack­aging card­board? An every­day mater­i­al? These under­cuts cannot be molded nor­mally, but I had to try anyway.  My cre­at­ive mind tells me to con­tin­ue work­ing with whatever hap­pens. I love to explore the nature of diverse mater­i­als and how I can use these ideas within my designs. I put my trust in nature and some­times manage to stretch the limits of feas­ib­il­ity.”

From experiment to product!

This is how she cre­ates her first por­cel­ain series, such as the 'flower towers'.

“At first glance, it is not entirely clear where the sur­face of the small vases comes from. They look slate-like, fra­gile and light. They are stacked card­board squares that spiral upwards - after trans­form­a­tion they reveal a very fine 'organ­ic' struc­ture, emphas­ized by the light and shadow effect of the white por­cel­ain. These soci­able little towers, filled with simple flowers & grasses - a flower meadow for the table!”

For other series, such as the 'cell circle' series, Bar­bara intu­it­ively mod­u­lates oval 'hand flat­ter­er' shapes that are remin­is­cent of micro­scop­ic cell obser­va­tions. Nature reveals itself in many forms.

The fascination of slip casting!

The fact that a form is cre­ated in a plaster mold into which por­cel­ain paste is poured never ceases to amaze Bar­bara. The porous neg­at­ive plaster mold draws mois­ture from the por­cel­ain slip, and the fine walls of her objects build up from the out­side.

“It looks like magic. Even the par­ti­cipants in my ceram­ic work­shops are always amazed!”

For her 'serenity' bowls Bar­bara pours a little liquid por­cel­ain paste into the plaster mold. She swirls the form around with her hands. The drying pro­cess starts and cre­ates a unique pat­tern that is remin­is­cent of the growth lines of a shell.

“I simply let the por­cel­ain flow and watch as a fine line slowly moves in circles from the outer edge to the inside as it dries. I can con­trol the course of this line with min­im­al move­ments of my hands and thus help shape the pic­ture, everything remains vis­ible. I really enjoy that. What's more, the pro­cess is almost med­it­at­ive! It always helps me to calm down. 'serenity' means calmness, repose, pla­cid­ity”

Demolding!

The moment when the cast mold comes to light after a drying time of a few hours still touches Bar­bara heart. Her objects are now tan­gible. After 'demold­ing', it's time for the fin­ish­ing pro­cess. She care­fully takes each piece in her hand, neat­en­ing up small cast­ing seams and care­fully pol­ish­ing the sur­faces and edges with a sponge. Pure crafts­man­ship here too!

The final step: firing and quality control!

Bar­bara works with a soft por­cel­ain from Limoges. After a firing at 1250 degrees and a wet fin­ish­ing touch, her nature-inspired hand flat­ter­ers are ready for every­day use. They are won­der­fully light, very stable & dish­wash­er-safe! The pro­duc­tion in small series enables Bar­bara to pro­duce her 'Hand made in Ger­many' products at an afford­able price. Indi­vidu­al espresso or tea 'cups' that offer pure pleas­ure - visu­ally & haptic­ally!

Nature & Color

In addi­tion to the color 'white', it is the subtle nuances of colors that you can find in Nor­mandy, France. Bar­bara cap­tures them in small sketches and col­lages. For her 'cup vari­ations', she devel­ops col­or­ful shades of grey that are remin­is­cent of the sea, sea spray, sky and rain clouds. The res­ults are fine color gradi­ents as you can observe in nature. Com­bined with the dif­fer­ent shapes, the cups com­ple­ment each other in nat­ur­al har­mony.

Barbara & her diverse vocations

In addi­tion to her work as a ceram­ic-artist, Bar­bara offers ceram­ic art work­shops at the Museum of Modern Art ‘the Ludwig Forum’ - in Aachen, Ger­many. Many people share her interest in 'nature' and 'craft' and love the hands-on exper­i­ences. Bar­bara also slips into teach­ing by chance. She ini­tially works as a lec­turer in the archi­tec­ture depart­ment of the Uni­ver­sity of Aachen and later moves to the Col­lege of Arts & Craft.

