Inge Nielsen + Mud&Leaves
Inge Nielsen is a name that will need little introduction for many tea lovers. A Danish potter working in Brussels, Inge studied pottery in Taipei. She makes a variety of stoneware vessels, but has become known primarily for her teaware - beautiful and functional pieces sized perfectly for Chinese tea sessions.
Her work has been featured in professional competitions, galleries and museums, including:
- 2016 – Selected Work, Taiwan Golden Teapot Competition 6th Edition, Yingge Ceramic Museum, Taiwan
- 2018 – Selected Work, Taiwan Golden Teapot Competition 7th Edition, Taipei, Taiwan
- 2022 – Selected Work, NCECA Juried Functional Teapot show 2nd Edition, Elliot Fouts Gallery, Sacramento, USA
We have long been admirers of her art and were very happy to be able to showcase her work here at Mud&Leaves. We were also very interested in her process, and Inge was kind enough to discuss it with us.
Mud&Leaves: How did you get started in ceramics?
Inge Nielsen: I got started in ceramics quite late in life. In 2009, when I was living in Taipei with my husband and our toddler twins, I scoured the city for places to learn throwing on the pottery wheel. Due to a dip in the economy, lots of studios had closed their doors. I consider it a stroke of luck that I was able to start at the Huayan studio of potter Zheng Deyong, and that I could stay there for more than three years. We worked in stoneware only (no porcelain) and fired in electric and gas kilns (no woodfire). Laoshi was skilled at teaching technique, and functionality was always an important consideration. The excited studio banter after a kiln opening has stayed in my head ever since and helps me keep high standards for new work. When I returned to Belgium in 2013, I set up my own studio, venturing into porcelain, clay mixing, glaze making as well as firing, with a strong focus on teapot making.
Mud&Leaves: Do you enjoy drinking tea? If so, what is your preferred tea + tea vessel combination?
Inge Nielsen: I love drinking tea, but I would not call myself a “teahead.” Most of my customers are far more knowledgeable about tea than I am. I have a strong preference for high mountain wulongs from Taiwan, and Assam-derived red teas from Taiwan. I have not truly discovered a liking for pu’er or green tea yet. At home, I drink wulongs from medium-thick walled porcelain teapots. For hongcha I like unglazed iron clay, especially one particular clay mix that I fire in my gas kiln. These days, I do not offer unglazed teapots for sale, because they are obviously more of a curiosity and far inferior to Yixing and other Asian clays.
Mud&Leaves: Do you mix your own clays and glazes? Do you have a favourite clay recipe or glaze?
Inge Nielsen: I mix my own clays and glazes from commercially available sources. There are many wonderful commercial clays available, but I find that mixing my own clays allows me to better control the clay-to-glaze shrinkage and depth of the glazes. The clay body, its colour and structure, affects the look of the glaze enormously, so much that at times it can seem unbelievable that the same glaze can look so different. My favourite clay mix is “dirty porcelain,” a mix of Limoges porcelain and a local iron-bearing grogged clay from a quarry not far from my home here in Belgium. It appears very delicate with a light toasty colour that gets a nice hue from gas firings, and I find that many of my glazes, such as jun, nuka, tenmoku, guan, and oak ash glazes look particularly wonderful on this clay.
Tenmoku and Juka (Jun + Nuka) glazed dirty porcelain:
Mud&Leaves: Could you tell me how the lovely “juka” (jun + nuka) glaze came about?
Inge Nielsen: The junka or ju-ka glaze is a 1:1 mix of a so-called "reconstituted nuka" glaze (real nuka has different ingredients and fires much hotter), and a jun glaze. Both of these glazes were successful in Taiwan, but didn't look great here in Belgium. The nuka was too flat and white, and the jun wasn’t blue enough. After a while I tried mixing the two glazes together, and it was a winner. I would still like to fix the crazing, but changing the recipe may well adversely affect the colour. So I think my first step would be to change the clay body to one with higher shrinkage.
Mud&Leaves: What is the most difficult of your glazes to fire?
Inge Nielsen: Despite all the preparatory work that goes into a firing, sometimes unforeseen things happen in the fire. This is where the magic happens – but it can also be devastating.
By far the two most difficult glazes in my portfolio to fire are carbontrap shino, and oilspot (yuteki or youdi). As for carbontrap shino, it is a glaze that contains soda ash which travels around the glazed piece while drying (sometimes for weeks). The soda ash melts before the rest of the glaze, literally trapping the carbon floating around in the kiln at the turbulent moment the chimney flue is reduced. So many factors influence the result, and every time I think I learned something, it often turns out not to hold up in practice. When it works it almost makes me believe in kiln gods.
The second glaze I mentioned, oilspot is a type of tenmoku glaze that bubbles up at high temperature, releasing gasses. After a while the bubbles cure over, leaving a ring in their wake, hence the name. I can describe oilspot as a kind of “holy grail glaze”, many of us potters waste much time and energy trying to master it. So, overall, the most difficult glazes to fire for me are temperamental glazes that fire manually in my gas kiln.
At the same time, I find it difficult to fire nice glazes in the electric kiln. This is not due to problems with firing, which runs automatically from a preconfigured computer programme, but more due to a personal preference for glazes that look as if they were caressed by flames. To achieve that kind of natural warmth, variation and depth in the electric kiln is a big challenge for me ever since I set up my studio, but lately I have been making progress on that front by using various kinds of ash (both mineral and wood ash) in the electric-fired glazes.
Carbontrap shino glazed pieces:
Mud&Leaves: Are you currently working with both a gas and electric kiln or transitioning towards using electric only?
Inge Nielsen: I am not moving away from gas ever, that's my passion! But I really want to arrive at a point where I have a series of beautiful glazes that I can fire in the electric kiln, especially maybe for the winter months when standing outside for ten hours monitoring the gas kiln can be unpleasant.
I always use the electric kiln to bisque fire, because it is easier and cheaper, and bisque is a neutral firing so doesn't need to be in a gas kiln. A handful of times a year I glaze fire to 1250 degrees in the electric, typically lots of test tiles and just transparent glazes on porcelain. Occasionally I fire some tiehong/kaki and tenmoku in the electric too. Now I have some new volcanic ash glazes that I can add to this list.
I forgot to mention that I fire to 1260 degrees in my gas kiln. That's a great temperature for many Chinese glazes. A good gas firing takes a little less than 9 hours.
Electric fired faux celadon (with volcanic ash):
