A piece of her
It’s 9:30 a.m. on a Monday in spring. The sun is still too low to shine through the large, floor-to-ceiling windows, yet it is bright in the rooms of the little pottery in Frankfurt’s Bahnhofsviertel district. There is something very pristine and calming about the furnishings: lots of white, lots of light gray. There are also shelves made of untreated wood, on which stand cups, bowls, vases, and plates. Viola Beuscher wears a dark gray sweater; her hair is tied back at the nape of her neck. She is serving coffee from one of her beautifully designed mugs – one of the online store’s best-selling products, along with the bowls. We sit at a large table in the front part of her workshop, the same spot where the pottery courses regularly offered by “viola beuscher ceramics” take place.
Anyone who has ever experienced the way a cup or vase is created from a simple lump of clay on the potter’s wheel, turn after turn, knows that this is pure meditation. There is something very primordial, something elemental about clay. For many people, working with this material has a grounding and centering effect, and Viola Beuscher likewise came to pottery through these qualities: Born in Fulda, she studied journalism and political science in 2014 and was about to complete her graduation project when she was involved in an accident. This left her incapacitated for work – at just 22 years old. One of the ways she found healing was by working intensively with clay. For two and a half years, she made pottery almost daily – first as part of her therapy, then later at home. Looking back, that was the time when she laid the foundations for “viola beuscher ceramics” – and for everything that has come out of it since. “The nuts and bolts of the craft is having the time to practice, practice, practice,” she says. “Because of the accident, I was privileged to have that time, even though it didn’t feel like a privilege back then.” As Viola Beuscher gradually got her life back on track in 2017, she was faced with the question of what she wanted to do for work. She could no longer imagine going to university, so the request from some friends in the hospitality industry came at just the right moment. For the first time, she produced a series of plates and bowls designed to meet individual wishes –and thus began life as a self-employed ceramics specialist.
From then on, everything happened very quickly: With her straightforward, minimalist ceramics, Viola Beuscher met with lively interest in Frankfurt’s restaurant world, and soon she was making a real name for herself beyond the confines of the city. “The demand was so great right from the start that I quickly had to learn to say no sometimes,” she recalls. Beuscher rented rooms on Taunusstrasse and from then on, with what were initially three employees, she took orders mainly from restaurants and cafés. For each and every one of their customers, the team handcrafted up to 300 plates, bowls, and mugs, working at least eight hours a day, seven days a week. Then came the pandemic. The orders stopped coming in and those already placed were canceled. With support from her partner Philip Biedermann, who is now deputy managing director at the company, Viola Beuscher launched her own online store virtually overnight. “That was our salvation,” she recalls.
These days, the online store of “viola beuscher ceramics” accounts for around 60 percent of total sales. Among its 20,000 Instagram followers, demand for the ceramics has reached fever-pitch, with new collections like the limited Happy Edition often selling out within hours. Places on her “Clay Classes” courses are also much sought-after. To meet the high demand, as many as 12 permanent and freelance employees worked on and off in the small pottery in 2021. Now, the team is back down to six people, with Beuscher undertaking the majority of output herself. Her style is unmistakable: Pure, because the nature of the material is the main focus. Minimalist, because only very reduced glazes are used. Elegant, because all the cups and bowls are turned to be thin-walled.
The energy crisis and inflation have hit the small pottery company hard over the last year. “Our fixed costs have doubled, and we’re glad to have survived last fall,” she says. However, Viola Beuscher is not discouraged. On the contrary: Together with her team, she is looking ahead and continuously working on optimizing all the processes in her workshop. She loves what she does too much. “I can fully reflect myself in my work,” she says. “No matter what I do, there’s always a piece of me in it.”
Tip: Currently Viola Beuscher offers the first collection work of the year with the spring collection 2023.
