Introducing Stella Baraklianou
Who are you? Plug your social media and/or shop!
I have a website, I might be setting up a shop soon but I’m not quite there yet. I do sell prints and stuff just when people ask me.
I mainly do photography - that’s my practice - and I came to Sunken Studio in October 2021 and the aim was to expand my practice because I’ve found I’ve become a bit repetitive as the main thing I shoot in the studio is still life. I remembered I’d done a residency in Canada at BANFF centre in 2016 and I had a dabble with clay and ceramics through another artist that was there. I was put on a floor with ceramicists and I just loved it and always wanted to go back. It’s taken five or six years but here I am.
Share one pottery goal you have for 2022.
Make as much as possible!
What sparked your love affair with clay?
The materiality and I think being in lock down it was great to move away from the screen and just be able to be tactile and play. Clay is just so stress relieving and nice.
Has a pot ever broken your heart?
All the time, I think when I first started here and got back working with clay again, I’d been doing photography which is all very fast compared to ceramics. I hadn’t realised the process, and through that process that you lose a lot of stuff. It was a learning curve because I stopped being so precious about one thing. Through that I just thought you’ve got to be making a lot more, now in my mind I’ve got this production schedule which is way beyond what I thought I’d be here to do.
What are your favourite and least favourite parts of the pottery process?
I’ve heard from a lot of people that glazing is the worst but clearly I enjoy that as well. I think testing the different stages of clay - these still lifes that I make are made from soft, soft clay and there are some parts that require leather hard clay. It’s just a lot of stages, the transformation that goes. Then the bisque firing - it’s all very exciting. It kind of reminds me, in a weird way, of doing black and white photography in the dark room and there would be these three stages that I don’t have anymore. This to me has become a strange transfer of the dark room activity but into clay.
How have any of your other hobbies/interests influenced your work?
I look at a lot of art, I teach art, is there anything I do that’s not art? I just find myself reading and looking at things, even just anything that happens. Today I saw the first crocus flowers had sprung, and I think you can be looking at all these things and taking in whatever’s around you spontaneously and I think that’s the most important thing.
Tell us about an artist/ceramicist you look up to.
A lot, funnily enough Betty Woodman who I think you mentioned in a previous newsletter. I have been influenced a lot by Mai Thu Perret, she’s a very contemporary artist who does a lot of crossovers between textiles and ceramics which is what a lot of artists are doing. She’s been into baskets and weaving which is another little strand of what I’ve been doing.
Describe your relationship with clay in one word.
Reactive. That game - it gives and takes and that’s rewarding!
Finally, can you recommend a podcast/book or something you’ve watched that has inspired you recently?
There are artists' podcasts and I’ve loved listening to them recently. There’s one called Talk Art - an excellent podcast that I highly recommend.