In dialog with students!

Her product design stu­dents bene­fit from Barbara's know­ledge of her under­stand­ing of sculp­tur­al design & from. She is very enthu­si­ast­ic lec­turer and can engage the young cre­at­ive minds in the explor­at­ive pro­cess. Guid­ing them through a self-Reflect­ing  devel­op­ment is how she sees her pos­i­tion. Bar­bara uses 'earthy' and ‘nat­ur­al’ mater­i­als that help the stu­dents to 'build' uni­ver­sal forms. Her idea to make 3-dimen­sion­al design tan­gible for the stu­dents -fol­low­ing aspects that are import­ant to her: curi­os­ity & exper­i­ment­a­tion.

Students, art & community

In cooper­a­tion with the Modern Art Museum in Aachen, the french ‘Atelier Le Balto’ and the Col­lege of Art and Design, Bar­bara ini­ti­ates the nature art pro­ject ‘The wicker uni­ver­sum'. This is her first com­munity art pro­ject. Her design stu­dents weave ima­gin­at­ive plan­ets togeth­er with vari­ous groups, clubs and school classes. The giant spheres are made of willow rods and old pack­aging mater­i­als. The install­a­tion covers the entire entrance area of the museum cre­at­ing a very spe­cial ‘uni­verse’. A won­der­ful con­nec­tion between art & nature – made by a com­munity.

And now? Pure nature!

In 2022, the Col­lege of Arts & Craft can­cels Barbara's teach­ing pos­i­tion due to cost-cut­ting meas­ures. She draws a line in the sand and dares to work exclus­ively freel­ance.

“The ‘Fri­days For Future’ move­ment instig­ated by Greta Thun­berg has given me a lot to think about. I was at the demon­stra­tions here in Aachen, but not often enough. I was impressed by these very engaged and determ­ined young people! That made me want to pass on my core topic ‘work­ing with nature’ to chil­dren from now on.”

Butterflies as tender beacons of hope?

The chil­dren at an ele­ment­ary school in Aachen explore this ques­tion with Bar­bara in the early summer of 2024.

“As little research­ers, garden­ers and artists, the chil­dren stud­ied these spe­cial but­ter­flies. We observed and drew them. I showed them how to make but­ter­flies using nat­ur­al mater­i­als like the wicker. We also cre­ated a but­ter­fly garden on the school grounds. And our wishes came true. The but­ter­flies have arrived!”

Bar­bara applies the same ded­ic­a­tion to these com­munity pro­jects as she applies to her indi­vidu­al steps to pro­duce her por­cel­ain series. This can be seen in her pre­par­a­tions for the work­shops, the self-designed books & flyers, the lov­ingly arranged exhib­i­tions. Bar­bara shows her school chil­dren how import­ant their work of observing, pro­tect­ing & sup­port­ing nature is. The won­der­ful draw­ings of but­ter­flies and insects, also their hand­made willow objects reflect the import­ance of nature to the chil­dren and of course to Bar­bara.

Nature & creativity & community

Bar­bara dis­cov­ers the 'HirschGrün (Deer­green)' com­munity garden in 2022. At an exhib­i­tion, she meets Krystyna Rütten, one of the founders of the pro­ject. The goal is to trans­form the waste­land in the city center of Aachen into a para­disi­ac­al oasis within 10 years.

“HirschGrün was a great dis­cov­ery for me - since our first pro­ject togeth­er, we have been work­ing on estab­lish­ing the garden as a learn­ing space for schools. Not an easy under­tak­ing, but we're on the right track!”

Her first nature learn­ing pro­ject with chil­dren in spring 2023 includes the cre­ation of trans­par­ent fence ele­ments made of willow - to pro­tect sens­it­ive areas. It seems Bar­bara closes her own cre­at­ive cycle. Her philo­sophy: Work­ing dir­ectly with nature & feel­ing deep sat­is­fac­tion during the work pro­cess – also seems to work for the chil­dren. Bar­bara empowers them to create a sus­tain­able world!

