Helena Tuudelepp

Words, I need words. When I find one, I keep looking further. What this word means and where it is in my life, in my soul, in my body. Clay is my partner, with whom we discuss different aspects of our lives. Words can make you fly and words can put you down. “Will you catch me if I fall?”, asked performance actress from me during the play and I answered without words “yes”.

My main medium is paperclay and porcelain. This material provides for me many ways to speak through material and reconnect loose ties. Often I choose not to go through the firing process and use raw material for my work. I have possibility to choose in which form and how long my work exists.

“I am listening to the withdrawing steps of humidity, and stretching out a bit. I have been lying down underneath the edge of the bed for days, waiting for the moment when the gathered strength will let me get up…I leave a light, dusty trace on hands; a trace that has a chalky smell. At a clumsy touch I will shatter into dusty crumbs. I am waiting. Waiting for meeting water again.”

— Helena Tuudelepp

I live and work in Tallinn, Estonia. I made deeper acquaintance with ceramics and clay in Estonian Art Academy, year 2013. I have had fortune study in several universities and learn different professions in my life. But Art Academy was the game changer in so many ways.

Today I am a member and also a board member of Estonian Ceramists Association, I take part exhibitions and I run small ceramics course for children and adults.