About
I’m Martina, the craftswoman, artist and designer behind Planina Ceramics, based in Sweden. Apart from a clay, I am in love with gardening, books, mountains, wildflowers, traveling and motorcycles.
I work with stoneware clay and use traditional hand-building techniques such as coiling, rolling and pinching. The handbuilding technique allows for a soft, tactile organic form that I like. I only use my hands, clay and some simple wooden tools. My ceramic pieces hold evidence of the human hand and I hope these preserved histories allow the viewer to connect with its deeply human, handmade origin. When making, I am looking towards a realistic and thoughtful way to endorse sustainability, as well as to keep myself engaged as a lover of things and as an artist.
Each ceramic piece I made is unique because it is handbuilt without using molds or pottery wheel. I am using techniques that existed long before a pottery wheel.
I studied graphic design and worked as a designer for five years but always felt a niggling feeling that this was not my ‘forever’ calling. So i decide to unpack my longings with a renewed conviction to explore and release my inner artist. I finished a few ceramic courses and started my ceramic career in 2019 and after two years I decided to move from city life to the countryside.
I'm now live and work in Vallda, in small village in the Swedish countryside, surrounded with fields and forests. I have a gallery and workshop in a small wooden house in my backyard. In the countryside life moves a bit slower and more methodically and I love it. Since I live close to the nature, I'm much more detail-oriented and started practicing the slow living lifestyle, I enjoy gardening, baking bread and making jam from my gardens fruit. I have daily routines which help to keep my mind on track when I get scattered, and to live a more balanced, meaningful life through slowing things down and appreciating both the world around me and what I have. Planina is my inspiration towards being creative every day; whether it be clay, wood, or a camera, I am always making something and I wouldn’t change that for anything.
I increased the amount of time spent in the studio, modified my style of work from sculptures to more functional pieces, increased the type of products and forms that I made, and most importantly, shifted to a growth mindset as I was experimenting more.
I hope you will love my work as much as I love making it.
"Planina is a word for Mountain in the Croatian language, where my roots are from. Mountains inspire my hands to shape the clay into its natural beauty. Mountains have made me a better person, taught me to respect nature, its beauty, strength and unpredictability. Each free moment I have I use to escape to mountains."
Martina
Trainings, seminars, memberships and residencies
Member of Konstnärernas Kollektivverkstad Göteborg, Sweden
2023 / Artist residency at Cerdeira - Home for Creativity, Portugal
2022 / Intro to Local Materials Workshop, Studio Alluvium (Mitch Iburg i Zoë Powell)
2022 / Making a rounded teapot from flat slabs, Sage Cortez | Hand + Fire
2022 / Kurinuki, Sage Cortez | Hand + Fire
2022 / Think Global, Dig Local - Atelier NL , Design Talks at Röhsska Museum, Sweden
2022 / Workshop “Tälj med Viggo” - carving various objects from wood, Kulturhuset Kåken, Sweden
2020 / Ceramic apprenticeship - Ravitera, Croatia
2019 / Handbuilding workshop - Atelje na br.1, Croatia
Exhibitions
2022 / Kulturnatta, group exhibition at Konstnärernas Kollektivverkstad, Gothenburg, Sweden
2021 / Planina, independent exhibition at Planina Studio, Zagreb, Croatia
2020 / Ona - Women inspired collages and ceramics, Karibu coffee shop, Zagreb, Croatia
Selected press & mentions
