Inside the world of contemporary ceramics devotee Marijke Varrall-Jones

She and Will came up with the name Maak - 'to make in Dutch - in a pub near their home in Putney. By June 2009, she was organising her first online ceramics auction, working with Auction Atrium, a small London-based company that was ahead of the curve in terms of getting people to bid online. Over the next 18 months, Mariike ran seven Maak auctions as a consultant under the Auction Atrium banner. She soon realised that she wanted to have more autonomy and decided to build her own platform. "There was no software that met my needs, unless I wanted to sell alongside tractors and industrial machinery.' she says. She teamed up with a friend who worked for a bespoke software company and they developed a platform. Now, as well as running Maak, Marijke is a tech entrepreneur and founding director of Rostrum, which allows customers to run live and timed auctions under their own label.

Marijke with the family's Welsh springer spaniel Juno

Tom Griffiths

Thankfully, her new auctions were successful from the outset. Private collectors were relieved that an expert in the field had created a platform tailored to contemporary ceramics and a flurry of bidding reflected this. One of the early supporters was modern ceramics collector and potter Ben Baglio, whom Marijke met in 2009 when she was guest lecturer on Sotheby's MA in Contemporary Design. He has bought several pieces from Maak auctions, including a vast work by Ewan Henderson and a set of 12 cylinder vases by Rupert Spira. Ben credits Maak with helping the work of potters John Ward and Akiko Hirai thrive on the secondary market. 'It's largely because of Maak's careful shepherding of the pieces that come up for resale, which has resulted in phenomenal increases in their auction prices.' he says.

Alongside developing Maak, Marijke and Will have been raising their two boys, Dexter, 13, and Bastie, 11. When she held the first auction using her own software in May 2011, Marijke was eight months pregnant. For the next seven years, Maak was a solo enterprise, with Will helping when he could in the evenings. This organic growth worked well with family life; the boys are hugely respectful of her own collection of ceramics and craft pieces, which are beautifully displayed around their home. Their friends are briefed not to throw anything in the house, and Dexter has earned holiday pocket money by helping catalogue the Maak library. Since 2015, the family has lived not far from Henley. Will and Mariike both grew up in the countryside and wanted to give their boys a similar childhood.

Ceramics for forthcoming auctions and private sales line shelves at Maak's office

Tom Griffiths

After years of working from home, Marijke took on an office locally, not long before one of the lockdowns. This decision was precipitated by the need to have access to the pots while the specialist London storage facility that she used was forced to closed its doors. And thank goodness she did: the May 2021 auction attracted Maak's highest ever level of new registrations. 'It was such a strange period for everyone, but many of us suddenly had more time than ever to be online looking for new things', she says. 'Something about ceramics hugely resonated with people. It's that sense of engagement with physical objects that come from the earth, handmade by one human, which you can hold within your hands.'

The offices are in a converted farm building a few miles from the family home and Mariike now has a team of five. Maak holds up to five auctions each year, some featuring 400 or more pots. This autumn it will be presenting Contemporary Ceramics (November 16-21) and Ceramic Art of the East (November 16-20) auctions. Both will be exhibited at the Earlham Street gallery in Covent Garden, allowing potential buyers to see the pieces first hand.

Contemporary ceramics aficionado and potter Ben Baglio arranging his collection. which includes works by Rupert Spira, Gordon Baldwin, Emmanuel Cooper, John Ward and Edmund de Waal, in his sitting room in London. He acquired several of these pieces through Maak auctions

Tom Griffiths

Mariike talks about the thrill she still feels on discovering an amazing piece and when presenting important works at auction. 'It's exciting when you set a world record for an artist, which we've done many times,' she says. In 2020, Maak sold Magdalene Odundo's Angled Mixed Coloured Piece for £240,000; at the time, this was highest price paid for a single work by a living ceramic artist.

In September 2022, Mariike set up the Maak Foundation - a charitable initiative providing grants to promote studio ceramics through supporting research, non-commercial exhibitions or the publication of books. The first of these was Emma Crichton-Miller's 2022 monograph on British studio potter John Ward, who died in 2023; the second, in May 2024, was a monograph covering 50 years of Julian Stair's work. With the addition ofcroft auctions and a growing team, Mariike's success is testament to the belief that if you do something you love, the rest will follow O

Maak: maaklondon.com