Imke Maeyer
Imke is a South African living in Germany since 2014. She was born in Germany, but moved to South Africa with her family when she was very small, hence the feeling of connection to a life of light and blue blue skies.
She moved to Berlin with her husband and youngest son after having lived in a small south African village for a number of years, rather an interesting contrast it seemed.
Her ceramics career is a little higgledy piggeldy, as she fell into it almost by accident whilst living in Maun, Botswana in the early 1990’s. It was a fun way to spend any free time, but it became clear pretty quickly that clay was a substance she wanted to learn more about.
Her path led her back to Cape Town where she continued on her ceramics adventures.
Over the years, many moves and the arrival of 3 incredible children, the ceramics faded into a distant memory. This did not mean that clay, and its relation to the earth stopped inspiring her, more like a pause button had been pushed on the creating front.
When she moved to Berlin, her trusted old kiln moved continents too, and served her well for the first few years of getting back into ceramics groove, but eventually it retired and made way for a sparkling new kiln, which, she says, definitely improved things.
Having moved around in Berlin a good few times over the last 10 years, she has now settled into a little town north of the big city, into a house that has a shed which is ideally suited to her purposes, and when she isn’t working in the garden, she spends days and days of doing the thing that gives her great joy, making things out of clay.
Inspiration
She describes her work as being playful, yet simple, using a variety of methods, from turning on the wheel, to slab building to casting with slip.
All moulds for the slip casting process are built by Rudi, her husband, who, she says is generally a super supporter of her work.
Imke draws her inspiration from her many years of living in the southern hemisphere, where the sky is vast and mostly blue. It seems like one can tread more lightly, and after so many years of trauma that millions of South Africans suffered under Apartheid, people are trying to find a path forward, and human interactions are positive, and a feeling of freedom prevails.
This is what she would like her work to reflect.
