Flowerbomb Purple, 8⅔ in. (22 cm) in diameter, colored Limoges porcelain, 2024.
The Early Years
My parents wanted me to have a job that would give me a stable income, so I trained as a physiotherapist. I had a flourishing practice, but something always gnawed at me because I couldn’t express my creativity. So I trained as a goldsmith in the
evenings, first at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, later with Jaap de Vries, a renowned goldsmith and sculptor, where I obtained my master’s mark.
Then in 1995 I became seriously ill—I dutifully continued to treat my patients who were also a little ill. In the meantime, I thought: “You complain about your minor ailments, but you should know how ill I actually am.” And slowly, from
one day to the next, I stopped working as a physiotherapist and sold my practice.
1 Sunset, 7⅞ in. (20 cm) in height, colored Limoges porcelain, 2019.
To slowly recover from my illness, I started taking creative courses in ceramics. Doing so, I found working with gold and gemstones was too limiting—I had all kinds of colors and shades in my head that I couldn’t realize in those mediums.
Then, I started working with clay. I learned to throw from Tineke van Gils, a well-known ceramic artist in the Netherlands. That was a revelation because I could easily shape that material to my liking, and the shapes and colors that I had in mind
I could create with my hands. I made cheerfully decorative glazed vases, which were quite successful and sold well in all kinds of small galleries in the Netherlands.
Japan and Porcelain
In 2000, I was invited to participate in an exchange program between ceramic artists in the Netherlands and Japan. That was a special experience. We visited Takoname, slept in temples in Kyoto, and of course I made friends with my Dutch colleagues. The
ceramic artist Karin Heeman is still a very good friend of mine.
In Japan, I saw how important porcelain was there and learned how the color of celadon as a glaze can enhance the power of porcelain, which is why I decided in 2005 to work exclusively with porcelain. Porcelain gave a new dimension to my work: that of
bright white and bright light, due to porcelain being bright and translucent.
2 Maria ten Kortenaar in the studio.
My Studio
I lived in the center of Amsterdam for 40 years in a typical Amsterdam house from 1720—narrow in width with many floors. My studio was in the attic, so I became very accustomed to climbing stairs.
We have been living in Zaandam for three years now, which is a city north of Amsterdam on the River Zaan, known for the windmills at the Zaanse Schans. Once again, I live in a house built after the example of the Amsterdam canal houses, but with new construction.
And in this house as well, I have made the top floor my studio space.
3 Early-morning swim in the River Zaan opposite the Monet house.
From my studio, I have an overwhelming view of the River Zaan and the houses and warehouses on the other side of the river. The back wall of my house is made entirely of glass, which makes my studio so light and spacious. The light on the houses and the
river is different every time you gaze out the windows and the colors of the rising or setting sun against the clouds shift daily. I photograph them every day and try to capture the color nuances in my work. Our garden borders the River Zaan and on
the other side is a monumental Zaan wooden house painted in the typical Zaan color (green), which is the so-called Monet house, painted in 1871 by the French impressionist Claude Monet. Monet lived in Zaandam with his wife and child for a year. He
was struck by the colors of the sky and the clouds, as bright as they were due to the proximity of the North Sea, and by the colors of the windmills and the houses. I still find it a special thought that Monet set up his easel here in our garden
in 1871, unpacked his brushes, palette, and paint tubes, and started looking at how he could portray his impression of the colors of the ripples of the water and the clouds in the sky in a painting.
In order to work very purely with porcelain, I try to keep my studio as clean and tidy as possible and don’t want any other clay in my studio. Other clay is completely taboo! I source the pigments that I mix with the porcelain from all over the
world, sometimes colleagues send me a bag of a special pigment on request. When I go to Jingdezhen, China, I always come back with large quantities of pigments. Because I may not know their origin and some pigments can be toxic, I always work with
latex gloves and wear face masks when handling them.
