Category Archives: Ceramics

These incredible ceramic flowers are the creation of London-based ceramist and graphic designer, Vanessa Hogge, whose one-off designs are sold under the brand Wallflower London.
Inspired by all things botanical she transforms earthenware and porcelain into dahlias, chrysanthemums, agapanthus, daisies, agaves and roses. In an article on Tenderfoot Design she says this about her work:

“I was working as a graphic designer and it was soul destroying doing corporate work. So I left, thinking I would work as a freelancer. There was always a bag of clay around the house. One morning, I just started working with it and gradually the idea of decorative flowers for walls came out of the clay.”

“My mother and grandmother were fierce gardeners. I grew up in Africa with these gorgeous plants and flowers. I haven’t followed directly in their footsteps, but the porcelain flowers are my way of keeping the tradition alive.”

You can follow the artist on her website and on Facebook, Instagram and Behance.

Images: Courtesy of Wallflower London.

Would love to own a few of these handmade buttons created by Stockwell Ceramics. The Cornwall-based company was founded by Mary Goldberg in 1989. This craft company produces high quality buttons, jewelry and decorations with each pieces individually cut and glazed by hand. Their aim is to provide employment for new graduates to help them eventually develop their own work.

You can follow them on their website and here on Facebook.

Images: Courtesy of Stockwell Ceramics.

Jun Kaneko is a Japanese ceramist living in Omaha, Nebraska. His painting background is evident in his work where the three-dimensional piece becomes an inflated canvas. The ceramics shown above are called “dangos”, Japanese for dumplings or closed forms. The pieces look like vases without holes but they are actually enormous in scale and can easily weigh up to 1000 pounds. In an article on Venice Clay Artists he says this about the scale:

“So when I’m making small piece, I don’t want to give a chance to the viewer to step back and then look around and look at my piece. I just want them to just grab right into it. They look at it. They’re drawn to it. Just go straight into the piece. If that was possible, this viewer is not outside the work anymore. They’re feeling inside the work. Therefore, they can’t compare this and that. They are it.”

“So that’s why I think, if I did make a small piece to draw people immediately into the piece, I call that a pretty successful piece for me as a small object. And then, I call that a spiritual scale. So that’s my interest. And it goes same way to the large-scale piece, too, in a lot of ways, because as I said, if you start comparing with nature, then the big piece could be just like a dust. So the point to the scale, to make a sense as a visual artist, is just pull them into it. Then, they just don’t have a chance to compare. They will become the thing itself almost.”

Images: Courtesy of Jun Kaneko.