Ceramicist Olivia Barry Looks to the Past for Present Designs

Get to Know Ceramicist Olivia Barry

Interior Design: How did you find your way to ceramics?

Olivia Barry: My grand­mother was a potter, and the exposure I got from her lit a spark in me. I took pottery classes from age 10 in Toronto, where I grew up, and then in Ohio, where we moved when I was a teenager. Wherever I’ve lived, I’ve always found studios in which to work.

ID: But didn’t you originally study industrial design?

OB: Yes, at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit. Although it’s known for automotive design, it has an amazing and unsung industrial design program as well. Another influence was meeting Wendell Castle in high school, when he was giving a talk at the Toledo Museum of Art. I was really interested in his work and the sculptural nature of furniture, so I pursued those ideas in school.

ID: What is the most interesting thing you learned from her?

OB: To be brave. When Eva lived in Russia in the 1930’s, she was imprisoned because she was accused of plotting to kill Stalin. She survived the Gulag for, I believe, 18 months. And then went on to have an incredible life. Eva did things other people hadn’t done before and she did them seemingly fearlessly. She didn’t worry about what was going on in the design world. I don’t think she really noticed.

ID: How did you end up going out on your own?

OB: I was working for Eva on the weekends or after hours while also making my own ceramics in a group studio in Brooklyn. I’d done prototypes for what is now my Scroll Luminaire, which ended up in the Design Trust for Public Space auction in 2017. People really responded to them—there was even a bidding war. So, I decided to start working on more, moved out of the city, and built a studio in Tarrytown, where I now live.

Peek at Olivia Barry’s Lighting Designs, and More

10 Questions With… Ceramicist Jane Yang D’Haene

2023 is turning out to be the best year yet for ceramicist Jane Yang D’Haene. Having been picked up by The Future Perfect last spring, the Korean-born, Brooklyn-based artist has quickly emerged as one of the platform’s most successful talents. After numerous showcases in the gallery’s West Village townhouse in New York, The Future Perfect mounted Yang D’Haene’s first solo show at its Los Angeles Goldwyn House earlier this summer. Occupying various rooms of the sprawling Hollywood Hills mansion, the “Remembrance” exhibition comprises over a dozen one-off works that demonstrate the latest feats in her ongoing exploration and translation of the ancient Moon jar typology.

Yang D’Haene’s recent success has also come from partnerships and projects developed in addition to this fruitful collaboration. A September 2022 group show at Galerie Kitsuné Brooklyn, in partnership with fresh-faced Los Angeles purveyor Stroll Garden, led to Yang D’Haene’s curatorial debut. Presented simultaneously with yet another solo show—this time at Hauser & Wirth’s Southampton outpost—”Where Land Meets Sea,” on view till September 4th, is a thematic showcase highlighting six young Korean artists exploring many of the same preoccupations that have come to define her practice thus far. Staged with Stroll Garden at the studio of late abstract expressionist Adolph Gottlieb in nearby East Hampton, the exhibition centers on the common thread of interpretation; finding different ways to treat the well entrenched heritage of Korean artistry through a contemporary lens. If that weren’t enough, there are showcases of her work in Paris and elsewhere planned for later this fall. 

The highly sought after ceramicist only began foraying into the medium six or so years ago. She began her professional life climbing the ladder at a major architecture firm and designing corporate offices among other projects. As she shares with Interior Design, her story is proof that advantageous career shifts are possible at any stage of the game. Yang D’Haene also talks about her idiosyncratic process and the thinking behind the three format-defying collections she debuted with The Future Perfect in June. 

Jane Yang D’Haene Shares Insights Into Her Craft

Interior Design: What first brought you in contact with art and design?

Jane Yang D’Haene: I was raised with art all around me. My father is a painter and my grandfather composed music. I grew up watching my mother, who was always making something—sewing clothes for the kids, knitting sweaters for the family; she was also known for her singing.

ID: What led you to the world of interior architecture and design? 

