Inside the Potter´s garden

Authors: Matti Bauer. Human interest - BR - 2007 - 45 min

Whoever enters the garden of Loesche, the potter, feels as if time has been turned back. Passing by Loesche´s 18th century house, you reach a garden of vegetables and herbs, in which ceramic manufactures sprout like exotic plants: spheres in various forms, colours and glazes, which are balanced on sticks like the trophies of a hunter; black-annealed jugs and bowls, hung on laces and dangling in the wind; small masterpieces besides miscarried items, which are broken in two. Collectively, they form a fascinating open-air museum in which now and then an amazed visitor gets looses his way. Loesche doesn´t mind. He is proud of his fairy-tale garden.

The Bavarian craftsman is 83 years old, uses a cane for walking in his garden and is nevertheless the first one at the kiln every morning. The pieces are produced by three women, Karin, Manuela and Claudia. They work in the adjoining building, which the last provost of the "Augustinerchorherrenstift" had already used as a painting studio in ancient times. The furniture is covered in fine dust, making you forget that the potter´s wheel is electrically driven and the kiln is heated with gas.

"Inside the potter´s garden" is a film about a handcraft which profoundly shapes the town of Diessen. Ceramics belong to the town like Neuschwanstein belongs to Bavaria.