VANG'S CERAMIC WORKSHOP
The story of Heidi's Keramikværksted starts back in September 2020, when the whole country was flattened by the pandemic and many stayed at home and needed a hobby to make the time go by just a little bit faster. Heidi found herself in exactly the same situation. Since 2016, Heidi worked as a tour guide at Gislev Rejser, and when the whole world introduced restrictions and travel bans, there was suddenly not much to do anymore. But if you know Heidi, then you should also know that something is being done about in a hurry. That was also exactly what happened.
One day on a walk through her incredibly scenic garden at Ringe, she stumbles across an old ceramic turntable that was left behind by Heidi's own father many years ago. She then saw an opportunity to spend some good hours in the workshop, with an old and beloved occupation. The turntable is quickly pulled into the workshop and switched on. To Heidi's own surprise, the old turntable ran like a pure dream, and it wasn't long before the first delivery of stone tiles from Strøjer Tegl and service glazes was in the driveway.
Back in 1996, Heidi was trained as a potter, so the creative work with ceramics was nothing new to her. It therefore does not take many days before the small ceramic oven is filled to the brim with new creative designs that are carefully glazed. Heidi attends a large number of different ceramic fairs around Denmark and experiences huge interest in her unique ceramic designs. Her customers absolutely love her ceramics.
From there, the story picks up tremendously. In order to keep up with the high demand for her stoneware ceramics, the old ceramic turntable is being replaced. Not long after, Heidi acquires her own industrial ceramic kiln that can burn many more objects at a time, and which distributes the heat more evenly so that her products are even better. It quickly turns out that a new turntable and ceramic kiln is not enough, so Heidi hires her first employee so that she can make even more products a day.
With her potter training and instructor and course leader training, it is no problem for Heidi to train her employees from scratch herself. So within a few weeks, they can now also turn Heidi's coveted designs. As it starts to go faster with getting the ceramics made, there is a lack of space in the warehouse, so it is no longer enough to sell a few times a year at the Danish ceramics fairs. She therefore begins turning ceramics for Danish artists who decorate her ceramics, and selling her products to small local shops who have also fallen in love with her designs.
Although the pace of the production of the creative ceramic designs has been increased, Heidi never compromises when it comes to keeping her production sustainable. Right from the beginning, Heidi has reused lumps of clay in several places in the processes, and she continues to rinse her working water free of raw materials and clay before it ends up in the sewer. In addition, Heidi chooses to donate her 2nd sorting products to the local free school, which they can use for collections for their good cause.
This is where our and Heidi's stories intersect. Kerama wanted to find a local Danish ceramics workshop that produced stoneware ceramics sustainably, and that had a skilled designer who could make just the products we would like to offer our customers. We were lucky enough that Heidi answered the phone when we called, and after our first visit to her cozy ceramics workshop in Ringe, we were sure we had found the right designer to offer our customers the beautiful ceramics they needed in their home.
We ordered 3 of her beautiful collections right away. The first three collections on the site were FLORAL , AQUA and NATURAL made in lavales from Strøjer Tegl. You can still find them on the webshop today, as well as a lot of her other beautiful handmade ceramics. Take a look at her beautiful designs through the button below.
