Ann Van Hoey: I was turning 50 and thinking, “Is this everything?”
*Ann (64) ★ lives in Mechelen, Belgium -> world-famous ceramicist making unique pieces sold in art galleries and exhibited in museums around the world -> as a commercial engineer, Ann had a talent for mathematics and science and although she worked for years in the furniture industry, she always felt the call of craft ✗ she studied the IKA Art and Craft Academy in Mechelen -> she loves biking through her city, eating, drinking and chatting on one of the many pleasant terraces in Mechelen with her friends, walking alongside the canal or in the park near her home
Ann, you've become a world-famous ceramicist in your 50s, therefore you belong among the late bloomers — people who fulfill their potential later in life. What was the trigger for you to switch careers and start making ceramics?
I was not happy anymore with my professional life. I was also at the time turning 50 years old and thinking: Is this everything? What do I really want to do with my life? So when it came to changing my profession, I have chosen what I have loved to do the most when I was younger — the craft. Since I had been successful career wise in my commercial jobs for nearly 20 years and had a bit of financial reserve, I could allow myself to take it slowly and see if it I could get somewhere.
“I was turning 50 years old and thinking: Is this everything? What do I really want to do with my life?”
Society expects a certain timeline of life and pushes the message that if you are not professionally complete around your 30s, you have somehow made the wrong turn in life. How do you perceive those expectations?
I proved them wrong! (laughs) You can decide at any age to try to change profession and to make something from it.
"Wherever you are in life, it isn't too late to bloom and life is not a race but a journey." You live according to this life approach and I imagine that many younger women perceive you as a role model. Do you personally have any role models in your life?
(thinks) I do not have any role models now. But thinking back, I took my parents as role models even if perhaps too much. I didn’t know what to do or what to study so I studied what my parents did and followed their path. Today, I would do it differently. But in my young age, I didn’t see all the options that were there. Back then I would have appreciated that time if perhaps at school they had suggested another path. Since we didn't have craft at school or design, I really didn’t know that one could make a profession from that.
Which challenges and rewards have you experienced along the way as an adult beginner?
The biggest thing for me was to overcome my doubts. I had to learn to believe in myself, that I am making something which is worthy and different. I had to also blow away my uncertainty coming from no experience at the beginning. If you are young, it is normal that you are starting from zero. But when I was applying for big international biennales in my 50s, I had to overcome my fear of how other people might perceive me. And it only started to work for me at the moment I believed in it and said to myself: “Yes, I’ve made something different! Come on, it is going to be good!”
I had, and still have, great support in my husband. It was he who pushed me to see my new career path. If it was up to me, I would have started to try first a little exhibition in Mechelen and perhaps the year after a little exhibition in Leuven. But he told me: “Come on you are good enough to go international.” And it worked. I listened to him because I was already 52 at that time and I thought ok, I don’t have so much time left!
“The biggest thing for me was to overcome my doubts. I had to learn to believe in myself, that I am making something which is worthy and different.”
How did you transform your hobby into a professional and successful business?
I used all my experience I had from my former jobs to make it a success. Not only do I look at my work to be good, but everything else as well. My website had to look professional, I made business cards, I sent my answers in time, packed professionally, etc. All of those things they refer to me as a professional ceramicist and not just a hobbyist who just started.
But to be honest, it was and still is difficult to do all those things right. Because the only thing I want to do is to be in my studio and to work on my pieces. All the other things are not always so pleasant and they take a lot of time and effort.
Ann in her atelier.
What does success mean to you?
For me, where I am now is an absolute success. I have much more self-confidence now than I had before. My profession has opened my world. It is truly amazing. I am being invited to the US and Asia (Taiwan, Japan, Korea and China) where I could do several residencies. Thanks to those experiences I was able to live in different cultures. All of that is for me an enormous success. It has broadened my horizons. And, of course, it always makes me happy if a client buys my work, I really appreciate it.
“Where I am right now is an absolute success.”
You have developed a unique style of your own in your craft. Where is your inspiration coming from?
By working in my studio during the creation process. By trying things, making failures and trying to repair them. I was very good at mathematics, and I feel most things are happening in my head while I am working. One thing is becoming another.
Only exceptionally I find my inspiration elsewhere. That is true for my first series — my folded pieces — when I was just back from Japan. I was influenced by origami and as well stone gardens, I admire their repetitiveness and simplicity.
“Inspiration comes from trying things, making failures and trying to repair them.”
What does good design mean to you?
For me it is something simple. But simple is very difficult (laughs). I like design without too many special effects.
What doors are you still looking forward to opening, both professionally and personally?
I wish to continue as I am doing now. Personally, I hope that my husband, daughter and grandchildren will do well. Professionally, I am already so far beyond the point I’d hoped for, so I intend to stay on the same level. I am looking forward to the end of this year for my solo exhibition in the US. Just now I have a chance to have an assistant in my studio for the first time, a lady from the Czech Republic, who has stayed with me as an assistant for the last 6 months. It is such a good experience and such an agreeable way to work in a studio that I hope the university will send me another one next year (laughs)! So this brand new door I would love to keep opened for sure.