Straight out of Portland, Oregon, Pigeon Toe Ceramics embodies the simplified perfection that I love so much about white ceramics. I remember the first piece I saw from this studio, the ceramic Kerr jar lantern. Ever since, I’ve been a huge fan. Recently, they launched new pieces and my love has grown, if that’s even possible! This batch of tabletop perfection has sweet details such as a bronze handle on a butter dish lid and darling cork stoppers on salt & pepper shakers. Yup, I am crushing hard…
Potentially the most perfect spoon rest I have ever seen.
{images via Pigeon Toe Ceramics}
by Joanna on February 25, 2013
When I entertain, I don’t think about the menu or the guests first. No, I think about the ambience of the gathering! It’s important to me that my guests walk into my home feeling welcomed and comfortable. I rarely go with a fancy schmancy look. More often I gravitate toward a vibe that’s casual, one where people gather at the kitchen island and nosh on a cheeseboard with bouquets of dried lavender scattered across the tabletop. And the serving pieces I most frequently envision for my ideal party setting? The delightfully cute and subtly textured ceramics of Suite One Studio.
Each ceramic piece is hand made in North Carolina by artist Lindsay Emery. She also hand mixes the bright and cheerful glazes, creating a lovely tonal mix-and-match story. One of my favorite features of Lindsay’s work is how she plays with texture: glossy and unglazed, burlap and lace, smooth and rippled.
{pour bowl in deep ocean}
{nesting bowls in aqua}
Ready for dessert? Suite One Studio has the most darling cupcake stands around, all with burlap texture on the top and unglazed ceramic bases. I can picture many of these stacked together for a cute and quirky dessert table!
{All images by Suite One Studio}
Based on our posts this week, Alexis, Joanna, and I clearly have tableware on our brains! I recently learned that one of my favorite local ceramicists, Lisa Neimeth, has new pieces available through Anthropologie. Since we’re already thinking ahead to spring—the Anthology staff is hard at work on the spring issue!—I’m especially drawn to her latest designs, with their organic shapes and nature-inspired motifs.
We included Lisa’s San Francisco home in Issue No. 8/Summer 2012, and a standout feature of her place is her studio: It’s a converted chicken coop in her backyard. How awesome is that? In case you missed the story on her, below are a couple of outtakes from that shoot (taken by Caren Alpert)—just to give you an idea of why we’re so envious of her workspace!
P.S. Issue No. 8 is still available through some of our stockists who carry back issues of Anthology—including The Curiosity Shoppe in San Francisco and Clementine in Vermont.
Faceted rough-hewn wood has always been a weakness of mine and the Las Doce collection from The Andes House is certainly no exception. Made from a single piece of wood, each bowl, plate, and mug is an exploration in pure simplicity and manufacturing cunning. Using both hand and machine manufacturing techniques, each piece is first externally carved by hand by Mapuche artisans, then CNC industrial robots cut out the interior. Ruggedly handsome, they are perfection.
{a Mapuche artisan hand-chisels a bowl}
{images via The Andes House}
This weekend we’ve got a shoot planned up for an upcoming issue and I’ve been busy hunting for props. I’ve been looking for a variety of vintage white containers and tableware, which led me to the beautiful work of Caroline Swift.
Caroline, a student of textiles and a knitwear designer, started her ceramics line out of a necessity; she couldn’t find plates for a book project she was working on. Her underlying design philsophy, which she applies to both textiles and ceramics is “to create products that are pure and natural with beauty and integrity.” She chose bone china for its beauty and strength, and wanted to leave it unglazed to highlight the character of the material. Through a tedious process of hand-sanding the delicate, unfired pieces, Caroline was able to achieve almost unbelievable thinness. Once fired, the pieces become durable and surprisingly strong.
{Images via Caroline Swift}