JYD: I came to New York when I was 16 years old. My high school art teacher thought my work was good enough to apply to art school but sadly, my father was very against the idea. That’s how I embraced architecture school. He just wanted me to have a more steady job.  

I ended up studying at Cooper Union, which, to be honest, was extremely difficult due mainly to my language barrier. I was taught by world-famous architects but understood very little of what they were trying to convey. I couldn’t explain all my thoughts but I discovered drawing and model making as the best way to express myself. I always thought ‘If I could only explain everything through my drawings or models, I would be happy.’ I still think this way. I don’t need to explain my work so much and believe that it speaks for itself.

I worked at TPG Architecture; starting as a junior designer and moving up to design director by the time I left. Most of the projects I helped develop were offices for hedge funds, law firms, and advertising agencies. The latter was my favorite type of project to work on—I especially loved the process of designing the Double Click workspace. It was the Dot-Com era.

ID: How did you begin working with ceramics?

JYD: Ceramics came to me by recommendation from a friend in around 2016. I was going through a depression at the time and she pushed me to take a class at a community studio as a way of getting my mind off of things. At first, I really disliked the material—It was messy and as an extremely organized person, It was hard to get into it. After the third class, I noticed that everyone around me was progressing faster than me, so I took it as a challenge to work harder. Before I knew it, I was going to the studio every day. Eventually, the exploration of clay felt like something I could do forever—there was so much I could discover within it. My absorption into the medium proved to be therapeutic. 

ID: What inspired you to focus primarily on this discipline and establish your own studio?

JYD: I opened my Industry City, Brooklyn studio in 2018. I wanted to have the freedom of experimentation with all materials. Early on, pieces were constantly exploding in my kiln, which was a process I could never go through in a shared workshop due to limited time and space. My pieces still explode from time to time as I constantly look to push clay further. It’s what makes me want to go further and learn more about this magical material. Though ceramics quickly became my main focus, I was able hold onto the inherent sense of construction I honed when working as an interior designer.  I understand what can go well together in a space and always imagine my vessels as objects existing in a particular setting.

ID: How has your personal practice and studio evolved over time?

JYD: It seems my work is getting more complicated but looser. I’m using increasingly varied glazing and firing techniques. My internal emotions are expressed much more than in my earlier work but my desire to explore the potential of this material is continuous. In that too, I noticed I am less scared of making mistakes and have even begun to celebrate imperfections.

ID: How has the exploration of making Moon Jars and other historically-significant object typologies allowed you to reconnect with your roots?

JYD: In a way, working with clay brought back a feeling that seemed to be stored in my hands; which made me rethink my personal and cultural history. Over the past six or seven years, I’ve made so many different types of forms but over time, I noticed that I was drawn to moon jars. I wanted to bring my heritage through form and shapes while using the glazing process as an opportunity for expression. 

ID: In what ways does your practice challenge yet honor these traditions, and bring in sense of contemporaneity?

JYD: An evocation of heritage exists in my work, not so much as a stringent following of traditional methods, but more as a representation of memory; the elements that left a deep impression on me as child simply by virtue of being ubiquitous; the things you don’t consciously register but recall with deep fondness when you are no longer surrounded by them. In a way, the work that I do relates to the traditions of my culture, in the way that drawing something from memory relates to the veracity of detail—it might not be entirely correct, but, when successful, captures the vital essence of a thing. My designs serve as canvas that depict these recollections. A contemporary comes with love for and application of experimentation.

ID: Could you share more about how trial and error informs your process?

JYD: My forms are quite simple; I make my own versions of Korean ceramic shapes. Most are handbuilt using a classic coil technique, which is a slow process but one I enjoy. The experimentational factor is always at play, in the material itself, starting with mixing different bodies of clay to achieve an unexpected finish on the surface. I then play with layers and glazes. Dome pieces involve multiple firings and that’s most exciting because I get to be a painter and a mad scientist all at once. It’s always a surprise when I open my kiln. I never get the same result twice and that’s what I find most attractive about ceramics.

