Homo Faber logo
Ependes-Fribourg, Switzerland

Peter Fink

Potsfink
Ceramicist

Reshaping the world through craft

  • Peter has worked with renowned designers and artists
  • He feels crafts enable us to reshape the world
  • He is passionate about passing on his knowledge

Peter Fink may not have a degree in his craft, but he does have three decades of experience. His passion for working with clay was sparked during a ceramics workshop in the Eifel mountains, Germany. “I was able to witness a traditional salt firing at its peak. The mixture of tradition and technique, the art of creating intricately glazed ceramics just from wood, salt and earth in a very simple way fascinated me so much that I wanted to follow this path to see where it would lead me," he says. Thirty years later, Peter has become an internationally renowned ceramicist whose expertise and understanding of the material are often sought out by others looking for help in realising their ideas.


Interview

©Nina Mann
©Adele Wingo
When did you start your workshop?
In 1985 I was able to take over a small, well equipped workshop, which over the years became a larger company with very practical and modern equipment. Today we have the resources and capabilities to realise almost any idea.
How important is independence to you?
It is very important. I think independence is a major aspect of becoming a craftsman as it enables you to reshape the world around you according to your ideas, it is a chance to express and assert oneself.
Do you train apprentices?
I do. It takes four years. It has long been a concern of mine to pass on my profession to the next generation. It seems absolutely necessary to me to pass on the knowledge and the attitude behind the craft, because only a craft which is practised in depth, which is alive, is a craft that has a future.
So apprenticeships are a way of keeping these skills alive?
It is also about the accessibility of knowledge. It appears to me that a high level of craftsmanship is increasingly limited to fewer and fewer people, which I think is worrying.
Peter Fink is a master artisan: he began his career in 1980 and he started teaching in 1986

Where


Peter Fink

Address: Route du Petit-Ependes 3, 1731, Ependes-Fribourg, Switzerland
Hours: By appointment only
Phone: +41 264134442
Languages: French, German, English, Spanish
Homo Faber
Receive inspiring craft discoveries
Presented by
Terms of useCookiesCopyrightsPrivacy policyContact info