In conversation with Cadi Froehlich, artist

My third interview is with Cadi Froehlich, an artist who makes artwork to live with. I love this idea. Her striking illustrated ceramic work is beautiful and I love this quote from her website:

“Copper is a commonly reclaimed and recycled material, whilst ceramics last for centuries. The silica which makes up the clay and the glaze is the basis for microchips. This idea that pottery will outlive current generations means I imagine I am making objects which may provide the raw materials for future Hand Made Devices.”

I have never thought about ceramics like this before!

You may recognise Cadi from The Great Pottery Show Down in 2024. She is shortly due to exhibit at Future Icons Selects (May 2025) and I will hopefully get to meet her face to face.

Photo of the artist Cadi Froehlich — Cadi Froehlich

Who - are you?

I’m a Brighton-based maker, nuts about art, nature and the history of makers. I’ve raised 2 bilingual kids and have a strong connection with my German in-laws, and this along with having lived in several different countries feeds into my work.

I’ve been a practicing artist for 15 years, working with salvaged copper to make large scale installations, before switching to ceramics. I draw on my early career as a web designer which informs my fascination with the materials and infrastructure that we use to connect.

Why - do you also have a thing with ceramics?

At first I approached clay purely from a materials point of view- what relation does the silica in clay have to the silica wafers used to make microchips? What happens when you zoom in or out on those elements?

Of course pretty soon I was hooked. When my lease on my workshop ended I switched to a community ceramics studio and that was it.

I love the deep physical connection we have with the clay as we work it, and the endless possibilities it offers. I enjoy messing with my assumptions about vessels and functionality, playing with holes, cracks and scale to see things a bit differently. I study traditional ceramics from all over the world whose forms and decorations are inevitably echoed in my work.

When - did ceramics come into your life?

Apart from making pinch pots from the lumps of clay in our back garden as a child, I first fell in love with clay at my 6th form college. I’d picked all the wrong subjects and bunked off most of them in the ceramic studio. I was instinctively drawn to it.

When I finally got the chance to go to art college 15 years later I met clay again, but my asthma wasn’t compatible with the environment back then. Fast forward 15 years and health & safely had kicked in, the studios were scrubbed and I was in!

Where - can we find you on a typical day?

At the moment my days are usually pretty predictable as I am learning to balance studio work with the admin required to try to run a business as a maker. These are interspersed with the intense experience of packing up and exhibiting at art fairs and exhibitions around the country, which I love- studio work can be quite a solitary experience, which I actually enjoy, but the balance is really important to me.

What - are your plans for the future?

I am making an outside sculpture to exhibit as part of the Waterloo Festival in July, alongside a large commemorative sculpture commission.

I have started teaching workshops this year too, which are lots of fun. Seeing the variety of work people make using the same starting point is always wonderful and I’ve got lots more booked which I’m really looking forward to.

I’ll always do a couple of fairs a year alongside the exhibitions and workshops because I love meeting the other potters as well as the enthusiasm of the pottery audiences.