ID: What’s the significance of the recent Remembrance exhibition with The Future Perfect?

JYD: I created three new bodies of work for the exhibition, which included my first exploration of ceramic furniture: a series of stools. It felt like a robust moment in my artistic career, one in which I felt the emotional impulse behind these works come through with an intentionality I’ve been working towards for years now. This was also my first time showing in Los Angeles, which was also quite exciting.

ID: How do the new Frill, Minhwa-inspired, and ceramic stool collections demonstrate the next step in your career?

JYD: I think they’re a step forward in a more expressly articulated connection between the visual qualities of the work and its emotional content. While the scaled-up Frill vessels are inspired by giwa—wave-pattern roof tiles found throughout Korean—the Minhwa collection alludes to the tradition of anonymous painting. The furniture pieces carry a sense of weight and gravity that seems particularly uncommon for ceramics.

Ronan Bouroullec Teams Up With Mutina for Ceramics Exhibit

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Among the 70 works in “Les mains à l’argile (Hands to Clay),” Ronan Bouroullec’s exhibition at Galerie du Canon, TPM in Toulon, France, through November 5, are his 2023 ceramic Bas-reliefs hung on either terra-cotta Bloc or ceramic Rombini, both tiles designed by Studio Bouroullec for Mutina in 2022.

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10 Questions With… Ceramicist Ludmilla Balkis

Ludmilla Balkis’s sanded stoneware vessels made their New York debut in Guild Gallery’s recent solo exhibition for the French ceramicist, titled “Stasis.” Loosely constructed, like cloth deliriously flapping in the wind, the medium-scale sculptures contain mystery and process with their allusive yet energetic formations and textured surfaces that brim with traits of oxidization. Voluminous bodies throughout the show’s 26 pieces are not coincidental for Balkis who left a career in fashion behind for sculpting with clay. After working as a fashion designer for Céline in London with Phoebe Philo, she decided to pursue her interest in textures and forms through the promise of the pottery wheel. “The history of clay is so ancient—it made me aware of living in connection with the environment and human history,” Balkis tells Interior Design. “It gave me the opportunity to manifest the homogeneity between nature and human beings.”

Here, Balkis shares insights into her creative process as well as her works featured at Guild Gallery and those in “A Summer Arrangement: Object & Thing at Long House,” an exhibition in East Hampton, New York ongoing through September 3, 2023.

Interior Design: Folds are an important part your aesthetic. Could you talk about the resonance of folds?

Ludmilla Balkis: I’ve always been so attracted and intrigued by folds, ever since I discovered them in paintings from the Renaissance era through to the 18th century. The static compositions with these almost moving fabrics were really fascinating to me and was an ode to the virtuosity of the painter.

Isadora Duncan is a woman who really changed the perspective of wearing garments while dancing, representing a route to alternative practices that encouraged physical and personal freedom. That was a tipping point for me, where folds appropriate a deeper meaning and which could be imbued into the clay: freedom and movement. Two essential elements folds offer the sculpture.

ID: What is your relationship with clay? As a sculptor and someone who comes from fashion where sculpting is a crucial part of the process, how do you appropriate its softness?

LB: My relationship with clay while it is soft makes me want to create a relationship with space. Space as an emptiness is a notion we tend not to pay attention to, but clay allowed me to understand it in a very pragmatic way. Space became as physical as the clay when I started with this new material. In a manner of speaking, sculptors sculpt the space around them and dig in the empty space that finally becomes physical. I feel that everything is possible when the clay is soft, as long as I respect its drying time and mailability. It gives me multiple ways to expand the relationship with emptiness.

As a fashion designer, the body was always the central piece and of course the space around the body became a second protagonist before the fabric. In both instances the intention is the will to freedom, freedom of movement.

ID: In this direction, unlike fabrics, clay resonates with firmness. How was your process of adjusting to the irreversible and stubborn nature of clay once it dries?

