I am a Belgian artist. I have been living in Spain for many years with my two kids, Marius and Billy, who have grown up here. They are 8 and 9 years old. I am a single mum, full-time with the boys, and I am the founder of Oikos Estudio, a multidisciplinary artistic practice involving ceramics, tapestry and painting. We live between Barcelona and our finca in the countryside, near the Delta de l’Ebre. There is no line between my daily life, my creative process and my artistic work.

I don’t think it was my intention, but more an intuition. A natural way to be an artist, to just exist as an artist. Each motherhood is a specific journey and mine is being a single mother. Each side is influencing the other, and is very much involved. I can spend weekends crafting things with my kids and developing ideas at the same time, seeing colours, shapes and discovering materials. Creativity is everywhere. It never stops. My process is also definitely playful, easy going. There is no suffering in creating, just joy, while also a lot of work and concentration into it. Besides, my kids are the first eye on any of my creations. And I adore the way they watch it, comment and advise.My creative work is as well a shelter. My protection from some difficult situations we have been through as a family. Creativity is a great tool to leave the ugliest parts of life in a room and go for a walk in a beautiful land full of beauty, simplicity, and honesty. Oikos Estudio is not a place to hide. It is a solar shelter.

Just before the covid lockdown, a friend offered me a ceramic class for my birthday. After three hours of pure joy, I knew I wanted to continue and I started to practice regularly.I actually went to art school when I was a teenager. Four times a week, I took drawing, painting and sculpture classes, and I discovered the very special feeling of spending hours in a workshop. I fell in love with sculpture: the contact with the earth, of course, but also the repetitive gestures, the feeling of freedom working with my hands and the high concentration required to achieve something. That feeling came back during that ceramic class.Also relevant is that I studied archaeology at university. During those five years, I was particularly interested in vessels as testimony of daily life in the past, how they give us information about habits, beliefs, the sense of aesthetics, but also about their use as containers for different types of food, oil, wine or other products. One of the many things I love about ceramics is that I can recreate this ancestral practice of creating vessels with my hands as well as explore the infinite creative potential of this medium.

Oikos Estudio is indeed very much linked to our house in the countryside. It’s the best workshop I could ever imagine! It is about the light, the sounds of nature, the longer hours. I love to see the boys having their space and taking their freedom, gaining autonomy in it. Inventing the games. It is about all the little walks. Having a simple project for the day, like making a fire and cooking over it. Gardening. It is about living near the sea. It is a never-ending source of inspiration, and it is a healthy way of living.

I believe in creating with what I have. I apply this to tapestry, painting, ceramic, when crafting things with the kids or cooking a meal. I have always worked and created in this way, since I was a child. I love to look around, and let it go. The range of what you can create is so immense. It can be seen as a self-imposed limitation, but it’s also a great source of inspiration and procures a liberating feeling.For ceramics, that means looking for the clay I can find in our land and experimenting. It is also fun for the kids to search and forage and sift the earth with me, create the colour and see the results. This is how I have created LA FINCA collection. You can see and feel the nature in them.

I was born and grew up in Belgium, but I think I have always known that my soul was grounded in the south. I love living near the sea and am fascinated by the Mediterranean culture. Raising my kids here makes me feel rooted. I have worked and lived in Italy, Greece, Syria and Spain, and have each time felt very comfortable and fascinated by the different Mediterranean ways of living.As for the wabi-sabi, I am a fan of the patina that time creates on a piece, a ceramic, or a wall. The colors, the textures… I also feel connected with the acceptance of the imperfections. My approach searches for the beauty of imperfections, just like the beauty of human bodies. In that sense, I can see my work is organic and alive. Staring at us, and it that sense also protecting us.

Yes, I think I really do. Single motherhood has been extremely hard at moments. I have not only accepted it as a limitation, but I have made it an asset, instead of a frustration. I have also made a choice to live and stay nearby the sea, to raise my children in this environment, to spend so much time outside all year long, to speak different languages at home, to cherish the different cultures mixing within our little family.

Absolutely. It is a daily practice that helps me dive into one single activity. I can feel that my brain but also my all body needs to do ceramic. I associate it with daily yoga practice, and I love its meditative aspect. It’s here and now. It is about focusing on one thing at a time, which has proved healthy for me. I feel good when I play with ceramic or when I weave a tapestry for hours. I really let the rest away from that space, and I feel free.

I like its honesty. It’s transparent, you know what you use. I adore its real connection to nature, the smell of the products I have used so far, like the Regenerate Night Serum, is incredible. I love the simple packaging, and I appreciate the versality of some products, one for different uses. I also admire how ROWSE, as a brand, is going beyond cosmetic, and is creating a community sharing values and a sense of beauty. I am so happy to be part of that community.

Work! I am currently further exploring the experimental clay, slip to use for LA FINCA collection. I am also going to create ceramic during the summer for a very special place in Mallorca, I can’t wait to share but we are still discussing the “what and when”. I am going to weave a tapestry for the Barcelona studio of my friend Katie, founder of the brand KM by Lange. I have unlimited dreams and objectives for Oikos Estudio, and I am confident about what is next because I feel focused, rooted, and concentrated. I keep on working. This is how, for me, things happen naturally.