Ruth Terwiel
1952, Breda - the Netherlands
Education
1984 Art Academy St. Joost, Breda, the Netherlands (painting and design) cum laude
2020 Dutch Ceramics Institute, Gouda, the Netherlands + extra year of glazing
A joyous encounter with clay later in her career, turned Ceramics into her big love. Ruth traces her fascination with ceramics to her childhood home where her father’s artful ceramic ashtray, a present from the cigarette company, no doubt, lived alongside a St. Mary sculpture that hung on the wall and a series of cheaply cast reproductions of Luca Della Robbia’s tin-glazed terracotta statuary. This first encounter with the ceramic quotidian as a source of wonder continues to manifest in Ruth’s ceramic work through an exuberant playfulness.
PROCESS & DEVELOPMENT
Her sculptures and vases, though seemingly sloppy and untidy, are alive and breathing and always in the process of becoming even more ‘alive’. Her work and ceramic practice creates a wonderful space of reciprocity. As we invite her works into our hearts and minds and spaces, they too invite us into their textured stories. They are easy to love and undoubtedly they love us back!