LB: The relationship with clay had to become neutral at first and no comparison was to be made if I wanted to understand its process. So, I had to make many mistakes in the beginning and the biggest one was to be constantly trying to anticipate the outcome, but I quickly understood it was necessary to start understanding that clay was a way of interacting with the earth to which we will all return. It was a cathartic moment for me to understand I needed to be in contact with my inner self in order to manipulate the most primordial material and not fight with it, but dance around it with my hands. As a neophyte I was stubborn, but the clay quickly taught me to be humble and my approach developed into highlighting the natural roughness of the clay, to invoke this deeper meaning.

ID: Stoneware is the shared material in all pieces, but some sculptures also include iron stain, wood ash slip, iron oxide and other materials. This makes me think of painting, too. How was your approach to each sculpture as a blank canvas?

LB: I tend to let the clay guide the volumes and once the sculpture is finished, I go with my instinct and would either blow oxides on the dry piece and observe to see if it needs another layer of wood ash or any slip. Each clay has a different way of responding to a certain approach. But I generally focus on the spaces around the individual pieces and their mutual interaction which helps me think of an overall idea. My palette stays really simple and earthy as I like to obtain a result that makes the piece invisible in nature, as if it belongs to it.  I started to observe the shape of things in my everyday life as I moved closer to nature and by mimicking some shapes or textures. I would tend to dig into all the references I’ve accumulated over the years, like we all do as observers. In other words, I never feel that the canvas is blank. I feel like the canvas is actually full of references and one needs to be quiet the mind in order to allow the shape to guide.

ID: There is a desire to turn to natural materials and colors in industrial design and fashion today. Do you see a parallel between two sectors in terms of this desire?

LB: I believe the essence of our species now is to survive in a natural world that we have been severed from. This desire to use natural materials, I hope, is a universal one that might signify our desire to reconcile with nature, albeit subconsciously. To use natural materials is not something new but getting back at it is certainly a way to start this reconciliation process.

ID: The hollows render the sculptures somewhat biomorphic, giving them energy and character. Could you talk about your crafting each piece as figures with personalities in a way?

LB: The dialogue I install with each piece is very much induced with my meditative state. The meaning of biomorphic comes from combining the Greek words ‘bios’, meaning life, and ‘morphe’, meaning form. By giving life to an abstract form, my intention is to collaborate until its final shape and I tend to give each sculpture the importance it deserves. Attention to detail and using a certain tool will evoke a certain personality trait. Dancing around them while shaping them is a great way for me to allow the movement to take place; a piece will look like it’s been shaped by the wind. For each piece, I tend to work towards the same goal: demonstrating that humanity and nature are one.

ID: How did you reach the decision to quit the fashion industry to pursue object-making? Could you talk about the moment when you realized this shift is indeed possible?

LB: I realized I wanted to slow things down and take time to process my surroundings and felt the urge to be in sync with nature. My health got bad, and getting pregnant forced me to reconsider the fast-paced life I was living—a frenetic preoccupation that kept me from facing what was important to me at the time. So, this mindset led me to the desire to avoid making merely obsolete objects, but rather to get to the core of making things, creation.

Like a primordial instinct that kicked in, the process made me connect more profoundly to not only myself, but also our ancestors.

ID: How did moving to Basque Country influence your creativity? Do you think you’d be making the same work if you lived in Paris?

LB: That’s interesting as I started in London and moved back to Paris where my work continued to evolve. I must admit moving to the Basque Country allowed me to make bigger sculptures as I physically have more space to work. It’s also due to the image of grandiose nature that this place offers me every day. The mountains and rivers and the ocean are so wild and rough here. It’s atomizing yet it allows me to express myself on a deeper level. I don’t think I would have been able to create the same work in Paris as I feel more pressured there and also distracted by museums and galleries. Moving to the Basque Country and learning about a new culture that is so ancient and rich gave me other dimensions to explore, new ways of thinking and creating.

