Daniel Flatauer Ceramics Studio Safed

|image        = [[File:00000283 daniel flatauer safed craft pottery.jpg|215px|alt=Abuhav Synagogue]]

|data8  = A Tzfat potter.}}

Daniel Flatauer has been creating ceramics in [[Safed]] for over 30 years, including ceramic Judaica.

Daniel Flatauer was born and raised in England where he studied Education and Developmental Psychology. He taught elementary school for several years before apprenticing as a potter to a craftsman in East Anglia. He decided to move to Japan continue his ceramics studies and decided to make a short stop in Israel along the way. Once in Israel, Daniel found that he didn’t want to leave. He married and he and his wife bought a small house on the outskirts of [[Artists-Quarter-Safed|Tzfat’s Artist Quarter]] where his studio and gallery are located next to his house.   

Daniel is inspired by the possibilities of creating earthenware objects, and specifically Judaica, as an expression of the Jewish connections to clay. Jewish texts, including Jeremiah 18: 6 (“O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay in the potter's hand, so are ye in My hand, O house of Israel”) and a Yom Kippur meditation (“Like the clay in the hand of the potter- he expands it at will and contracts it at will”) express the idea that G-d shapes and molds each of us. These are Daniel’s inspirations as he creates a wide variety of ceramic objects.

Groups are invited into Daniel’s studio to watch him work the potter’s wheel as he discusses the introspection that shapes his work. He discusses G-d's choice of clay as the material that was used to shape Adam and connects the creation of his objects to “giving birth on a potter’s wheel” -- a reference to the verse in Exodus 1:16 which describes Jewish women giving birth on a birthing stool. Daniel feels that every piece of clay contains aspects of the craftsman who creates the object. He identifies aspects of his own past as well as those of his teachers and other individuals who shaped his life and his art in his pottery. He teaches that as each object moves on to its new owner its story takes on new details that come from its new owners.

Daniel’s gallery is on Yud Aleph Street on the edge of the [[Artists Quarter Safed]] below the [[General-Exhibition-Safed|General Exhibition]]. Daniel enjoys working in the quiet of Tzfat and welcomes visitors into his studio to learn and experience Tzfat ceramics.