Panelist, Interviewer, and Demonstrating Artist

Elisa Helland-Hansen, born 1950 in NYC, raised in Bergen, Norway, is educated at Bergen School of Arts and Crafts in the mid 1970s. Built a two-chambered wood-fired kiln in 1981 outside Bergen which she fired for 25 years. Now she works full time at her studio in Rosendal using a gas-kiln, only wood-firing a salt/soda kiln twice a year in Balestrand. She exhibits regularly both in Norway and abroad. She was head of the Ceramic Department as professor at HDK, University of Gothenburg from 2000 to 2005.

Elisa has dedicated her 50-year career to making functional pots for kitchen and meals. “Useful things move me, especially those that are handled daily. Cooking and shared meals also spark ideas in my studio practice. I aim for multiple qualities in one object: a color that excites, a shape that entices, a weight that stimulates, a surface that invites, a volume that is enough, a detail that you want to remember”