Cape Town ceramicist Ceri Muller

The Cape Town Ceramicist Making Crinkled Vases and Clay Faces

Here’s a tip for anyone suffering from the fear of starting something creative: Make the ugliest thing you can think of. That’s the genius bit of advice that ceramics artist Ceri Muller’s partner gave her when she felt blocked, faced with her first lump of clay. “I did that and carried on doing it and those ugly little things morphed into these heads that I grew to really love,” she says.
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Bofred Cape Town design studio

An Earthy New Furniture Collection, Inspired By the South African Coastline

There’s a lot that separates Muscat, Oman’s port capital, and Durban on the east coast of South Africa. But it’s their similarities that have inspired the new Bask Collection by up and coming South African design studio Bofred. Christa Botha and Carla Erasmus are the design duo behind Bofred, whose concept of home is an eclectic mix of the two coastal cities where they feel most relaxed and inspired.
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Cape Town Ceramicist Jade Paton’s Quirky Hand-Formed Vessels

Ceramic artist Jade Paton’s parents own a well-known florist in Cape Town where she’s spent many hours working, twisting bouquets, and building installations. It’s fitting then that she now uses her hands to make vessels that look particularly wonderful when filled with flowers. But don’t be mistaken — her ceramic pieces are equally inspired by her background in sculpture during her studies in fine art and would hold their own in a white cube. “I believe that the boundaries between art and design are more blurred than ever before,” she says. “I like that my pieces feel both functional and sculptural.”
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The New Dutch Talent Whose Colorful Scale Models Caught Our Eye

If you clicked on this story thinking that the main image, above, was a chair, and that maybe — even if only in your internal fantasy world — you could somehow buy it for your house, bad news: It, and all of the covetable glass objects featured in this post, are tabletop-sized models created for research purposes by the newly graduated Rotterdam product designer Fleur Peters.
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This Cape Town Designer Makes Velvet Couches and Stone Tables Inspired By the Moon

The first piece of furniture interior designer Mia Senekal ever designed was like something out of Game of Thrones. “I have to laugh,” she says. “It was in college.” The complicated chair made of strips of hooped iron now lives in her mom’s garden with ivy growing all around it. With its rounded curves and luxurious upholstery, her first furniture collection released under the brand name murrmurr is acres more elegant.
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This Breakout Korean Lighting Brand Was One of Our Favorites at Maison & Objet

For its debut, the new Korean lighting brand AGO has collaborated with designers from Korea, Switzerland, and Sweden to present eight collections that blur the lines between residential and contract. Each AGO collection has a distinct personality, from the elegant Bell by JWDA — a spotlight that brings a friendly form to traditionally cold track lighting — to the Mozzi by BYMARS, whose gentle dimple recalls lightly-poked mochi.
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The 21-Year-Old Cape Town Ceramicist Making Art Inspired By Gay Love

Under the name Nebnikro, Cape Town-based artist Ben Orkin makes lumpy and unusual ceramic vessels inspired by gay love. “I hope through my work to express the beauty of gay love in a world which mostly sees it as unnatural, destructive, and dangerous,” he says. His organic shapes are often symmetrical to reflect the connecting of two bodies — either physically or emotionally, or both.
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Memor x Rachel Saunders

These Mosaic Vases — Incorporating Shells and Ceramics Discards — Went Viral on Instagram

Inspired by memory jugs from American folk art, Memor's vases incorporate shells, stones, or — in this case — ceramic discards from Rachel Saunders' studio. Fragmented, would-be discarded pieces of ceramics in muted greens and terracotta are given new life against the natural clay of the vessels. After a sold-out response to their debut collection, the pair are launching a second this summer.
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