Yvonne Rausch Ceramics

I'm Yvonne Rausch, a ceramicist and product designer based in Vienna. My way into clay came through design. With a background in international business and product design, I was always interested in how form, material, and meaning come together; how an object can be both useful and quietly beautiful; and how the material you choose shapes everything about what something becomes. At some point clay answered all of those questions at once, and I haven't looked back since.

That curiosity still drives my practice today. I collect wild clay from riverbeds and landscapes, physically going out and reading a place through its earth, and that's probably the most honest expression of what ceramics means to me: turning curiosity into something you can hold in your hands. I was born in Colombia, I'm based in Vienna, and I've done residencies across Europe. All of that finds its way into how I work and how I teach. Ceramics, for me, has never just been about technique. It's about slowing down, paying attention, and connecting with something that has been part of human life for thousands of years.

My workshops cover a range of ceramic techniques. I offer mug carving, hand building, and Nerikomi, a Japanese clay marbling technique that very few people teach in Vienna. Nerikomi is a precise and meditative process where different coloured clays are layered, compressed, and sliced to reveal intricate patterns inside the material itself. Across all of my workshops, the approach is the same: social and relaxed, but never superficial. I put real thought into what people learn and take home. You leave having understood something about the material, having practiced a real technique, and with a piece you actually made yourself. I'm a working artist, not just a teacher, and I think that comes through in how I run a session.

For private groups, whether it's a team event, a birthday, or just a few friends wanting to do something a little different, the format works really well. The group is always kept small, between 6 and 8 people, so everyone gets proper attention and the atmosphere stays genuine. There's something about working with your hands together that opens people up in a way that dinner or drinks just doesn't. No screens, no agenda, no rush. Just clay, good company, and something to take home at the end of it.