While organizing the material I collected from Babs Haenen for the ArchivorumArk project, one particular observation inspired me to write this blog post.
I was charmed by the subtle and steady evolution evident from her first pot to the form of a turbulent vessel that it is today. Looking through the pictures of her artworks, I found it fascinating to trace how her pots transitioned from more minimal shapes to complex, animated structures.
Reading through a newspaper clipping that Babs had saved for her archive, I found an interview she gave to journalist Saskia de Bodt in 1983. In it she describes her journey into ceramics during her studies under Jan van der Vaart at the Rietveld Academy. When Babs entered the Academy, she didn’t know a lot about ceramics. She did some throwing, but found out that wheel-throwing was not her thing, so she started with hand-building and working with clay slabs. At the time, her forms were simpler and with muted tones, elements that were technically fundamental but felt like the calm before a “creative storm”.
During one of my visits to her atelier, Babs shared with me that in 1978, during an internship in Dartington, England, with Marianne de Trey, she developed a technique that would later define her style by adding colour to the porcelain, then pressed the differently shaded pieces onto bowls that were lined with newspaper. This created lines and grooves on the clay's surface. These textures, enhanced by the same oxides that de Trey likes to use, captured the natural elements surrounding her. Back in the Netherlands, her process developed more intentionally, and she transitioned from using varied shapes to draping slabs over a mold layered with textile, to prevent the porcelain from sticking to the mould. Babs's relentless curiosity drove her to seek a harmony between structure and expression. The slabs she created were - for example- inspired by abstract painting,incorporating vibrant colors and structural details. Her vessels started to exhibit a unique sense of movement, embodying interior rhythms and tensions—constrained yet fluid.
As the years passed, it was not only the shape that changed from folded forms into baroque, undulating structures, but also the colours, which shifted from soft pastels to bold, flamboyant hues.
In the '80s, Babs expanded her repertoire with copper-tinted clay which added vibrant, three-dimensional flares to her pieces, inspired by the paintings of Rothko. A notable work from this period is “Creepy Animals” with pinched sheets of copper coloured porcelain evoking crawling creatures, as its name suggests. From then on, each vessel told its own story, inspired by poetry, painting, nature or a personal loss. One example is "Le Cimetière Marin", a pot inspired by a poem with the same title by Paul Valéry. It was created with blues, oranges and yellows that reflect the Mediterranean atmosphere in his verses:
“Oui! grande mer de delires douée,
Peau de panthère et chlamyde trouée,
De mille et mille idoles du soleil,
Hydre absolue, ivre de ta chair bleue,
Qui te remords l'étincelante queue
Dans un tumulte au silence pareil.”
From this point forward, Babs transformed her pieces into an immersive visual experience that blurs the line between painting and ceramics, turning them into the Turbulent Vessels of today. When you look at them, you get the feeling that the surfaces come alive, pulsating with life. Colours swirl and blend in ways that imitate organic systems, flowing seamlessly across the surface and giving the pots a sense of perpetual movement. Working with coloured porcelain sheets has become her signature, layering translucent and opaque glazes to create gradients that remind watercolour effects, all achieved through multiple firings. The vessel is no longer merely a canvas, it is a tactile exploration of space and a deeply sensory experience.
For me, as I keep working and learning new things about her and her artworks, it seems that each vessel feels like a window into her world, a narrative etched in clay that speaks of movement and expression, as rich in detail as the stories she has woven into each work.
Stay tuned! (•‿•)
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