On the Hunt for Objects? Shop Our Book IRL at Nordstrom’s Manhattan Flagship

In our book, How to Live With Objects, we talk a lot about how rewarding it is to slowly and thoughtfully surround yourself with unique objects you feel a connection to, hence why we also caution against the department-store mentality of treating your interior as a series of empty spaces you should fill all at once. But when the department store itself becomes the place to find those unique objects, that advice obviously no longer applies — case in point, our new pop-in inside Nordstrom's midtown Manhattan flagship store, where now through June 17, you can shop nearly 100 truly special handmade, one-of-a-kind, and vintage objects from some of the makers and dealers featured in the book (as well as the actual book).
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Danny Kaplan Wants His New Furniture Collection, Made From Clay and Oak, to Appear Built By Nature

Danny Kaplan is a ceramicist, but he’s also a bit of a wizard, conjuring pieces that somehow manage to feel earthy and ancient — as if they’ve always existed — yet also exceedingly current and fresh. “A lot of my forms were born from looking at Etruscan ceramics and thinking about midcentury ones as well,” says the New York–based designer. “I love the idea of blending these things in an organic way where it feels like my pieces are almost built by nature,” their geometry and angles always slightly relaxed or imperfect. This especially applies to his latest collection, Brick, which is launching as part of our Sight Unseen Collection today, both online and in NYC through May 25 at Voltz Clarke Gallery on the Lower East Side.
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Ceramic Fireplaces and Leather Doors: Inside the Paris Atelier and Home of Valentine Schlegel

Once a forgotten name in French post-war decorative arts, the late ceramicist Valentine Schlegel came roaring back to prominence in the contemporary design and art world a few years back, becoming a muse to the likes of Simone Bodmer-Turner, Rogan Gregory, and others who appreciated her sculpted organic forms. And yet in spite of — or more likely because of — her resurgence, her longtime Paris apartment and studio was recently emptied out entirely and sold at auction. Adam Stech was lucky enough to photograph it before that happened.
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Ben Wolf Noam’s Mushroom Menorahs Were Inspired By the Intersection of Judaism and Psychedelia

Encapsulated in a school of thought called the Kabbalah, the Jewish belief in biblical mysticism isn't shared by everyone, but its theories can be compelling — and in the case of L.A. artist Ben Wolf Noam, inspiring, too. He recently launched a collection of one-of-a-kind ceramic mushroom menorahs with The Future Perfect that reference the intersection of Judaism and psychedelia, not to mention making for wildly colorful centerpieces for your holiday table. We recently chatted with him about the series and its origins.
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Seven Design Tastemakers on Their Biggest eBay Scores — and Secret Expert Shopping Tips

We talk at length in our forthcoming book, How to Live With Objects, about the joys of getting lost in the online shopping process on your way to building a more personal home, and about how shopping, even if you don't buy anything, can help you learn about makers and movements as you define or refine your taste. There's really no better place to do that than eBay. Today, we asked seven tastemakers and shopping experts to share their favorite eBay finds, as well as their top shopping tips and current favorite saved searches (because as every shopping expert will tell you, you *must* have saved searches).
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Adam Stech on Italian Futurism, Part II: The 1930s Ceramics of Mazzotti and Nikolay Diulgheroff

Like many of the best art movements of the early 1900s, the radical Italian Futurist movement was most-known for two-dimensional works, but encompassed the applied arts as well. One of its more interesting — yet largely forgotten — practitioners was the late designer and artist Nikolay Diulgheroff, for whom ceramics became a medium of dynamic expression for his and the Futurists’ ideas.
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Aimee McLaughlin On Starting a Ceramics Podcast (Pot-cast?) and Why Ceramics is Like Therapy

Though Aimee McLaughlin, of Objet Aimée, is drawn to the shapes, proportions, and details of antiquity, there’s nothing dusty about her ceramics. With a voracious curiosity and thoughtfulness, she re-contextualizes and refreshes classical forms: She’ll make the earthy naturalism of a speckled stoneware pot more romantic with twisted handles; render a pitcher that evokes fluted Greek columns in a satisfyingly deep, glossy green; or achieve a beautifully tonal black-on-black pattern of snake scales for the serpent-shaped arms that adorn a sinuous, double-headed vessel.
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Hanna Dis Whitehead ceramics

Hanna Dis Whitehead’s Colorful, Constantly Mutating Objects Are On View in Iceland

An amalgamation of materials and what she refers to as “drawer ideas,” Icelandic artist and designer Hanna Dís Whitehead’s latest exhibition, "Spin," turns experimental objects on their head while bringing lost thoughts from her school years back to life. Presented by the Gerðarsafn Art Museum in Kópavogur, Iceland, the exhibition showcases a selection of colorful and exuberant pieces, from a wonderfully offbeat lamp adorned with geometric, hand-cut tiles and pine, to ecstatic, slumping goblets.
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In Common With ceramic lights

In Common With and Danny Kaplan Expand Their Earthy Ceramic Lighting Range

When In Common With debuted in 2018, the Brooklyn studio made their mark (no pun intended) by pairing sleek, machined lamp bases with ceramic shades that had been obviously, laboriously made by hand — pinch marks, bumps, and all. The studio soon found ways to make the shades faster and more efficient — and expanded their offerings to include glass and metal — but in a continued collaboration with ceramicist and fellow Brooklynite, Danny Kaplan, they have been able to recapture that earlier, earthier quality.
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A New Show Highlights the Appealingly Messy Side of Contemporary Ceramics

Closing in Barcelona this week is an exhibition that celebrates some of the bigger trends in contemporary ceramics these days — namely bright, drippy glazes; lumpy, organic forms; and raw, tactile, fissured surfaces. Presented by Side Gallery, “Exposed Material” is an overview of work by four artists who span several generations and hail from places ranging from America to Auckland, New Zealand.
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This Housewares Brand Thinks the Future of Design Lies in Uniting 3D Printing With Contemporary Talents — and Traditional Artisans

In recent years, 3D printing technology has finally started to come into its own, making the dream of an on-demand manufacturing industry — one that yields products people might actually want — feel closer at hand than ever. That's the realization that inspired cousins Ismail and Adnane Tazi, who founded the Parisian housewares brand Trame in early 2020, to rethink their entire approach to production just two years later, culminating in the launch of their new Alhambra.gcode collection.
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Olivia Cognet’s Very Provence–Meets–Palm Springs Ceramic Murals

With a color palette drawn largely from nature, Olivia Cognet’s aesthetic of geometric lines and sculptural excrescences is heightened by elegant crackle glazes and tactile textures. Exploring a dialogue between Brutalist influences and feminine discourse, architecture and art, Cognet's often large-scale works — from lamps to monumental bas-reliefs — embrace the irregular, inspired by her design idols, Roger Capron and Jean Derval.
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