Think Face Pottery Is a Millennial Thing? Meet the Artist Who’s Been Doing It Since the ’70s

When Jill and I posted pictures of our favorite books on Instagram last week, mine featured one of my favorite objects in my living room, shown above: A pot, used by me as a planter, that features two hand-painted, color-blocked pastel faces. I bought it on eBay for $10 a year and a half ago. I don't remember how I found it. I had no idea, at the time, who the maker was, only that her name was Victoria Crowell and I assumed she was an obscure local artisan who made the pot in the '80s. I was mostly correct.
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Week of March 2, 2020

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: a scathing takedown of the millennial aesthetic, the first-ever museum exhibition on ASMR, and oh, a bunch of new design objects, too.
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Katie Stout and the Subversion of American Craft

In her latest solo exhibition at Nina Johnson Gallery in Miami, called Sour Tasting Liquid, Katie Stout focuses her experiments exclusively in ceramics, exploring processes like slab-building, mosaic, pinching, kintsugi, and more to make a body of work that is at once figurative and abstract, logical and absurd.
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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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Muuto’s Ultra-Chubby Kink Vase and Tableau’s Art Florals Are a Match Made in Heaven

When American-born, Rotterdam-based designer Rachel Griffin of Earnest Studio launched her ceramic Kink Vase during New York Design Week two years ago, it became something of an instant icon. This, of course, was just as the appetite for so-called "chubby design" was reaching its frenzied peak, and the Kink, with its double-mouthed, binoculars-on-a-marshmallow-bender form was perfect fodder. Lucky for us, the vase was recently picked up by Muuto, where it will sell for just $200 and still be available in that cozy sky blue.
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Get Ready To Fall In Love With Caudex Studio, Brooklyn’s Haute Couturier Of Ceramics

Caudex Studio is something of a secret, if anything with a website and an Instagram account could be considered as such these days. Launched late last year by fledgling ceramicist Éloïse Larochelle (who cut her teeth in fashion design in Givenchy's atelier and—in case those cross-disciplinary bonafides don't suffice—had the brand's logo designed by a friend at M/M Paris), Caudex planters are one-of-a-kind, wheel-thrown and made in two pieces—a drainage-friendly top set on a glaze-lined base that collects water, "for optimal plant health."
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Week of January 27, 2020

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: a burgundy banquette comes with a matching deeply-hued dining table, a new Brooklyn-based ceramics studio run by a couturier (or close enough), and one more memorable find from Maison & Objet.
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Always Wanted to Own a Matisse? Now You Can — No, Really

Ever since October of last year, it's become a little bit easier to recreate a piece of the French painter's joie de vivre at home without a dorm poster: Maison Matisse was founded last year by the fourth generation Matisse family, and it seeks to showcase the artist's world and aesthetic through a series of home collections and limited-edition objects. With the launch came short-lived vases by the likes of the Bouroullecs, Jaime Hayon, and Alessandro Mendini, but now the brand has launched its first official collection.
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Week of December 2, 2019

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: A tour of Suzanne Demisch's East Village home, our top finds from the upcoming Phillips design auction, a Meccano-esque DIY furniture kit, and chair (above) whose photo set we deeply wish we could live in.
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Week of November 11, 2019

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: Sneak peeks from this weekend's Salon Art + Design Fair and the upcoming Design Miami, new rugs by Martino Gamper and Sigve Knutson, and a look inside a stunning home-turned-design-gallery in Los Angeles.
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Week of November 4, 2019

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: Hay's ultra-chic, French-inspired bedding, Matisse-esque ceramics on view in Italy, and a series of new textiles and wallcoverings using designs by Bauhaus masters and SU icons Gunta Stölzl and Anni Albers.
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