10 Questions With… Jan Ernst

Jan Ernst Talks Surrealist Ceramics

Interior Design: When did you first become interested in design?

JE: I grew up on a farm for most of my life, in various parts of the country. So I spent a lot of time outdoors. Cape Town is a city with a lot of natural stuff around it. When I look at the stuff that inspired me, they were all super organic—whether it was spending time next to the beach looking at shells and coral or up in the mountains or in the forest. All of these natural things shaped the language in which I create.

ID: And those interests brought you to study architecture?

JE: I’ve always been interested in spatial design and spatial relationships, and how we respond to them and shape them. Architecture, in its purest form, is shaping a space and giving it character. How do we separate spaces, or match them? What is the character we want to give it, do we want it super simplistic, slightly more traditional? Is there a spiritual or emotional component? To me, those core ideas are so easy to translate into ceramics because it was about looking at the negative spaces around the object. When I create something, I can see it in someone’s living room or next to their bed. What do I want this object to make people feel? Do I want to make someone feel uneasy? Do I want to confront someone with a piece that is maybe, I don’t know, emotionally too evocative? Or do I want to create a quiet, serene experience?

ID: Was the architecture you were making similar to these ceramic forms?

JE: Maybe in the future I’ll have the opportunity to work in such an organic way in creating architecture. I think it’s extremely difficult to convince people to fall in love with these kinds of spaces. They are expensive to make because they’re not modular. But organic architectural spaces are under-explored. My architecture was vastly different. The only similarities were perhaps that they were super textural, super tactile, and there was a simplicity I can recognize in the ceramics now.

ID: What were your early ceramics like?

JE: I always wanted to create objects that had function and were usable. I thought: What’s the most simple thing I can try with a function that isn’t a mug or a bowl? To me, it was a candlestick. So the first things were candelabras inspired by the ocean. The way the light from the candles would interact with the ceramic pieces intrigued me very much, and that led me into lighting design. I started interrogating how I control light, and I started seeing light as a material and not the after effect of something being switched on. I was intrigued by how textures respond to the light. I also became equally interested in lamps without the lights switched on, because then you have these deep, dark recesses that kind of create mystery and intrigue.

ID: How did those investigations lead to larger pieces like the Day Dream Lamp?

JE: The Objects With Narratives gallery asked me to design a floor light, and I felt quite overwhelmed by the scale. I was walking around a forest, and I saw these trees that had been cut open. I looked at their annual rings and thought that we could use time and trees as a central theme in the work. During Covid, sometimes it felt like time was receding, or coming at us really quickly. I wanted to literally warp those annual rings and create deep spaces that would suck you in—like a vortex—but if you switch them on, they would illuminate and enlighten. I spent so much time trying to understand the canopy. As a boy, a tree was an architectural space I could climb into, where the world couldn’t touch me. So the canopy became almost a cloud or a dream you get lost in. I can stand under it and be enveloped entirely, and the base glows and gives off a warm feeling.

ID: You mentioned that people see human forms in your work—could you talk about how pieces like Twiggy and the Womb Lamp have been received?

JE: Twiggy has a built-out texture that we extrude and then puncture. It is a very confrontational piece and it makes people uncomfortable. It’s quite masculine, in a way, it demands attention. The Womb Lamp was inspired by a trip to the Cederberg mountains, about two and half hours from here. It’s an area of the country where some of the first human beings on this continent lived, and there are these incredibly beautiful caves that have different colors, like terracotta and ochre and white stone. They’re colors very much like the clay colors I use. The caves kind of hold you, and they demand that you think about where you are and what it represents. Not too far are some beautiful cave paintings. I saw the cave as a womb. The light component came from thinking about people making fires in these caves—it’s just symbolically representing that moment and celebrating their existence.

ID: Speaking of making fires, you’ve recently turned to a material that doesn’t require it. What interests you in making furniture from plaster?

