An Interview with Tatjana Kunst: Ceramicist And Owner Of Mermud Studio
Meet TATJANA KUNST
Tatjana Kunst is a 27 year old ceramicist born and raised in New York State with a heavy cultural influence from her Dutch Father and Italian Mother. Tatjana was raised by immigrant parents with fervent entrepreneur spirits. Her childhood summers were spent in Europe while her schools years in New York. Her first experience with ceramics was when she was 6 and was in the Northern Netherlands attending the pottery party thrown for her Grandmother Beppes 70th birthday. While she had fallen in love with the craft in that moment, she didn’t touch it until 10 years later in high school. As a junior, she was given the opportunity to take ceramics as an elective and while her ceramics class may have been an afterthought for the school, it was then she understood that she had found her craft. After high school, she attended Maryland Institute College of Art to study ceramics. After college and a few months abroad, Tatjana moved in to her parents home while she worked at her family’s spa and salon while teaching at a community studio and occasionally finding time for her own personal expression through ceramics. In January of 2018, Tatjana was in a hit and run accident that shattered her left collar bone and left leg. Recovery was slow while she found herself having to adapt to a normalcy of dealing with doctors and surgery’s. In her time of healing she began attending cosmetology school at Aveda Institute as an alternative to the life of a ceramicist that she felt she might not have. Fortunately, in April of 2019 she was cleared to create and sculpt again. After graduating cosmetology in the spring of 2020, she threw herself full time into her business, Mermud Studio, and has now since been able to conceptualize, create, and craft with all her efforts and time.
Where can I find Mermud Studio?
Where has Mermud Studio been featured?
Hastings-On-Hudson with Tatjana Kunst
The INTERVIEW
I take the MetroNorth green line paralleling the Hudson River. In the four and a half years I have lived in New York City, I have never taken the MetroNorth. However in all fairness, I wasn’t sure where the “North” in MetroNorth would take me. The sky feels more open; the blue a never truer color. Here in this river town nestled in the overgrowth of greenery, I have plans to meet with Tatjana Kunst at her ceramics studio in her family’s beautiful craftsman home. At the same time as the train pulls into the station, she does also. I mention her impeccable timing and she credits it to the years of driving to and from the station picking up friends or family coming in from the city. The drive through her town is quiet and quaint and almost reminiscent of the English Countryside with curved roads and lush scenery. When we arrive at her home, I exchange hellos with her Dad as he affixes bicycles to the cars bike rack. She holds the thick wood door open for me and upon entering I’m greeted by a classic craftsman kitchen with white cabinets and well worn wood floors. At one end of a wide island is a bowl of dried chiles her mom grew in the garden and on the other is Tatjanas half eaten toasted bagel that she left to come pick me up. She offers me an array of tea - an appearance of her European upbringing. While my tea sits steeping, she pulls a bagel from the toaster that her Mom upstairs has asked she makes for her as she gets ready for a Saturday bike ride. Tatjana smothers it with plain cream cheese and tops it with lox - an appearance of her New York living. Once I’ve poured milk into my tea and she’s taken the breakfast she’s made for her Mom to her, she walks me down a flight of narrow stairs to her ceramics studio. A white shelving unit holds her newest collection that she plans to release a few days after the publication of our interview. Following along the shape the room, she has a desk covered in clay residue where she tells me she cuts and weighs her clay before throwing it on her wheel. There’s a window sill perpendicularly that houses various kinds of her succulent plants. Even as she momentarily leaves the room, I can feel her in this space - it’s her haven and the place where she can feel free to be vulnerable in her craft. Before I set up to record our interview, we make our way into her garage where her kiln and pottery wheel are. As eager as I am to talk with her about her journey through art and business and life in general, I’m desperate to see her in her element. In the same elegance as I’d find in the sounds of symphonies or pleas at the ballet, she moves in her own rhythm. I feel I am witness to something holy. It’s mesmerizing.
This is a summation of my interview with Tatjana. The interview in its entirety can be found on Apple Podcast or Spotify under Episode 17: An Interview with Tatjana Kunst: Ceramicist and Owner of Mermud Studio
link to Spotify here
Intro and Outro Music composed by: Carl Swenson
Sound Mixing: Carl Swenson
http://carlswensonmusic.com