Sunshine — Unique Utilitarian Objects

By Ole Jensen, 2018

Sunshine — Unique Utilitarian Objects
By Ole Jensen, 2018

TableSpace
By Ole Jensen, 2011

Form and Imagination
By Ole Jensen, 2012

The Hærvej Project
By Maria Desirée Holm-Jacobsen, 2010

Ole – Extraordinarily Ordinary
By Pernille Stockmarr, Design
Historian, 2006

Crafts 2003
By Ole Jensen, 2003

Things do not appear from nowhere
By Ole Jensen, 2000

New Studies
By Ole Jensen, 1996

Do we need new things?
By Ole Jensen, 1996

Water, jug and art
By Ole Jensen, 1994

Let enthusiasm reign
By Ole Jensen, 1992

With an inclination towards everyday life, simple function and basic techniques I set out to create handmade utilitarian objects. Using only the clay, my hands and a stick. Fairly introverted and certainly without explicable rational arguments. Sometimes, however, it is necessary to go back to basics and start from scratch order to move forward.

Since there are so many excellent cups, bowls and plates in the world to compare them with, the first of my hand-pinched objects appeared so clumsy that they hardly seemed to reflect a deliberate necessary act. The ‘new’ beginning stayed on course only thanks to collegial encouragement, manual labour and sufficient time to go in depth with the project. Perhaps the problem was that my thinking was literally too small and limited? Slowly, in step with the inherently low tempo of the pinching process, the forms grew bigger, and the ideas freer. The servings and arrangements more generous. Gradually, self-imposed restraint is transcended, transitioning into enjoyable exuberance. It is no longer my limited idea alone, but the entire process – the clay, the craftsmanship and the matt coloured glazes – that drives the expression in a process of synthesis. Simple hand-pinching seems to reveal its potential in extravagant specialties.

They never turned out as humble everyday objects! What began as a sincere attempt to rediscover the qualities of down-to-earth basics has manifested itself in something almost exotic and alien – and in a nearly synthetic aesthetic. And that is good. That means there was a reason to go all the way. It is the nature of art – and crafts – sometimes to result in something other and more than the anticipated.