''Now I'm a nature edu­cat­or using creative/handicraft meth­ods. In these pro­jects, the chil­dren learn dir­ectly in nature and exper­i­ence the great diversity of plants and insects. The bee­keep­ers in the garden explain the kids all about bees & honey making. Also, my new garden friends help with prun­ing the wil­lows.”

What makes the 'willow' so fascinating?

The pol­lard willow is part of the nat­ur­al land­scape in the German/Belgian/Dutch border region. Bar­bara keeps the impress­ive memor­ies of a broken willow on the organ­ic farm sprout­ing again the next spring. What a true renew­al itself. The willow rods can be reworked every year – a very cre­at­ive pro­cess to Bar­bara .

“The willow is a sur­viv­or! Thanks to a spe­cial enzyme in its bark, it takes root within a very short time. We can learn some­thing from its resi­li­ence!”

But there is also the strenu­ous aspect of this import­ant work: organ­iz­ing fund­ing for these great pro­jects again and again!

“It's a big chal­lenge and not easy. But work­ing in this para­dise until dusk and listen­ing to the black­birds singing, being phys­ic­ally exhausted but with a healthy mind – this is a spe­cial treat and pure relax­a­tion!”

The willow fence!

As part of this edu­ca­tion­al cooper­a­tion, school­chil­dren, teach­ers and volun­teers work togeth­er to create nest­ing aids for wild bees, a large garden gate and a 'living' willow fence, which is redesigned every year.

“Guid­ing the chil­dren through these pro­jects, seeing how they work on this sus­tain­ab­il­ity topic and devel­op their rela­tion­ship with nature. It's impress­ive and touches me deeply. When I then stim­u­late their cre­ativ­ity and very ener­get­ic boys come to rest while weav­ing. I see that as con­firm­a­tion of my edu­ca­tion­al and cre­at­ive con­cepts. The willow fence sym­bol­izes all of this for me. And how encour­aging that the school prin­cip­al con­siders my inter­ac­tion with her 'diverse' chil­dren to be extremely import­ant.”

Bar­bara hopes that she soon can con­tin­ue her work as a mentor for young people – once the fund­ing is renewed. The chil­dren as well as the wil­lows want to sprout and be shaped anew every year. They will bene­fit from Barbara's cre­ativ­ity and her love of nature. And thus become import­ant mul­ti­pli­ers for the topic of 'sus­tain­ab­il­ity'!

The 'green' idea

Finally, a thought-pro­vok­ing ‘nature image’ from Bar­bara

“The way roots, mush­rooms and even flowers like dan­deli­ons spread across the ground, some­times even break­ing up old asphalt and making their way towards the light, is how I see this 'green idea'. I feel very close to the dan­deli­on. Strongly rooted, vig­or­ous, vividly bitter and eager to send little seeds into the world.”

Name: Bar­bara Bouwers

She is: Product-Design­er, 'Nature' artist, Nature Lec­turer

She can be found in: Ger­many,  Aachen, Aix la Chapelle, the old Town of emporer 'Charles the Great'. Right to the border of Neth­er­lands and Bel­gi­um. Her 'PURE PORCELAIN' series can be found in her Ceram­ic Studio and in vari­ous shops in Aachen 

She admires:

  • Patty Smith, who described very openly her 'col­or­ful' life in her bio­grafie from 2017/18 

'That gave me a lot of strengths for my art/work pro­jects.'

  • Giuseppe Penone - he is an itali­an Nature Artist calles 'Arte Povera'. His install­a­tion­en & objects show how much power nature con­tains.
  • Tony Cragg 

'I love his art pieces. They inspired me during my first years as an artist - his way of exper­i­ment­ing is wonde­ful.'

Her WIASOLA tip:

'The movie "Rhythm is it!" from Simon Rattle and Roy­ston Mal­doon - great for your mind, makes you think pos­it­ive!'

Her favour­ite musi­cian:

  • the singer Dota Kehr from Berlin - a power­ful woman!

To be found under:

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