4 Daybreak, 6⅔ in. (17 cm) in height each, colored Limoges porcelain, 2019.5 Flowerbomb in Red and Pink, 7 in. (18 cm) in height, colored Limoges porcelain, 2023.
I fire my work in a medium-sized electric kiln measuring about 26½ in. (60 cm) in diameter and 27½
in. (70 cm) deep. I dry out the objects at a temperature of 176°F (80°C) for six hours and then increase the temperature to 2282°F (1250°C). I fire the kiln every time two pieces are ready and prefer to fire when the sun is shining
because we have solar panels on our roof. After the firing, I sand my work until smooth. It is always exciting to open the kiln because my objects sometimes crack or deform during firing. If my work isn’t 100 percent successful, which is
true for about fifteen percent, I smash it and throw it in the trash.
A Day in the Life
MORNING
I get up at about 8 o’clock and go swimming in the River Zaan via my garden. I do that all year round, even in the winter—sometimes I have to go through the ice first.
After that, I take a hot shower, of course, and then I have a quiet breakfast and read the newspaper extensively.
Then, I go to my studio, which is four flights of stairs up. I start by answering emails and going through social media. Then I mix the colors of clay and make the blocks that I think I’ll need that week. In between, I have a coffee.
AFTERNOON
Around 1pm I have lunch. A simple sandwich with tea, and if it’s not too wet, I do that outside with my cat. He likes to go outside but since his brother is gone he doesn’t want to go alone, so I play cat.
Around 2pm I go back to my studio. There I make a new slab that I can use the next day to build with or I use the slab I made the day before and start building a piece. I keep working on everything until it’s finished because this process is
not something you can stop halfway.
Then, I check my email and tidy up my studio so I can start the next day clean.
EVENING
Around 5 or 6pm I go for a walk or go grocery shopping for dinner on my bike.
When my husband comes home around 7pm, we first talk quietly about the day before we start cooking together. We eat late.
Sometimes we have friends for dinner or a visit, but if not, after dinner I read books or watch TV. At about 11pm I go to sleep.
On the weekends, I try to be free. I love to do something active like rowing on the River Zaan or taking long walks. We meet friends, go to the museum, see our kids, and play with the grandchildren.
6 Kortenaar’s house, second from the left, in the winter of 2022.
Self-Taught
As a ceramic artist, I am self-taught—I never received formal ceramics training. Especially working with porcelain, I had to learn all by myself. But, you learn from your mistakes and mistakes can lead you on unexpected paths of development. One
advantage is that I have unknowingly sought out the limits of the material and sometimes even exceeded them. For example, I use much more pigment to color my porcelain than the manuals recommend. Officially that should not be allowed, but I am very
happy with those intense colors.
I taught myself to build objects like brickwork, and later learned the term “nerikomi” was attributed to this process. I mix colored pigments through and through the porcelain to create stained bodies. I start making a slab with colored
pieces of porcelain. I cut the slab into little squares and then I “brick” these colored pieces of porcelain into a vessel. I do this by hand though, not with a potter’s wheel or in a mold. When my objects are almost dry, I scrape
them smooth by hand with a stainless steel scraper. This can be a very intensive task, as the material is still very delicate—a little too much pressure and my work is ruined. My pieces are always cylindrical because that is the purest form
of ceramics I know. I never glaze my work, because my cylinders are not flower vases, but independent objects.
My objects are more art than craft. For me, craftsmanship is mainly the means. The goal is to translate my emotions and impressions into an object, but craftsmanship is still very important. Building up the components square by square, one by one requires
a lot of skill and great concentration—you have to have exactly the right humidity to ensure that the pieces stick together well and do not crack during firing. Porcelain does not really help with that, because porcelain has a memory. It remembers
its previous shape and resists major deformation. Working with porcelain well requires almost surgical precision—if I have not worked for a time, for example, because we have been on holiday, I lose that skill for a while and the vases fail
or deform.
