You are an architect by education. How did you get into clay modeling?
Kati : I started four years ago and I really just wanted to try something new. When you're stuck in one field and you're creative, you're always looking. So I went to classes, once a week at first, then more and more often, and I got hooked. It was more than just a way to relieve stress - I got excited about what I was creating and my new craft. Then I created Instagram, so I could maybe show these things and start something. They started to pile up, so at first I gave things away to friends, then friends to friends, and suddenly strangers started asking if they could buy them. I thought: "I'll try." At that time, I was still torn about my career - I didn't know whether to go into architecture or something else. I searched abroad for a while, sent CVs and got a lot of feedback from Japan, Russia... I wondered whether I shouldn't leave. I gave myself a year to do something and see. During that time, I met Czarny and I don't know what made me decide not to leave. Maybe a little Łukasz actually...
Łukasz : I didn't know she had the option to leave. If she did, I would have kicked her out.
K : Ha, ha. You'd be sorry!
Ł : That's for sure.
K : And that's how it turned out. I knew I'd end up somewhere in design. And after four years I'm where I am: the company is growing, I have a great team. Things are happening.
Do you think your experience with architecture has influenced the way you create ceramics now?
K : Oh, yes. My studies have given me a lot of direction. I studied in the Netherlands for a year, where the vision and the way you look at design and architecture are completely different than here, and I learned a lot there. The funny thing is that I didn't use any colors at all in architecture. My portfolio is very clean, lots of natural materials, you can barely see the colors. It's a nice change that I use the entire color palette here. A completely different craft, but there are definitely a lot of connections, especially in form. Past experiences build character and give direction, so nothing is lost.
Were you stressed about the decision to change career tracks?
K : A bit like that. For everyone, such a drastic change is a bit stressful, but I assume that you have to give yourself a chance. For me, it happened naturally, I had some savings that I ate up during that year, but I could afford it. Once you decide, you have to move forward. I worked overtime, Łukasz remembers well when we were just dating...
Ł : She left home at 6:30, she still had a studio in Zawady, practically outside Warsaw...
K : I didn't have a car.
Ł : She rode her bike, 6:30, came back at 23:00. Every day. With weekends.
K : So... it wasn't easy for him at the beginning (laughter). But yes, it was a difficult but exciting decision. I decided to go for it, I could always go back to my profession. You have to give yourself a chance.
Ł : I entered MUAS with both feet two years ago, in November. For me, the decision was a bit easier, because I had been involved in design for eight years, but in sound. I was a sound designer in a sound studio, mainly commercials, but there were also films and documentaries. The last two years of my work at the studio, I had a crisis... I had had enough of clients from a certain industry. When I met Katka, I saw that Kati was on a good trajectory-
K : (jokingly) You took advantage of me.
Ł : The goose that laid the golden egg, I couldn't miss it (laughter). Well, it was a bit like that, that I noticed that it was going well. When I wasn't doing my own work, I would get in the car and go to the studio in Zawady and I was like Katka's assistant, I would polish, roll, because bigger orders started coming in. At some point I decided to put everything on one card with her.
What is your division of responsibilities now?
Ł : We're still learning about this... Katka founded this company, but when I joined, it was hard for her to take my opinion into account. Especially since she's an individualist and likes to work alone. But at some point, the company started to grow so much that there was no way she could do everything herself. It would be best if she did everything, that's what she wanted, of course...
K : Ha-ha.
Ł : But there are only 24 hours in a day, and Kati only has two hands. At first, we were the two of us in production. I was responsible for the mold, casting, rolling... I was Fizol (laughter). At some point, we couldn't handle...
K : The company jumped several levels.
Ł : Indeed, many people were interested in us, companies, restaurants... And the problem of customer service appeared. We live in times when people are used to being served by large sales platforms, where everyone is there to help with phone calls, messages, not to mention next-day shipping. So we had to divide the duties, and then I started to deal more with paperwork and business operations. Now, mainly, when it comes to production, I deal with wheel turning, and again with casting, making molds. MUAS jumped to the next level this year, because we bought a 3D printer and we have a slightly larger resource when it comes to making new models and designs. Previously, each model was hand-made. Besides, the world does not end with ceramics, we have different ideas, and without technology we would not be able to implement these ideas.
K : You could stay with it, but it's nice to develop.
Ł : We still combine traditional craftsmanship with technology and design. Kati created waves that I had never seen before, she also did a lot of research on it. People say that we don't have a patent for it and indeed – resin and acrylic paints appeared. People do it all over the world, but these are different materials and techniques. In ceramics, no one combines these colors like Katka.
What are the challenges of being a couple and a team at the same time?
K : At first we argued a lot. We had similar ideas, but we wanted to do them completely differently. I am very chaotic, I do most things on instinct and I don't write anything down, and Łukasz wanted to calculate everything, check everything... Well, unfortunately, with the development of the company you also have to think about the costs.
Ł : I am an electronics engineer by education, so I was used to working in a group.
K : I don't.
Ł : I am chaotic myself, but I know that this chaos must be ordered.
K : Even to make my work easier – it's physical work, I was reluctant to buy any equipment...
Ł : ...because you can do it by hand. I don't like spending money pointlessly either: if I can build something myself, I build it myself. You can laugh at us, but it was only this year, after four years, that we bought a rolling machine for the studio. Before, we rolled everything by hand. Well, this year we came across a project that we knew we wouldn't be able to produce a thousand dishes in two months. Rolling by hand would be impossible.
K : Obviously, we are together 24/7. Honestly, I wasn't used to it at all, but... everything ties us together very tightly.
