Stockholm- and Mallorca-based ceramic artist Stefanie Ahlstrom creates playful porcelain beings that exist somewhere between fantasy and reality. Originally trained in outdoor apparel design, she spent a decade designing for Scandinavian winters before leaving the corporate world to pursue ceramics.
Each piece is handcrafted and finished in Stefanie’s signature joyful glazes, balancing precision with unpredictability as the porcelain shifts and softens during firing. Born in Finland and shaped equally by life in Stockholm, she now divides her time between the Nordics and Mallorca.
Read Stefanie’s interview with Trobat and shop her collection below.
Like most children I played with clay but seemed to enjoy it just a bit more than others. At art camp I was especially drawn to the clay bag even when we were supposed to paint landscapes. I took evening classes after school and then work and always longed for the next session.
I have a background as a designer which is very different from being an artist, yet quite similar. As a designer I would draw and make instructions for garments for my colleagues and then the factory to produce samples of. It was a long process with many minds and hands involved. I did enjoy it. As an artist, I’m in control, in charge and responsible for it all. I love it.
Becoming an artist wasn’t anything I decided to become but something that I became. When making my figurines I don’t have to settle for good enough. I can develop new glazes even if the ones I have are ok. I can make weird stuff and the weirder the better.
Matisse has glorious colour work. I want to develop a palette of glazes that is as lively and varied as Matisse’s paintings.
My studio is on a little island called the isle of Moon. Here I spend the months when the sea isn’t frozen and access none. From the house I take the way either over the rocks or the grass path to the studio just a few meters away. I love the feeling of grass and rocks against my bare feet.
In the studio I have large windows in three directions and can see nature do its thing and listen to the birds and waves. Together with my father we built steady tables to work on. The back wall has a large shelving system for drying my work and storing everything I need in my ceramics studio along with ropes and other island related things. The studio is spacious and crowded and my happy place.
One guest would be Jesus. Who is this person that has shaped so much of our society? Is he as dead charming as I assume one would have to be to achieve that? I’d also like to invite my animal friends to hear how they see life. As I’m not fond of cooking, I’d like trobar to recommend a treat for us.
Haruki Murakami’s The city and its uncertain walls is beautiful. As usual he plays with magical realism. This was a new term for me even though the genre has intrigued me for some time. I see my ceramic beings as magical realism. Their spirits live among us and take bodily shape, the figurines I make, when they feel safe to do so.
If I hadn’t found the side road of being an artist I would have continued being a designer. In a way I’m still a designer. I design ceramics that I then make myself. I just fill them with soul rather than commercial viability.
I’m a libra and would have to get expert opinions regarding embodiment. What do you think?
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