I am not a production ceramic artist who has to produce large quantities of work to make a living. I work five days a week in my studio and sometimes also on the weekend. I work on one object for about half a week, so I cannot produce more than 80 pieces in
a year. But then they are all sold, sometimes in advance, so I don’t have any pieces in stock. In my studio, there are only a few works that I am so attached to that I don’t want to part with them. In addition to creating my work, I give
masterclasses a few times a year, for example at La Meridiana in Italy.
7 View from Kortenaar’s workspace.
International Market
When I won the Special Prize at the South Korean Biennale in 2009, I was invited to exhibitions in Chicago, Paris, Hong Kong, and Beijing. I realized that ceramics are much more highly regarded abroad than in the Netherlands, which is why I decided not
to focus on my Dutch home base, but to enter the international market. Since then, I have been selling my work in galleries such as Le Don du Fel in France, Kellie Miller Art in England, Sanbao Gallery in China, and Galerie Handwerk in Germany.
I am a member of the AIC-IAC (International Academy of Ceramics), which is the community of fellow professionals that I spend the most time with. We have a lot of contact via social media. I have a website because I believe that you should present yourself
well. Fortunately, my son is an IT specialist, and he always helps me to set up the website properly and place new photos and text.
At conferences, festivals, and exhibitions, I meet colleagues from all over the world. I try to be especially kind and generous to colleagues—the goodwill factor is very important in international contacts, we help each other out. With a group of
ceramic artists from the AIC-IAC from the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg (three countries that are next to each other and have long historical ties), we organized the exhibition “Fusion of Visions” that will premiere soon and will
travel throughout Western Europe.
Career Snapshot
YEARS AS A PROFESSIONAL POTTER 24 years
NUMBER OF POTS MADE IN A YEAR 80 max
EDUCATION Gerrit Rietveld Academie, as a goldsmith, 1985 Self-taught as a ceramic artist
THE TIME IT TAKES (PERCENTAGES) Making: 90% Communication: 10%
8 In the Pond, 9 in. (23 cm) in diameter, colored Limoges porcelain, 2025.
Ethos
I sign my work with a drawing of my face with the name Maria ten Kortenaar underneath. In my work, I show who I am. What moves me? What makes me happy or sad? That could be a beautiful sunset on one of my travels or a poem that touches me. It could also
be the death of a good friend or the beauty of a flower garden.
Hence my statement:
You’re on the outside, looking inside, what do you see? reflections and emotions, that’s probably me!
Advice to New Artists
I have noticed that clear choices can help you further your career. This became apparent in my decision to only work with porcelain and also in the decision to opt for the international market. Because my work is so labor intensive, quality is more important
to me than quantity, so I have chosen not to produce in large quantities. Such choices provide direction in my artistic development and the clarity I experience is welcome.
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The Early Years
My parents wanted me to have a job that would give me a stable income, so I trained as a physiotherapist. I had a flourishing practice, but something always gnawed at me because I couldn’t express my creativity. So I trained as a goldsmith in the evenings, first at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, later with Jaap de Vries, a renowned goldsmith and sculptor, where I obtained my master’s mark.
Then in 1995 I became seriously ill—I dutifully continued to treat my patients who were also a little ill. In the meantime, I thought: “You complain about your minor ailments, but you should know how ill I actually am.” And slowly, from one day to the next, I stopped working as a physiotherapist and sold my practice.
To slowly recover from my illness, I started taking creative courses in ceramics. Doing so, I found working with gold and gemstones was too limiting—I had all kinds of colors and shades in my head that I couldn’t realize in those mediums. Then, I started working with clay. I learned to throw from Tineke van Gils, a well-known ceramic artist in the Netherlands. That was a revelation because I could easily shape that material to my liking, and the shapes and colors that I had in mind I could create with my hands. I made cheerfully decorative glazed vases, which were quite successful and sold well in all kinds of small galleries in the Netherlands.
