Goedel Vermandere & Jan Arickx

Coup-de-Foudre

Lamp maker

©Goedel Vermandere & Jan Arickx

Lighting up life with love and porcelain

Goedel and Jan make lighting objects by hand
Their preferred material is porcelain
They compare their craft to human relationships

Goedel Vermandere and Jan Arickx combine their competences to design unique lighting objects together. “Jan’s technical know-how and my pottery experience are a perfect match,” says Goedel. “We have different skills, but speak the same language.” Their collaboration started after Goedel channeled her creativity into a project with clay sculptures as an outlet for sorrow. Out of this project, grew the idea for their first joint creation, called Le soleil. “We continue to focus on beauty and harmony, just as we do in our relationship,” they say. Goedel and Jan make each object by hand, without a detailed masterplan, allowing space for chance and imperfection. "Our collaboration is strongly intuitive: we never start from a fixed design, but let the process unfold in dialogue with porcelain," they share. Porcelain is their material of choice for its qualities of fragility and sustainability, which they compare to the qualities of love relationships.

Interview

©Goedel Vermandere & Jan Arickx

©Goedel Vermandere & Jan Arickx

Could you tell us about the first lighting object you made together?: Le soleil was a large sphere that represented the sun or, more generally, a bright spot. The thought behind it was that you can only uproot your life and grow again as a person when you have such a bright spot, a sun, in your life. It was a symbol for the start of our relationship.
What tends to be your source of inspiration?: We are big art lovers. Art inspires us on a daily basis. But we also collect many ideas by observing the nature all around us. We often get out there to search for beauty and just take in what we see.
Do you ever train apprentices?: Only one, Goedel's daughter. She is an architect and has recently started working with us in our studio. We teach her different techniques and she contributes with her knowledge about architecture. It is a synergy that offers us new insights.
What do you love most about what you do?: The unlimited opportunities offered by porcelain and the satisfaction of touching and moving people with our work. We have fulfilled our dream: making a living from our art and making art our entire life.

Goedel Vermandere & Jan Arickx are expert artisans they began their career in 2006