JE: South Africa has a huge energy crisis at the moment, which makes it extremely difficult to fire ceramics as frequently as we would love to. Plaster has similar properties, in a sense, and I can achieve quite organic forms with it, but it doesn’t require electricity. It also allows you to scale up—you can make large forms with ceramics, but it becomes extremely heavy and fragile, so it doesn’t make a lot of sense to ship. There’s a robustness in plastic work. I’ve done a capsule collection of a stool, side table, a table and mirror, and a chair. I’m super excited to get going on it.

ID: What’s your new studio like?

JE: I had been working in a shared studio space, and it was fantastic to have other people around to bounce ideas off of and expand my knowledge. But I needed a bigger space, and the room to develop my own voice in my own studio. So we moved to Woodstock, a semi-industrial area not far from the city center. There are a lot of creatives working there, a lot of bronze and ceramic studios. And I’ve got two guys that work for me, much younger than I am, and we’ve developed a really beautiful relationship. Neither of them knew anything about ceramics or plasterwork when they started. I just said: We can figure this thing out together. It’s not like I’m a ceramic genius myself, but I’ve noticed a thing or two I would love to pass on. And so we’ve been learning a lot, and they’ve sort of become my ceramic hands when we’re under pressure.

ID: What’s next for you?

JE: We’re launching a new lighting collection at PAD Paris, and the plaster furniture at Galerie Philia in New York City later this year. I’ve been invited to Armenia to host a workshop in July. There are highlights in the year, and I just try to embrace them as they come. I have a vision, but I try to focus on two or three months at a time, because things just change so fast. I think that’s what I learned from Covid—not to get too excited about anything until it’s happening.

Jean Boghossian Unveils New Collection of Artworks in Monaco

This month sees the launch of the Monte-Carlo Société des Bains de Mer’s spring season, “The Sea is Green”, featuring a spectacular new multidisciplinary art exhibition from Belgian-Lebanese artist Jean Boghossian, inspired by his passion for marine conservation and the natural beauty of the oceans.

Boghossian is a painter and sculptor, as well as a former jewelry designer, who is well-known for his experimental artistic practice, most notably using fire on different materials. Hosted by the Hôtel Hermitage Monte-Carlo, the majority of his new exhibition consists of handmade ceramics, incorporating seashells and gemstones into his playful, organic forms.

Elsewhere, a series of painted flags decorate the quays of Monte Carlo, displaying printed reproductions of works Boghossian had previously created by painting on decommissioned sailcloth, as a commentary on sustainability and ecological preservation.

“I bought [the sails] and painted on them,” Boghossian explains, “but—[when] I saw the masts—I realized I could not hang them, because the mast is too light and they had become heavy with paint, so I decided to print them, so that they [can] appear there.”

“As much as I decide [something] is exactly what I want once it’s finished,” he says. “I don’t control every aspect of it. It’s an evolution [between] my decisions and the hazard.”

A Closer Look at Jean Boghossian’s Latest Works

10 Questions With… Nadine Roufael

An Interview with Lebanese Designer Nadine Roufael

Interior Design: Nadine, where does your story begin?

Nadine Roufael: I studied at Lebanese University as an interior architect, working in furniture. I actually did my placement at my husband’s office. Okay, it wasn’t like that right at the beginning. At first, he was my boss, but after two years—when I was presenting my diploma thesis—we were engaged. He’s been my support and everything in my life.

We opened a furniture showroom together. He has his office for interior architecture, and I worked with many high-end Italian brands, for many years. I did a lot of exhibitions like Milan and other worldwide fairs. And I’m still working, but I closed the showroom because it took all my time. I still have my clients, but now we work from our office on a catalogue because this way it’s less expensive for them. When I closed my showroom, I had more time for myself.

ID: Where did your interest in ceramics first come from?

NR: When I decided to work in ceramics, it started as a hobby. It was like a therapy for me. It makes me feel relaxed. I started in my house in a small room. You know, there is a lot of history tied to the use of therapeutic ceramics. I think it’s worldwide, not only in Lebanon. And it helps a lot. It’s like yoga. It’s a calm activity.

