Ana Illueca is standing in her studio in her mud-colored overalls, with a vat of slops in front of her. She has planted her feet on the ground, using both hands to knead the grey-brown mass, which is the same color as her suit. Illueca is so immersed in her work that at first she doesn’t even hear you coming. Only after a while does she turn around, laugh out loud and raise her smeared hands. Later she will say that in this state she has found her fulfilment. The Schlonz in front of her has a big part in it.
On this mild winter day, Ana Illueca is recycling clay. In their workshop in the Spanish coastal city of Valencia, there should be as little waste as possible. That’s why clay leftovers from her work or from the courses she gives once a week are dried, crumbled and then kneaded with water to form fresh clay. It’s tough work. “A work that grounds,” says Illueca. It also gives you stomach muscles, she says and laughs again.
Ana Illueca no longer felt comfortable in advertising, and pottery had “given her back her dignity”.
(Photo: Ana Illueca)
Ana Illueca is one of the best-known ceramists in Spain today. She used to work in advertising and was really just looking for a hobby where you can switch off your head and feel your body. A bit like yoga, only a lot more obvious. After all, the 48-year-old comes from Valencia, where ceramics have been fired, basically since the Neolithic Age. That’s how old the pieces found in the region are; Vessels in which people kept water and food even then.
A hobby became much more: Ana Illueca was no longer happy with her marketing job, seven years ago she swapped it for the potter’s wheel. The “Dignity” mug was one of her first works as a freelance ceramist. “This cup should give me back my dignity,” says Illueca, taking a copy with both hands from the shelf where they are for sale in her studio. Like all of her works, “Dignity” is also hand-made, every irregularity a proof of authenticity.
The artist has also designed vases for Hermès
Illueca has sparingly painted the cup with self-created paints, the colors are Mediterranean, reflecting the Mediterranean Sea, the Spanish sun and the fertile soil around Valencia. Nothing about “Dignity” is dainty or cute. The oversized handle is large enough to comfortably slide your hand through. “This cup is designed in such a way that you can hold on to it in the morning at breakfast, that you like to hug it and feel hugged by it,” is how Ana Illueca describes her design.
This year Valencia adorns itself with the title “World Design Capital” and advertises above all with its ceramic art. Illueca’s studio, spacious and full of light, is not far from the port, and walk-in customers don’t stop by. She doesn’t need them either: her shop window can be found on Instagram. She now makes crockery for star restaurants and designs vases for the luxury label Hermès. The fashion label ordered a mini collection of seven different vases as gifts for last summer’s fashion shows. Illueca had complete freedom in the design, she called the vases “Touch me” because their soft surface immediately invites the viewer to touch them.
53 euros for a cup? A good 300 euros for a flower pot? Illueca says her work moves on the border between art and craft. Some of her customers have both Ikea tableware at home and a single mug from her studio. “At some point I realized that the price is decisive for how people look at my objects,” she says. She knows all about marketing.
A story for each piece: Here the “mediterranean bits” tell about the lockdown in spring 2020.
(Photo: Ana Illueca)
Her customers get a story and a concept for each of her pieces. For example, there are small square tiles that Illueca called “Mediterranean bits”. They were created during the Corona lockdown in spring 2020, when you were not even allowed to leave the house in Spain. All shops, with the exception of supermarkets and pharmacies, were closed at the time. “I was lucky enough to be able to work with the blinds down, but I gradually ran out of material,” she says. It was a claustrophobic feeling. The remains of clay that she still had were so rough and sharp-edged that they cut her hands while pottering. So she cast tiles and painted them with blue cobalt and green copper. For Ana Illueca, they stand for the sea and a little bit for the hope that things will go up again.
Artisanal ceramics are very popular, and not just those from small workshops like Ana Illueca. Larger ceramic manufacturers such as the labels Motel a Miio or Companhia Atlântica from Portugal are now known throughout Europe. This trend reflects the renaissance of domesticity. Amplified by the pandemic, which has reduced the radius of life, more and more people recognize the value of surrounding themselves with beautiful things in everyday life.
