In the small town of Brylle, surrounded by open fields and wide skies, ceramicist Lærke Møller Hansen works at her wheel in a former blacksmith workshop. Her studio sits on the island of Fyn in central Denmark, not far from Odense, but far enough to feel removed from its pace.
Lærke began working with clay at twelve, after asking for a ceramics class for her birthday. A friend of her mother’s, a trained potter, helped her get started, and from there she was enthralled. She went on to study full-time at a Danish craft and design school, then trained at the Royal Danish Academy in Bornholm.
Lærke throws each pot by hand. Her forms are subtle and considered, rooted in the Japanese sensibilities of simplicity and function and observation. A study trip to Japan during her training had a lasting influence: “The colours, the simplicity – you can really feel that you’re close to nature.” She fires her work in an electric kiln but mimics the richness of wood-fired ceramics through glaze and surface texture. “It’s hard to access wood kilns in Denmark, so I try to bring some of that feeling in - the roughness, the depth,” she says. She draws her palette from the Danish west coast, where she grew up walking through pine forests and along windswept beaches. “It’s only recently that I realised that these were my colours,” she says. “But they’ve been there all along.”
Nature plays a central role in her work. She often layers ash glaze or leaves the stoneware bare to reveal the raw material, sometimes adding sand or locally dug clay to her mixtures. “I spent summers walking the dunes or down on the beach,” she says, and when studying in Bornholm, she would journey the shore roads to school every day.
Though her pieces have an organic feel, functionality is also paramount. “I like when things work,” she says. “When the dimensions align, when the lid fits neatly into the base.” She speaks of her process as responsive rather than rigid: “Ideas come as I’m working. One form leads to another.”
For the TOAST collection, Lærke has created a series of vases, a soap dish and an ikebana vase. Her mini vases, standing at just over 8cm tall, can be grouped for an interesting arrangement or stand alone. The decorative quality of the larger vessels was achieved through combed marks, which contorted with each pull of the clay walls, resulting in organic stripes that celebrate the process itself. The shallow ikebana vase allows stems to rest naturally in water. “It’s like a small lake,” she says. “The water reflects the flower above it.”
Each day in the studio is shaped by the rhythm of the clay. “You work with the material, not against it,” she says. One day might involve throwing; the next, trimming or glazing. “I like that no two days are the same. It keeps me grounded.” Since graduating in 2020, she has balanced making with other work - in cafés, greenhouses, teaching - but now focuses full-time on her ceramics practice.
With the support of the TOAST New Makers programme, she hopes to develop her practice further. “I try to seek the highest level of craftsmanship I can,” she says. “I want people to feel the time and thought that went into each piece.”
Discover our New Makers 2025 collection.
Words by Lauren Sneade.
Photography by Laura Short.
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