Metro stations in Paris: "Miel"

One year ago I was at Cité International des Art in Paris doing a recidency. I spent a many Wednesdays at Sévres archives and I still have a lot to write about the findings from the archive. To get around, the obvious way was to take a metro. At the stations there is the honey color glazed decorative tiles around the big advertisement porters and even lovelier deco on top of the frames (as seen in the photos). In French the glaze is called "Miel" for honey. 

There is a tiny plaque in one of the metro stations, which I tried to search every time exiting a metro shuffling around the city, which tells a bit of the history of the Miel glaze. The plaque was put there to celebrate the 100 years of Paris metro (1900-2000). In 1920's to 1930's the ceramics companies around the area made the tiles. Note the classic metro tile, as well!

Book about the exhibition at Princessehof Ceramics Museum

 

Still a month to see the Porcelain Fever exhibition in Leeuwarden, The Netherlands. They have a lovely publication about the exhibition as well. It's the history of European porcelain between the covers of one book, accompanied with great photos of the objects exhibited at the museum. The book is written in Dutch but translated in English. 

A Ruan Hoffmann original in Café de Dokter in Amsterdam

There is a thing in Amsterdam called Bruin Café (Brown Cafés) and it's an old bar that has still cigarette stained walls and smudged paintings on these walls. It's said that it almost sacrilege to refurnish or clean so they stay this way. On our trip we bumped into one on a secret alley and of course went in! 

It was cozy and crowded and we just got two empty seats at the end of the bar's zinc. The place was so tiny that we were asked to move for a little while from our seats since the owner needed to access the cellar which was under a trapdoor on the floor. 

But, I noticed it immediately that there was a Ruan Hoffmann original on the wall designated for the place. I absolutely loved it!

 

Ceramic Museum Princessehof in Leeuwaarden, The Neatherlands

During our trip to Amsterdam to see Marina Abramovic's retrospective and re-performed pieces (by artists from Abramovic institute, yes, the piece was exhibited were you can squeeze through two nudes between columns) we took a two hour train trip to Leeuwarden where there is a ceramic museum in a place that has previously served as a castle for the Princess of Orange. 

The permanent collection is vast and the mini temporary exhibitions were very interesting. 

Even though the permanent collection wasn't the main reason to visit the lovely town of Leeuwarden: they had put together an exhibition of Augustus the Strong and Madame Pompadour's ceramics with loans from Dresden and Sèvres. I have been a frequent visitor in Sèvres during my Paris trips but I have never seen many of the exhibited pieces! And even if I have been a visitor in Sèvres archives I haven't been able to touch the notebook which they were showcasing. During the first three months they showed the formula for pâte tendre (soft paste porcelain) and apparently, we visited the museum during the last three, since they were showcasing it on the pages where there's secrets (tiny hand writing in French) about pigments/stains. In Sèvres I had an opportunity to flip through notes from the 18th century. And the news form the exhibition (about the note book too) were form The French Porcelain Society's Livingroom Lecture, as a member you will receive the latest news. 

The exhibition is on in Ceramic Museum of Princessehof in Leeuwarden in The Neatherlands until September 1st 2024. 

Thesis: Hartsikipsin käyttö ja värjäys keramiikan konservoinnissa - Case Jasperkeramiikka

My Bachelor Thesis (Metropolia 2024) is now on Theseus. It's in Finnish, but you can find the abstract in English.

Graduating as a conservator from Metropolia, Helsinki

 

Yesterday I left my thesis to be evaluated, so I'll be graduating next month as a conservator (of ceramics). My thesis is a study, if resin plaster can be used and dyed for the needs of conservation of ceramics. It is a case study to conserve this though-dyed ceramic, Wedgwood's tobacco jar. Upper photos are before treatments and the last photo is a detailed photo of conservation trial. I don't think that using resin plaster was too successful in this case, and since the resin plaster is needed to cast once right, it needs understanding and practical skills. It's not a minimal intervention type of a ceramics conservation process, but the object is mine!

Ketchup, chocolate sauce, pee soup

I created a new video, it can be found on Vimeo.

The Dresden Porcelain Project

The Dresden's Porcelain Collection by Augustus the Strong has been cataloged and it will be launched on this date!

Fermée est ouvert!

 

www.fermee.fi

Fermée does not have a web store or retailer yet, but if interested in buying one or Fermée creations, contact the maker: veera.s.tamminen (at) gmail.com!

Fermée is Nordic design from Finland. It has basics in the minimalistic, organic shapes that are cast in black clay and glazed in lushious white opaque glaze. All products are hand made and are unique.

Fermée is a manufactory single handed by a ceramicist, an artist and a designer Veera Tamminen. She creates her designs by hand in small batches in her studio in Finland.