I feel that I can create a lot of experiences with sculptures, placing different materials together. I’ll spend all my day in my paradise, experimenting with colors, playing with material.

ID: Can you talk about the collection you’re showing at MENART Fair?

NR: For MENART Fair, it’s really a combination of works between my husband and myself—his furniture and my sculptures. We created a nice, colorful space. My collection reflects joy. I hate when we say that we are from Lebanon and we have to show them miserable life in our art. Sometimes, people have messages to send and they send it through their art – I can understand those who create their art to project this image of Lebanon, but I myself don’t want to send this message. That’s not me. I’m very positive. I’m always very positive. I like colors. I enjoy colors, so this is why I created a collection full of colors. I feel it gives happiness, and it’s better to send a message of beauty and happiness.

I like organic forms especially but, with each piece, I wanted to introduce a new color on it, but I’m minimalist—I wanted to keep the piece as it, with the new color coming from somewhere else. I wanted rounded shapes and something going out from the rounded shape. This is why I created extra volume on each piece and—on this extra volume—I added my new colors.

ID: You touched on avoiding ‘misery.’ Where do you find inspiration?

NR: I stopped the news in my house. I won’t look at the television. People know everything about Lebanon, and they know the situation. There’s no need for me to send those messages through my work. I keep this for my collaborations with the NGOs because it’s really depressing for me as an artist, trying to create something beautiful, so I keep myself away a little bit. Maybe it’s selfish, but this is how I want to work. This is the way I survive. I don’t want to be inspired by negative vibes, so this is why I surround myself with nature. I look around me and I see the shapes of the mountains and the trees. I do a lot of research, looking at images from nature, under the sea.

In the beginning, I put some fruits together and I based my ceramics on the fruit. I used the melon; the orange; the avocado; the mango. Even the coronavirus inspired me a lot, actually—specifically the form of the virus. When they were talking about coronavirus in the news and so on, they would show it in beautiful colors and light, rather than something ugly to see. I saw the beautiful side of the structure. This is why I try to find, in everything; this window of happiness.

ID: Is this similar to your philosophy when designing furniture?

NR: I change my mind often. I’m still discovering myself, so sometimes I like the straight lines and hard angles, and sometimes I go to rounds. I’m still not sure if I want to continue with round shapes. For now, I like to work with organic shapes, but I don’t know if maybe later on I will discover something else that I like more.

I don’t like it when they say that an artist should be always like the same thing—to have to continue on this one path. I don’t think so. I think art is found in evolution, so I need to experiment with many forms. I don’t want to stop myself by sticking to this or that design – I feel that I’m always discovering.

ID: You’ve mentioned your husband a few times, do you often collaborate? 

NR: In my family, we are all artistic in some way. My son is a filmmaker. Sometimes I ask him for his opinion about something—or my husband. We do collaborate on furniture design, and sometimes also he gives me his opinion on colors, forms, whether he likes the structure or not.

ID: Do you work with anyone else when you are creating these pieces?

NR: I do everything by myself, independently. My work is all my own from A to Z. It’s amazing. I do a lot of experimentation with colors, playing with the material. I use many different kinds of clay. Sometimes, I imagine some forms that are really difficult to execute in reality, but I enjoy the challenge of it. I’ll keep working on the same form until I can get it to do what I want.

It’s quite funny actually. Where I live, so many people pass me by in my day and ask me about the clay and so on, so I started offering workshops for a few ladies. After this, I received a lot more requests! Many ladies want to try it and learn how they can make their own ceramics. Now, every week, I have four classes. For them, it’s therapy. Some people go to a spa. Some people like to travel. They—and I—like to work with the clay. This is a need in every person, no matter where they come from or what their situation is.

ID: How did you learn the ceramics craft then?

NR: You can find many people that love working with ceramics now, but very few who teach. I taught myself a lot of things. I did it all through online courses and a lot of workshops, both in Lebanon and outside. I am very curious. A lot of it, like the glazing technique, is just chemistry when you really break it down. It’s all very interesting.