Ł : I think we have a very good flow.
K : We complement each other well, we all push each other.
Ł : It's not like we live in an ideal world, when we come to the studio, the birds are singing, and when we come back home, it's some kind of high life...
K : (provocatively) No?
Ł : There are days when it's better when Kati is in her part of the studio, and I'm in mine. We can go the whole day without talking, and that's okay. It's not easy to reconcile and it's definitely not an option for everyone. You have to get along really well. It's important to have your own space. We have a small apartment, so it really does look like we come back from work together and sit on the couch, but [in the studio] we have our own separate space. We both play sports, I have my own football training and a music band, but we also have common hobbies - surfing, riding longboards and bikes, walking our dog, our Łajdak...
I guess this surfing inspired the Wave series?
K : I don't know, I'm probably inspired by nature. I experimented a lot with glazes and something came out that reminded me of a wave. It started to multiply and come out... I often create something and only then match a photo, a view, to the vessel.
Ł : (laughter) We've never been to Bali.
Ł : I observe this process from the side, I don't know what's going on in Katka's head, but it's not like we go surfing and she says "Oh, I've got it!"
K : Sometimes it is like that, but mostly these trips are a great way to boost your energy.
Ł : Maybe these ideas are not born directly to be translated into ceramics, but visions are created.
K : We're not resting, but we have so many ideas... We're also opening a café, so it won't be too easy. Here, next door, through the wall.
Ł : As soon as we managed to renovate the studio – because our studio was in ruins – in pain and agony, with the help of friends, we managed to finish it, we sat down and thought "damn, I could use a good cup of coffee".
K : We searched for a year.
Ł : And it turned out that there were no coffee shops in our area. We started with a regular coffee machine, but this year we were joined by our manager, Dagmara, who turned out to be a coffee freak. At the same time, the place next to ours became available and we decided that we had to go for it. And since when we have an idea, we follow it immediately, we jumped into the deep end. I have never worked in gastronomy in my life, I only come across it when I go to a restaurant. But we are really excited about the process of creating this place.
K : And it combines nicely with this ceramics.
Cool, we'll be able to organize some events...
Ł : We have ideas all the time. If only the day were longer...
And when do you plan to open?
K : We pray that it will be October.
Ł : But we're not pushing it too hard, because we have limited physical capabilities, and many things don't depend on us. We've ordered an espresso machine from Italy, and they're having some kind of production siesta there now, so we'll have it at the last minute. There are a lot of unknowns, but we're getting closer to our goal every day.
What is the biggest challenge when sculpting with clay, what is the most frustrating thing about the process?
K : For me, the most difficult thing now is the physical condition. It is very strenuous work and it is very noticeable in the body. My back and hands are one big pain. If I had to do the whole process myself, after a week I wouldn't get up for a month. At some point the body says stop.
Ł : Indeed, there comes a moment in the production of dishes... let's be clear, we don't produce like the Chinese or some factory, it's unattainable in the case of manual work, but there came a moment when we had to hire people to help.
K : When you sit at it from 7 am to 11 pm...
Ł : When we worked as a couple, it was 7 days a week, 16 hours a day. It's physical work, it's not like we're sitting in the studio and the birds are chirping. It's nice, but it's not an 8-to-4 job. If we pour too many dishes in the morning or roll out too many plates, if we don't do something that day, it may turn out that the next day all the work is thrown away.
K : Of course, you can model with clay on a smaller scale, but we wanted to start more interesting collaborations, and that's finally starting to happen. And that's the coolest thing, that we talk to a person, we see their space, what their design is, and thanks to that we can design something cool for it and magic happens.
Finally, what advice do you have for people who want to pursue ceramics as a hobby?
Ł : It's good that you added "hobbyistically", otherwise we would have said "don't do it!" (laughter).
K : Find another way! (laughter).
Ł : We're joking, of course.
K : You have to take some courses. You come out of the classes a different person. You stick with your hands, you create something manually, you touch something, and you can completely immerse yourself in it, not think about the problems.
Ł : Apparently it's scientifically proven that working with your hands, in the soil, in clay, has a calming effect. That's why so many retirees garden.
K : First, you can make something of your own and then use it, have some fun...
Ł : We changed the formula of our classes a bit, because we noticed that many people came to us to smash their dishes. More than half did not listen to what we said during the classes, and they actually had 10-15 dishes during the entire cycle of classes, but half were unusable.
K : You could see the disappointment that something didn't work out. In ceramics you have to let yourself go, let the instructor guide you a bit and most importantly have fun. If someone wants to go 1-2 times a week, it's a great relaxation.
Ł : And don't get your hopes up. People come to us with pictures from Pinterest and say they "want to do something like this". This is an experienced ceramicist who cut his teeth on clay, and you want to do it during your first class? It's much more fun to experiment and play with clay. It's a recycled material, so even if we mold something that doesn't work, we can crumble it, add water and we have plastic clay again. Kati recently did classes for kids, and it was totally visible. The kids did everything that came to their minds. I want to make a pizza out of clay? I'm making a pizza. Adults usually get their hopes up that they want a plate like that, or some beautiful bowl.
K : I always tell them at the beginning to forget about what's in our space and not to be influenced by it. I know that it's harder for adults to get carried away, but you have to give yourself a little head start.
K : We must be doing something right, because people keep buying the workshops. We have two girls who come all the way from Krakow.
Ł : The heart is growing. Don't be afraid, go to workshops in your area, have fun and try!
The interview has been condensed and edited for clarity [editor's note].
Created at: 14/08/2022
Updated at: 14/08/2022
