Learning by experimenting
- Clay has been Anastasia's preoccupation since childhood
- Her first studio was her kitchen table, in 2015
- The first object she made was a sleeping giraffe
Anastasia Dulenko has loved sculpting since she was a child. "When I was nine, I spent summer at my grandma’s house. I found red clay there, I dug a whole lot of it and made 100 unique figures.” Years later, Anastasia remembered her love for clay and decided to do something about it. Her hard work paid off: now she has a studio, a full-fledged online store and a showroom. Anastasia’s main technique is slip casting. She works with semi-porcelain (ironstone), which she likes because of the density of the shard and the milky colour that it gets after firing. She is very meticulous in every step of the process and does everything herself: from mixing to firing. Sometimes she also uses hand-building methods like pushing out the slabs.
Discover her work
INTERVIEW
I love when the products turn out to be exactly what I wanted them to be. I love to experiment and break the rules. I love to open the kiln after firing, you never really know what’s inside – and I love surprises!
I think if you have never worked with ceramics you have no idea that it is real physical labour. It takes a lot of energy and hard work to create an object. Sometimes you have a groundhog day: it can get very routine.
A product that is well made must be aesthetically beautiful. It should get praise not only from me, but from other field professionals, designers and aficionados. Ceramics should also be functional, not just nice-looking.
I learned the basics of ceramics from some introductory courses. I took part in workshops of masters like Tatiana Punans and Anna Kupriyanova. But I consider myself mostly self-taught. If you practice every day, you’ll learn – sometimes how not to do something.
