Niek Hoogland
A continuity remembered. Article on Niek Hoogland, published in the international ceramics magazine Neue Keramik/New Ceramics in January/February 2024.
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A continuity remembered
There can be little doubt that Niek Hoogland (Tegelen, the Netherlands, 1953) takes great pride in his roots, cultural heritage and chosen profession. He continues to live and work just a stone’s throw from where he was born and brought up. He works with the very clay that was deposited on the river beds and floodplains literally below his feet. And he has adopted and personalised the slipware traditions he inherited from his regional forebears dating back to the seventeenth century. Yet, despite these honourable foundations, Niek Hoogland remains true to himself: he continues to develop his own distinctive style that embodies such concepts as individuality and invention that are important to him.
Clay is something Niek Hoogland has spent his entire life around. The small Dutch town of Tegelen owes its very name and existence to the clay and pottery that was dug and produced there. His father was a maintenance worker in one of the local ceramic factories and often took his son along to sit in a corner and play with the clay. His backdoor neighbour was also a potter and the boy would happily drop by to watch him at work. He remembers the smells as if it were yesterday. And trains laden with clay would shuttle back and forth from the nearby quarries. Clay was literally everywhere. So it was hardly surprising for a curious youngster to acquire an implicit understanding of the entire production process and to harbour ambitions of also becoming a potter when he left school. But this was also a time of change, brought about by competition and commercial pressures. Potteries were closing down and plastic was the new rage. Such pragmatic realities would delay Hoogland’s creative ambitions.
He left school, trained to become a residential-care nurse and spent the next few years intermittently working and travelling. But with the economic downturn in the eighties, he fell on hard times and a period of unemployment. However, as one door closed, another would open. Despite his age – he had already turned 30 – and by a stroke of real fortune, Hoogland was able to join a local training programme in traditional vernacular slipware ceramics. He jumped at the opportunity. Perhaps his fondest memory during this period was the formative apprenticeship he spent with Joop Crompvoets, who encouraged experimentation and who would go on to become his lifelong friend and anchor. It was here that Hoogland first set his mind to becoming an independent studio potter.
A further two years in a local production pottery, although arduous and monotonous, enabled him to perfect his throwing skills and taught him the rigours of routine and working efficiently. And a period spent with Guul Jabobs in Milsbeek enabled him to find his feet and pave the way to autonomy. Jacobs lent him a throwing wheel – paid for with a teapot! – and helped him order his first major consignment of clay. Impressed by his work, he also invited him to present his slipware at the Gouda ceramics fair. This first public appearance would win him first prize and best in show. In May 1991, he officially started his own studio, selling his work through a local shop, and when that closed, through his front door. Hoogland, magnanimous as ever, confirms that without the generosity of such people as Joop Crompvoets, Guul Jacobs and a local shop-owner, his life as an independent ceramicist would have taken a completely different course. Not long after, he won his first major commission to create a tile panel for the local police station. With the money he earned, he bought a pug mill and a larger kiln, which he still uses to this day, three decades later.
Ceramics is an inclusive art. Whether the intention is purely utilitarian, sensory appeal or cerebral introspection, ultimately it provides a participatory experience. And this is undoubtedly the case when it comes to slipware and Niek Hoogland. It has been said before – and is worthwhile repeating – that cultural heritage and locality weigh heavily for him, as does storytelling. He has adopted, mastered and built on the slipware folk-art tradition that uses local clay, local materials, local themes and which is aimed at a local market. Significantly, though, one thing above all else that he took to heart from his mentor, Joop Crompvoets, was the adage that “everything comes from somewhere else”: nothing stands in isolation. And it is this that stimulated him to look further and deeper and always to convey his own interpretation of the skills and traditions he has inherited. Through his work, Niek Hoogland has the ability to understand and present the world as he does because he sees it from various perspectives. His motifs, decorated using slip-trailing and sgraffito, essentially form a narrative. And although often taken from the surrounding area, culture and landscape, they also express universal concepts. For some time now, he has been introducing topics, symbolism and analogies into his work that are more capricious, whimsical and tongue-in-cheek, as well as providing a serious, critical examination of social issues, such as the repugnant aspects of power and social conflict. Of course, this medium has always been used to lampoon, parody, even ridicule social conventions and orthodoxy. It is etched into the very fabric of folk-art traditions. In this sense his work often represents a direct discourse between the ceramicist and his audience. Through freedom of interpretation and application comes liberation from constraint. And it is this that elevates his free work into something very much his own, along with his own idiosyncrasies and predilection.
There are also not many people who are as personable and down to earth as Niek Hoogland. There is genuine sincerity in his character and work. It is as if he has taken to heart a quote from one of his favourite books, given to him during his formative years: Mary Wondrausch on Slipware. Discussing the difficulties and perseverance of small rural-based potteries, she says, “One must conclude that it is the integrity of their work which makes their operation valid”. Sentiments that perhaps not only encapsulate the man and the ceramicist but also what he continues to dedicate his time and energy to achieving. He is interested in the materiality of ceramics and not the ephemeral. And making your own slips and sourcing your own clay are integral to this process. It all brings a sense of personal attachment and augments an interpersonal relationship.
The local red earthenware clay is the result of glacial and sedimentary deposits from the rivers Maas and Rhine and was found to be ideal for producing the vernacular pottery which the region is renowned for. It is also unpredictable, which gives it a character not found in commercial clay. Niek Hoogland uses this wild clay as raw and unrefined as possible. It is responsive to the hand and takes the slip-glazing well. When fired, it radiates a rich warmth. Very much like the man himself. He possesses the broad repertoire of skills necessary for his chosen profession: the gestural fluidity and spontaneity of a painter, the keen eye of an illustrator and the manual surety and confidence of the consummate craftsman. He has not inherited them, he has earned them. In the hands of such skilled practitioners, tradition is not something that is stuck in the past. It is very much a continuum, a passing on of cultural heritage. The Anglo-American potter, Mark Hewett, expressed it succinctly when he said that, “Tradition has a rhythm. It is constantly changing. It has to do with place, material, technique, equipment, and to a certain extent style. It is about giving a contemporary twist to an old practice. It is a continuity remembered”.
In the summer of 2023, Niek Hoogland was honoured to have worked in Bernard Leach’s personal studio as Artist-in-Residence in St Ives, making work in preparation for his upcoming exhibition in the Netherlands, holding workshops for budding ceramicists and explaining the techniques and history of European slipware ceramics to curious visitors. Ever conscious of his surroundings and what it meant to him, one day he wrote, “Every morning I walk through this beautiful pottery, past the famous fireplace and up the wooden stairs to my studio… I feel so privileged to be able to work here”. It is an environment that he is completely at home in. One that provides another opportunity to share and pass on his wealth of knowledge and cultural heritage to a new generation.
Neale Williams
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Niek Hoogland was born in Tegelen, the Netherlands, in 1953 and trained as a ceramist in the mid-eighties. He carried out apprenticeships with Joop Crompvoets and Guul Jacobs before officially starting his own studio in 1991. Niek is keen to continue and expand on the age-old Lower Rhenish slipware traditions he has inherited. He is also the catalyst and ambassador for getting these historical practices recognised as Intangible Cultural Heritage. He has exhibited worldwide and his work is held in various museum collections. In the summer of 2023 he was invited to be Artist-in-Residence at the Leach Pottery in St Ives. Niek will have a major solo exhibition in Keramiekcentrum Tiendschuur Tegelen in the Netherlands from 26 January 2024 to 30 June 2024.