Deirdre McLoughlin

Ceramicist

A life shaped through clay

Deirdre mainly uses the technique of coiling clay
Inspiration comes while working
A career highlight was exhibiting in New York

Deirdre McLoughlin took a degree in humanities at Trinity College Dublin. But soon after, while in Amsterdam, she discovered clay as a medium of expression and this was to become her life’s work. Several years in Japan helped galvanise her aesthetic and travel has remained an inspiration over the years, helping her to disrupt her “mental habits of seeing and being”. The world of dance and movement also inspires her, as does anyone “working with passion in whatever activity that aids well being in the world”. Now based back in Amsterdam, she considers herself a visual artist, using the technique of coiling to create forms. “I express myself through clay and forms express themselves through me,” she says.

Interview

Why did you choose ceramics?: As a young woman I had a compulsion to express, but express what and how? Until the day someone threw me a lump of clay and said “make something” and I did, and so I have been doing ever since.
How did working in Japan influence you?: I sat alongside Tosai Sawamura the elder in Kyoto for three years every Saturday coiling the finest sake cups in porcelain while training my fingers. Working in Japan gave me an idea of ‘passionate discipline’, a sense that I must spend my whole self to get good work.
What brought you to the Netherlands?: My first journey to the Netherlands was inspired by Descartes who wrote that in the Low Countries a person could work in peace without interruptions. I desired this solitude. My second coming here was for love – he is now my husband.
How does being in the Netherlands inform your work?: My works arise out of the energy within and around me. Ireland is my ancestral homeland, in the Netherlands I’m an outsider. Living outside my homeland broadens my perspective and helps keep me uncomfortable.

Deirdre McLoughlin is an expert artisan: she began her career in 1980