The logo is inspired by pirate ships, since royal companies and their ships used to ship only finest porcelain. What would've pirate ships ship to the ports? 

Gallery Fogga's Christmas December 9th to 22nd 2023

 

Warmly welcome to the opening of our Christmas exhibition "Foggan Joulu" at Gallery Fogga in Helsinki December 9th 2023 at 6pm to 8pm! 

Foggan Joulu group exhibition December 9th to 22nd 2023 together with: 

Asta Caplan, Susanna Eskola, Anna Mikaela Jaanti, Ulla Kihlman, Kristiina Nikkola,

Aulikki Nukala, Eeva Saunio, Marjo-Riikka Stenius, Veera Tamminen.

Link II Opening October 26th 2023 in Stockholm

 

Link exhibition by Artists O and Fiber Art Sweden will have an opening on Thursday October 26th 2023 at 3pm at HV Galleri in Stockholm. Warmly welcome! More info in Finnish: https://artists-o.fi/fi/ajankohtaista/ilmo/lank-link-linkki-2

Blue Fruit Exotique 2023

 

Another artwork for our Stockholm exhibition next October is called Blue Fruit Exotique and here's what I have said about it: 

Blue Fruit Exotique 2023

porcelain, photographs

“Once, I had a dream of the blue fruits, and that I bought them from a market. It was definitely a dream that I wanted to remember, even if someone would have made me dream that dream.” The performative photographs were shot in Marais, Paris.

BUNNY 2023

I am now at Cité as one of the resident artists in Paris and I'm working full speed for our exhibition that will be had in Stockholm this October. Finnish Artists O and Fiber Art Sweden had joined their forces again and we are having our second group exhibition together at HV Galleri. 

The artwork BUNNY (2023) is about following: 

pâte modeler autodurcissante, photographs

Ten years ago during Cité residency period Tamminen had a nightmare about herself holding a bunny with shedding bambi fur. The nightmare was dreamt only a couple days before Tamminen’s first signs of schizophrenia. Ten years later she’s back at Cité creating a series of performative artworks where the bunny follows her from waking up after the nightmare. The photographs are full of intertextual references in Tamminen’s own previous artworks as well as popular culture such as films (Jim Jarmusch’s Coffee and Cigarettes) and comics (where Mickey Mouse can’t get rid of the marble elephant). The bunny symbolizes the main voice, George, and how the voice follows her everywhere.

NOIR COMING SOON 2023

Charlottenburg castle, Berlin

A S-bahn ride away from the city center there is a baroque castle which exhibits a Chinoiserie room with a maladie du porcelaine collection of Chinese import ceramics of the Queen of Prussia. 

The castle is a sight to see but for me the porcelain collection was worth a trip. The castle is quided by and audioquide in English, room by room.

In the more modestly decorated upper floor there's both Meissen collection of porcelain and a silver collection. The crown jewelry was taken to somewhere else the moment I visited - probably to be conserved or to be exhibited somewhere else.

Meissen

In a picturesque town by a local train from Dresden there's the mecca of German porcelain.

The museum and factory complex offers a good insight to the foundation of German porcelain. Indeed the Augustus the Strong commissioned the Alchemist Böttger to find white gold. He did, but first attempt was a chocolate brown basalt which is used in the factory even these days.

The museum is the cousin for Sèvres because of the squickly floors, but represents only Meissen miracles - as Sèvres museum has ceramics from all around the world.

Don't get this wrong since the museum was quite vast. The delicate porcelain flower vases, the clockworks and the serving ware are all displayed.

The contemporary exhibition section had Chris Antermann's residency creations that were the usual and amazing works of her's.

The next early morning I took the factory tour that was entirely in German. If you know anything about the porcelain manufacturing you'd be fine. A little interlingua of Anglo-Saxon languages works too. I don't speak any German but I can order my espresso with sugar, bitte.

The tour started with pools where the locally mined kaolin is made into clay. This was my first touch with Meissen porcelain since I got to stirr the pool. The quide was kind enough to ask me in English.

The factory tour continued to the casting department where I got to touch the discarded version of cast sphere forms. The factory workers were very young females and the male workers cast with the bigger forms - the heavier molds.

The factory tour was very thorough since we got to see the modelling department and the form archive. The tour was indeed in German but as I heard they have a sertain amount of minutes for each sculpture - that collectors buy.

The tour continued to the chinapaint department and lastly to the more factory type part of the complex where they still glazed everything by hand. They made sure that we understood that every part of the making process involves hand made. And that's where the price of the ware comes from.

The museum and factory complex has a outlet where they sell first quality with reduced prices. I bought an delicate shaped coffee cup with a saucer because I definitely wanted something with a blue double swords mark.