kynning / lecture

Hjørring – fyrirlestur / lecture

Good evening. My name is Kristbjörg Guðmundsdóttir. My principal job is as a ceramicist and I am also a qualified teacher. Before turning to ceramics, I studied mathematics at Lund University in Sweden .

Utility, form and functional aesthetics are the guiding principles of my work. These bowls are thrown in various shapes and sizes, and many of them are decorated with old Iclandic magic runes .

Those have been used by Icelanders through the ages with the purpose of furthering their own interests, warding off evil, and causing trouble for their enemies.

In this picture and the next, you will see some soup tarines and bowls. I made these soup tarines, plates and bowls for my final project at art College. It was here that I started experimenting with using wood and metals with the clay.

In using these different materials, I aim to strike the perfect balance between harmony and tension. I also aim to maximize utility and aesthetic value. I want my things to be for using not just for looking at.

I have continued to use metal and wood for many of my pieces. My cups are a good example of my range of ‘useable’ things for daily use.

Here you see some more cups. Those are from a more playful range, made from porcelaine and handpainted.

Here you see some candlehouses that look like traditional Icelandic houses. I have been making those before Christmas for a number of years. They give off a lovely soft glow when lit.

Here you see some candle sticks. Again, this is an example where I use mixed media.

Most of my recent works are made of porceline whith crystaline glazes. I call them fireroses. This is a play on the Icelandic word “frostrósir” (literally “frost roses”), used for the patterns of ice crystals that form on window panes in the cold of winter.

I was born and bred in a place called Seyðisfjörður, a deep and narrow fjord in the East of Iceland surrounded by tall mountains. In winter, we wouldn’t see the sun for three months. All was white with snow, there were frost roses on the window panes,

and often you could see the northern lights dancing in the sky and their otherworldly colour reflected in the snow and window frost. It is this otherworldly beauty that I try to capture in my fire roses glazes.

And now, this is not window pane frost, but a picture of one of my bowls! You can see the likeness quite clearly here with frost and ice.

Here you see some little bowls, 11cm diameter. As you can see there is a large variation in both the colours and patterns of my fire rose glazes.

Here are some of my champagne flutes. I first made a couple of these for a bride and groom for their wedding toast. Later, I volunteered myself for the madness of making 120 of these in all different colours for my daughter’s wedding!

I make vases in various shapes and sizes. Here you see some of those. They are exactly what I like to see; large crystals, beautifully spread, over large cleared areas.

This is a very large bowl, 39 cm diameter. It is in one of my favourite glazes. This one is at the exhibition in Hjörring.

Here is another bowl same size, also at the exhibition. I thought I would show you this one as a contrast to the one you’ve just seen. In this bowl I have put on two glazes and kept them separate with only a small overlap area where they merge.

Here is a very different looking glaze again. It is just one glaze, but it separates to form these two very different colours.

That brings us to the end of the show. I hope you have enjoyed it. Thank you very much for your time.