Talking with Hands: Interview with Laura Ferrer
The Barcelona-based ceramist talks about clay, repetition, and why her pieces are never exactly what she planned.
Laura Ferrer works in a small studio in the Gràcia neighborhood. The walls are covered with shelves holding pieces in different stages: raw, bisque-fired, glazed. Some perfect, many deliberately broken.
When did you start working with ceramics?
Late, actually. I was thirty-two years old. I came from architecture and felt very frustrated with how ephemeral everything is in that world: you design something, they build it, and after a few years, they tear it down or renovate it. Ceramics gave me permanence. Or at least a convincing illusion of permanence.
And the clay itself? What does it have that other materials don’t?
It gives you back honesty. You can’t fool it. If there’s tension in your hands, the piece feels it. If you rush, it breaks. It’s a material that demands real presence, not just technique.
We’ve been talking for two hours when Laura takes a small piece from the shelf. An irregular bowl, with a visible crack inside. She places it in my hands.
I broke this one during firing. I could have thrown it away. But the crack has something the original piece didn’t: a story. Now it’s honest in a different way.