Maltahöhe – where the tar road ends
August 1, 2012Conscious Connections– an exhibition by Kirsten Wechselberger
August 1, 2012Carola Lorck
It’s a steamy morning in January and Carola is completely at home posing with her pots in the dunes outside Swakopmund. Carola grew up on a cattle farm near Steinhausen and attended boarding school in Windhoek. She loved going home for holidays, riding her horse, camping and enjoying being outdoors. After studying clothing production in Cape Town, she took a job in Swakopmund, where she later married and settled down. She and her husband Wilko have two small boys aged eight and four.
Carola started pottery lessons with Sharon Flewellyn in 2000. Five years later she bought a fully equipped studio and set up her own studio at home. The experience she had gained in managerial and tourism positions stood her in good stead to manage the electrical business that she and her husband had started in 2005. It also equipped her to become chairperson of the Potters Association of Namibia (PAN) when Sharon Flewellyn resigned in 2008, a position she still holds with great enthusiasm! She and her committee are responsible for organising fundraising events, workshops and exhibitions for PAN members.
Last year Carola exhibited her work with fellow potter Betsie van Rensburg at the Fine Art Gallery in Swakopmund, and she plans to repeat the exercise in July. Her work is sold at Pure and Simple in Windhoek, and at the Shalom Market on the banks of the Swakop River. She plans to participate in the Artists Trail in Omaruru in September, and to start teaching pottery from a new studio in Swakopmund next year.
Carola works mainly in stoneware, using a variety of clays and commercial glazes, and firing her work in an electric kiln to 1 260 degrees Celsius. She does one-off slab works as well as beautiful wheel-thrown tableware in earthy colours. Carola is deeply influenced by the desert, and mixes sea and dune sand into her slips, resulting in interesting textures
Her exhibition with Betsie van Rensburg opens at the Fine Art Gallery in Swakopmund on 20July and runs until 17 August.
For commissions Carola can be contacted on +264 81 298 7274 or at lorckc@iway.na
This article appeared in the May’12 edition of FLAMINGO Magazine.
