Christine Wagner

Ceramicist

©Oliver Maier

©Henning Kreitel

©Christine Krauss

©Henning Kreitel

©Christine Krauss

A unique vision of ceramics

Christine trained under a master ceramicist in Japan
Her work touches on different times and cultures
She creates an array of contemporary ceramic forms

Shortly before her A-levels, Christine Wagner went to England in order to brush up on her English where she stayed with an elderly lady “in her overgrown garden, within a small wooden hut there was a potter's wheel, where I turned my first cup and bowl,” she recalls . A visit to a ceramics exhibition in Japan after high school inspired her to delve into ceramics “the vessels were completely new and surprising to me,” she explains. Christine decided to stay in Japan and she started an apprenticeship with Master Yasoji Sasaki. Three years later, Christine Wagner returned to Germany and finished her apprenticeship in Landshut and subsequent studies in ceramics at the University of Arts in Linz, Austria. Since then she has worked on her inimitable expression that does not reproduce but embraces a traditional aesthetic in a contemporary way.

Interview

©Christine Krauss

©Henning Kreitel

How was your time in Japan?: My time with my Japanese master, Mr. Yasoji Sasaki, has left a deep impression on me. At the beginning of my apprenticeship, I turned cups every day, which were destroyed again in the evening until at some point their shape was good enough to be fired. However, I think my real teacher was the Japanese culture in general.
How did the Japanese culture influence you?: Many of my master's clients came from Kyoto, often students and their tea masters or Buddhist monks. They bought tea bowls and other vessels. I was able to learn and experience how vessels were viewed, examined and considered beautiful or not. I immersed myself in a school of seeing from another cultural perspective. This gave me a deep insight and later helped me a lot to develop my own view of ceramics.
What impact did this experience have on your later work?: I wanted to make vessels that on the one hand conveyed something timeless, and at the same time were accessible and useful within the European culture. I had no desire to imitate typical Japanese ceramics, which are considered exotic here in Europe. I was rather interested in developing vessels that would work in the here and now, and would enrich the lives of the people who bought my ceramics.
Would you consider this transfer as an innovation?: In a way, for me the innovation lies in the development of my own design language. Especially with the built vessels, I have created a repertoire of unique prototypes over the years. One could perhaps say it is my creative reaction to our time.

Christine Wagner is a master artisan: she began her career in 1981 and she started teaching in 2010