Japan and Porcelain
In 2000, I was invited to participate in an exchange program between ceramic artists in the Netherlands and Japan. That was a special experience. We visited Takoname, slept in temples in Kyoto, and of course I made friends with my Dutch colleagues. The ceramic artist Karin Heeman is still a very good friend of mine.
In Japan, I saw how important porcelain was there and learned how the color of celadon as a glaze can enhance the power of porcelain, which is why I decided in 2005 to work exclusively with porcelain. Porcelain gave a new dimension to my work: that of bright white and bright light, due to porcelain being bright and translucent.
My Studio
I lived in the center of Amsterdam for 40 years in a typical Amsterdam house from 1720—narrow in width with many floors. My studio was in the attic, so I became very accustomed to climbing stairs.
We have been living in Zaandam for three years now, which is a city north of Amsterdam on the River Zaan, known for the windmills at the Zaanse Schans. Once again, I live in a house built after the example of the Amsterdam canal houses, but with new construction. And in this house as well, I have made the top floor my studio space.
From my studio, I have an overwhelming view of the River Zaan and the houses and warehouses on the other side of the river. The back wall of my house is made entirely of glass, which makes my studio so light and spacious. The light on the houses and the river is different every time you gaze out the windows and the colors of the rising or setting sun against the clouds shift daily. I photograph them every day and try to capture the color nuances in my work. Our garden borders the River Zaan and on the other side is a monumental Zaan wooden house painted in the typical Zaan color (green), which is the so-called Monet house, painted in 1871 by the French impressionist Claude Monet. Monet lived in Zaandam with his wife and child for a year. He was struck by the colors of the sky and the clouds, as bright as they were due to the proximity of the North Sea, and by the colors of the windmills and the houses. I still find it a special thought that Monet set up his easel here in our garden in 1871, unpacked his brushes, palette, and paint tubes, and started looking at how he could portray his impression of the colors of the ripples of the water and the clouds in the sky in a painting.
In order to work very purely with porcelain, I try to keep my studio as clean and tidy as possible and don’t want any other clay in my studio. Other clay is completely taboo! I source the pigments that I mix with the porcelain from all over the world, sometimes colleagues send me a bag of a special pigment on request. When I go to Jingdezhen, China, I always come back with large quantities of pigments. Because I may not know their origin and some pigments can be toxic, I always work with latex gloves and wear face masks when handling them.
I fire my work in a medium-sized electric kiln measuring about 26½ in. (60 cm) in diameter and 27½ in. (70 cm) deep. I dry out the objects at a temperature of 176°F (80°C) for six hours and then increase the temperature to 2282°F (1250°C). I fire the kiln every time two pieces are ready and prefer to fire when the sun is shining because we have solar panels on our roof. After the firing, I sand my work until smooth. It is always exciting to open the kiln because my objects sometimes crack or deform during firing. If my work isn’t 100 percent successful, which is true for about fifteen percent, I smash it and throw it in the trash.
A Day in the Life
MORNING
AFTERNOON
EVENING
Self-Taught
As a ceramic artist, I am self-taught—I never received formal ceramics training. Especially working with porcelain, I had to learn all by myself. But, you learn from your mistakes and mistakes can lead you on unexpected paths of development. One advantage is that I have unknowingly sought out the limits of the material and sometimes even exceeded them. For example, I use much more pigment to color my porcelain than the manuals recommend. Officially that should not be allowed, but I am very happy with those intense colors.
I taught myself to build objects like brickwork, and later learned the term “nerikomi” was attributed to this process. I mix colored pigments through and through the porcelain to create stained bodies. I start making a slab with colored pieces of porcelain. I cut the slab into little squares and then I “brick” these colored pieces of porcelain into a vessel. I do this by hand though, not with a potter’s wheel or in a mold. When my objects are almost dry, I scrape them smooth by hand with a stainless steel scraper. This can be a very intensive task, as the material is still very delicate—a little too much pressure and my work is ruined. My pieces are always cylindrical because that is the purest form of ceramics I know. I never glaze my work, because my cylinders are not flower vases, but independent objects.
