Onka Allmayer-Beck
Ceramicist
Vienna, Austria
From fashion to ceramics, a path towards more colour
- Onka uses bright colours to craft design ceramics
- She draws inspiration from daily life
- She loves exchanging about her craft with young people
Onka Allmayer-Beck, a graduate of Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design at the University of the Arts London, spent over a decade in Milan as a fashion designer, working for icons like Giorgio Armani. After leaving her job, Onka invested in a potter's wheel and kiln. She hunted for a ceramics teacher and a thorough search led her to a master craftsman from Milan. For a year, Onka underwent rigorous training, her mentor relentlessly pushing her to improve by repeatedly dismantling her work. During a cultural exchange trip to Russia, Onka discovered coil and slab building techniques, which ignited her passion for pottery. She refrains from naming her creations, opting for numbers instead. This helps her to maintain an emotional distance from her pieces which she says facilitates parting with and selling her works.
INTERVIEW
I have always loved working with natural products. In the past, it was leather, and now it is leather-hard clay. These materials can be manipulated to a point, but eventually, you must release them to let them take their own form.
I choose colours only after firing, based on the object's overall impact. Most of my objects feature bold, flat colours that come to life with changes in daylight.
First, have a passion. Do not do something just because it is cool on Instagram. Second, educate yourself financially. Know how to run a business, how to do accounting. Thirdly, have a bit more stamina than many people have these days. Stick with it, learn, look, be curious – and ask questions.
Inspiration can come from anything in daily life: the gutter on a wall during your commute, the tile on a church floor, or the cellulite bumps in a baroque painting of a nude. You just have to observe. Everything you see can be implemented directly.