At the same time though, you need to create your own kind of signature glazes and colours, to define your own work and to be different from the others. I’ve always thought that I’d like to leave something that my boys—when they are grown up and I leave this life—will be able to say: ‘this is a piece of art from my mum.’ This is what I focus on, all the time.

ID: Would you encourage other creatives to try new mediums? 

NR: Yes! I feel that some artists start to lose their creativity because they are doing same things. When you work with art galleries, they oblige you to always create your work along the same lines, so they are just repeating themselves. I don’t want to work like that. I believe that every artist should try to do sometimes different with each collection—a new material, or new colors. They will open the door for so many new inspirations.

ID: What does the future hold for you and your sculptures?

NR: I want to gain more experience and experiment more with colors and forms. You can never stop trying new things. I started in the Middle East and now I’ve just had my first exhibition in Europe, so I would like to go further and find more exposure in Europe and also in the U.S.

My next project, I think, is to collaborate with more artists from Europe. I like the cooperation and the teamwork. It’s really valuable to have the chance to learn different ways to work from different artists. In my first exhibition, people in Dubai told me that—while they liked the pieces—I should have used more colors. In Brussels, I felt that people preferred the natural color of the materials. When you feel that people want something different, you try to change your art because, if you want to be well known worldwide, you need to try many things, but you don’t know what people will like. Some people like color, while others prefer black. You do the revolution for yourself. Sometimes, you feel that you have to create something different. Maybe, for my new collection, I will do a fusion of natural stone with something colorful.

Elena Frampton and Dumais Made Collaborate on a Collection of Handmade Ceramic Lamps

Fresh from designer Elena Frampton of Frampton Co, in collaboration with Charlie and Kevin Dumais of Litchfield, Connecticut, pottery studio Dumais Made, is Verdant, a capsule collection of six limited-edition handmade ceramic floor and table lamps inspired by the scenery on Long Island’s East End (where Frampton has a gallery in Bridgehampton called the Barn).

At Dumais’s studio, slabs of white stoneware clay are stacked like children’s building blocks to form the pedestals. Next, layers of chartreuse and bottle-green glazes are hand-poured over the clay to create an intentionally incomplete watercolor finish. Off-white string shades, brass fittings, and twisted green cloth cords complete the look.

Piscina’s New Side Tables Make a Narrative of Empty Space

Inspired by the work of Japanese sculptor Isamu Noguchi, the Reader side tables from Natalie Shook’s Red Hook, Brooklyn, studio Piscina make a narrative of empty space, with voids destined for books. The base, formed from a single slab of burnished, unglazed clay with figurative carvings and cutouts, is topped with a round of sapele (blackened ash, bleached maple, and white oak are also available). Knobby wooden tenons on the underside of the top slot into the ceramic base to join the two materials. “As an artist, I’m driven by a specific moment in painting when color fields or brushstrokes come so close to one another, the finite space between them becomes electrified,” Shook says. “Designing furniture, I’m inspired to recreate that moment, and developed these to achieve a similar visceral charge.”

Makers from Guadalajara and New York Collaborate on Satin-Glazed Ceramics

In 2018, José Noé Suro of Cerámica Suro, a leading ceramics workshop in Mexico, was visiting New York when he stumbled upon a line gathered outside a factory building. It led him into a pottery sale, where he met ceramicist and photographer Helen Levi. Talks of a collaboration between the Guadalajara maker and Queens-based New York native began shortly thereafter. The resulting satin-glazed earthenware series consists of two tile groupings. Hand-painted 3 ½-square-inch Color Field is like mini abstract-art canvases, while the solid Corduroy, in 3 ½- or 4 ½-square sizes, recalls its namesake fabric. Proof of the tiles’ desirability? Peach Color Fields have just been installed at the latest outpost of woman-owned brewery Talea Beer Co. in Williamsburg.