Welcome to danci ceramics blog

How it all started!

At the age of eight, in the basement of my childhood home in Croatia I had discovered strange rocks in a load of dark coal we used to heat our home. The rocks were gray and felt warmer and softer then ordinary rocks, so I collected as many as I could, getting all dirty and covered with soot while digging through the piles of coal.

I smashed the rocks with a hammer until they turned into smooth powder; then I added water to it. The result was a homogeneous mass that I used to make a small vase for my dollhouse.

These strange-looking rocks were actually pieces of dried clay that were excavated with coal. That was my first encounter with this wonderful material – clay! It still fascinates me how I intuitively knew exactly what to do with those dry pieces of clay.

In my early twenties I moved to Vienna, Austria. Here I became a member of the Open Ceramics Studio in the WuK (Werkstätten und Kulturhaus) and took a basic wheel throwing course. Soon I quit my job and decided to spend six months doing nothing else but ceramics. That was probably the most fun and creative time of my life.

When I moved to Switzerland in my thirties, I had to start from the beginning. Finally, after a few years of searching, I found a beautiful studio near the river Aare in Berne. At the same time I started with my college studies of German Language and Literature and History of Arts.

Today I live in a small village in the Swiss Alps and, besides being a mother of a gorgeous little boy, I also enjoy working in my vegetable garden and creating new ceramics in my small studio, situated in our 180 years old stone mountain home.

This blog is about ceramics and life "made in Switzerland".