Illueca thinks it’s better to have just a cup than dishes that don’t mean anything to you
Ana Illueca is also about appreciating private moments. She would rather have just one cup, which she rinses after each use, than a lot of dishes that mean nothing to her, she thinks. “Everyone in our house has their own mug. My son would never think of using mine.”
Ana Illueca’s most important tools include not only her hands and the potter’s wheel – but also an Excel spreadsheet full of cryptic abbreviations. In it she writes down the recipes for her colours. Illueca developed the composition of the paints itself, whether matt, semi-translucent or richly glossy. It is an experiment, a lot of chemistry and a bit of mathematics. After all, the ash of an orange tree turns a completely different brown than that of an olive tree.
Xavier Monsalvatje also deals with the history of the colors, which are not only applied to the clay, but are also burned into it and merge with it during firing. His studio is just outside of Valencia, two rooms, half workshop, half library, both a big mess. And therefore not as Instagram-compatible as Ana Illueca’s studio.
Old technology, new imaging: that fascinates Xavier Monsalvatje
Like Illueca, Xavier Monsalvatje comes from Valencia. The two have known each other for years and belong to a generation of ceramic artists who are stirring up the old craft, which is deeply rooted in the region. However, Monsalvatje is not about making vessels on the potter’s wheel yourself. Rather, he is interested in what comes on the sound: namely a story.
Xavier Monsalvatje makes tea and turns on a small electric heater. It’s drafty, because in his studio he keeps the doors on both sides of the small house open, the cool wind is supposed to drive away the aerosols. The 56-year-old studied at the University of Applied Arts in Valencia, but even as a student he earned his pocket money in one of the local ceramic factories. There he sprayed dishes with paint, bland industrial goods. Maybe that’s why he’s an asthmatic today, he says. But his fascination with the material has stayed with him.
Keep two meters distance! The covid plates with secret message on the back by Xavier Monsalvatje.
(Photo: Xavier Monsalvatje)
The technique that currently inspires him the most is the so-called Socarrat. This actually refers to clay tiles that were made as early as the Middle Ages, always provided with a white primer, which was then painted on with red and black pigments. Xavier Monsalvatje takes individual elements from the ancient illustrations and places them in a new, contemporary context. He tells stories from our present that are always a bit dystopian: Sometimes workers stand blindfolded on the assembly line while a hand with a syringe pulls their thoughts out of their heads. Sometimes people wear gas masks because the exhaust clouds around them suffocate them. Climate crisis, migration and capitalism are the major themes in Monsalvatje’s work, which has already been shown in exhibitions in Great Britain, Japan, Germany, Taiwan and Canada.
The aesthetics of his brush drawings are reminiscent of Chaplin’s “Modern Times” or comics. The special thing about it is that the often narrative drawings are applied to a material that is as fragile as it is durable, such as ceramics, says Monsalvatje. This makes it not far removed from those vases on which the ancient Greeks recorded events of contemporary history. Just drawing on paper wasn’t appealing enough for him, he says.
The pandemic is also reflected in his work, and he has dedicated a series to it. “The Covid plates are quite a success,” said Xavier Monsalvatje. The highlight: The back of the plate, which is also painted, questions what can be seen on the front. He borrowed the idea from the ancient Arabs, who often had secret messages on the backs of their plates. He has already sold his Covid plates to London, Paris and the USA. However, there are not many collectors of ceramics.
It looks like a commodity, but it isn’t: the toilet bowl by Monsalvatje from Valencia.
(Photo: Xavier Montsalvatje/David Wallace)
Xavier Monsalvatje has nothing to do with ceramics as a commodity, as Ana Illueca fascinates her. His works of art cannot be used as tableware, although as vases or plates they can be considered everyday objects; he has even painted a toilet bowl before. On each piece, the artist notes the current price of oil and gold on the day it was completed. He wants to create contemporary documents that outlast the present.
And that is exactly what the works of Xavier Monsalvatje and Ana Illueca have in common: they feel their roots here in Valencia – and as a matter of course turn the tradition of ceramic art of their homeland upside down.