My objects are more art than craft. For me, craftsmanship is mainly the means. The goal is to translate my emotions and impressions into an object, but craftsmanship is still very important. Building up the components square by square, one by one requires a lot of skill and great concentration—you have to have exactly the right humidity to ensure that the pieces stick together well and do not crack during firing. Porcelain does not really help with that, because porcelain has a memory. It remembers its previous shape and resists major deformation. Working with porcelain well requires almost surgical precision—if I have not worked for a time, for example, because we have been on holiday, I lose that skill for a while and the vases fail or deform.
I am not a production ceramic artist who has to produce large quantities of work to make a living. I work five days a week in my studio and sometimes also on the weekend. I work on one object for about half a week, so I cannot produce more than 80 pieces in a year. But then they are all sold, sometimes in advance, so I don’t have any pieces in stock. In my studio, there are only a few works that I am so attached to that I don’t want to part with them. In addition to creating my work, I give masterclasses a few times a year, for example at La Meridiana in Italy.
International Market
When I won the Special Prize at the South Korean Biennale in 2009, I was invited to exhibitions in Chicago, Paris, Hong Kong, and Beijing. I realized that ceramics are much more highly regarded abroad than in the Netherlands, which is why I decided not to focus on my Dutch home base, but to enter the international market. Since then, I have been selling my work in galleries such as Le Don du Fel in France, Kellie Miller Art in England, Sanbao Gallery in China, and Galerie Handwerk in Germany.
I am a member of the AIC-IAC (International Academy of Ceramics), which is the community of fellow professionals that I spend the most time with. We have a lot of contact via social media. I have a website because I believe that you should present yourself well. Fortunately, my son is an IT specialist, and he always helps me to set up the website properly and place new photos and text.
At conferences, festivals, and exhibitions, I meet colleagues from all over the world. I try to be especially kind and generous to colleagues—the goodwill factor is very important in international contacts, we help each other out. With a group of ceramic artists from the AIC-IAC from the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg (three countries that are next to each other and have long historical ties), we organized the exhibition “Fusion of Visions” that will premiere soon and will travel throughout Western Europe.
Career Snapshot
YEARS AS A PROFESSIONAL POTTER
24 years
NUMBER OF POTS MADE IN A YEAR
80 max
EDUCATION
Gerrit Rietveld Academie, as a goldsmith, 1985
Self-taught as a ceramic artist
THE TIME IT TAKES (PERCENTAGES) Making: 90%
Communication: 10%
FAVORITE TOOL
A good knife
PROCESS
Nerikomi (inlaid porcelain)
WHERE IT GOES
Galleries: 90%
Private Sales: 10%
WHERE TO SEE MORE
Le Don de Fel, Le Fel, France, www.ledondufel.com
Kellie Miller Arts, Brighton, Great Britain, www.kelliemillerarts.com
Galerie Arte Nuovo, Zutphen, The Netherlands, www.artenuovo.nl
Galerie Handwerk, München, Germany, www.hwk-muenchen.de/galerie
Sanbao Art Gallery, at Sanbao Ceramic Art Institute Jingdezhen, China
LEARN MORE
www.mariatenkortenaar.com
Facebook: maria.tenkortenaar
Instagram: @mariatenkortenaar
Ethos
I sign my work with a drawing of my face with the name Maria ten Kortenaar underneath. In my work, I show who I am. What moves me? What makes me happy or sad? That could be a beautiful sunset on one of my travels or a poem that touches me. It could also be the death of a good friend or the beauty of a flower garden.
Hence my statement:
You’re on the outside, looking inside,
what do you see?
reflections and emotions,
that’s probably me!
Advice to New Artists
I have noticed that clear choices can help you further your career. This became apparent in my decision to only work with porcelain and also in the decision to opt for the international market. Because my work is so labor intensive, quality is more important to me than quantity, so I have chosen not to produce in large quantities. Such choices provide direction in my artistic development and the clarity I experience is welcome.
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