at Indiana University Bloomington in Indiana, USA. Her work is directed mainly towards the preservation of traditions passed down from generation to generation.
She is interested in folk heritage and believes that traditional crafts have already to a large extent figured out the rules of aesthetics. Therefore she is trying to preserve the tradition of pottery, which is currently in decline in Slovenia.
In her studio at the Slovene Ethnographic Museum in the heart of Ljubljana, which serves as workshop, shop and classroom, she and her co-workers create unique pottery ware. One of the purposes of the studio is to teach children, adults, families, companies and other individuals under the slogan "Play in Clay". In addition to designing earthenware and porcelain, the studio also carries out experiments and research, manufactures and exhibits pottery, presents traditional pottery-making and artistic and small-series production, and makes replicas. The studio emphasises that the most important thing is the process and not the final product.
In the period leading up to New Year, the workshops on making St. Nicholas figurines, Nativity scenes and decorations are particularly well attended. The warmth of the Nativity scenes and decorations is achieved with soft forms and light painting in different techniques.
Ms Peterson Lenassi has invited Slavica Cvetek, a master of painting on Kamnik majolikas (characteristic wine jugs), which is an almost extinct Slovenian art, to participate in the studio’s projects. The majolika was developed at a time when Slovenians were forming their visual identity and has come to be considered as a characteristic Slovenian object. With the aim of ensuring that the knowledge and skills of underglaze painting are not lost, Ms Cvetek participates in the making of hearts, Easter eggs, Nativity scenes and other projects, the purpose of which is to create original Slovenian souvenirs with traditional decorations and without kitschiness.
There are also many foreigners creating in the studio. They are mostly interested in Slovenian pottery ware, but some of them devote themselves to working with clay and the learning of traditional Slovenian techniques. Another artist helping Ms Peterson Lenassi is the Argentinean painter Guillermo D. Escalanto Rodriguez. Together they make clay bowls with painted inner surfaces, on which they write verses and thoughts by famous artists. Here they are participating in the AAI (Articulacion Artistica Internacional), which is an international interdisciplinary group of people meeting in the virtual and real worlds to exchange poetry, thoughts and created images.
The pottery studio is a place where Slovenian and foreign traditions are respected and given a chance to be preserved. Workshops are intended for anyone who wishes to work creatively and is not too intent on the final product. After all, it is the process of creation that really counts.
Anja Polajnar, SINFO
