Ghosts

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ghost4

This is a bunch of fun little guys. These ceramic Ghosts are hand thrown, earthenware cones and come in a variety of different pastel and speckled glaze finishes. They look at their mysterious best clustered together, in unassuming groups around the home. Danish designer Anders Arhoj and ceramicist Louise Gaarmann make the Ghosts, based on the ideas behind the Japanese Shinto religion, which believes that everything in nature has a soul - from a mountain rock to a plant or a pebble on the beach. Inspired by this concept, the couple decided to make a series of simple ceramic figures and breathe life into them with a pair of cartoon eyes.

www.arhoj.com

Lucie Rie

Lucie Rie is hands-down my favourite potter. Her restrained elegance is something I aspire to (and fail miserably to achieve) in every pot I make. I love her bold use of scraffito - simple marks scratched through the surface of the clay - which highlight the form of each pot. However, my favourite pieces are her whiteware. Thrown, then altered, with the lips subtly dipped in manganese, these pieces are so simple and so beautiful that I could gaze at them all day.

I am currently reading Lucie Rie: Modernist Potter by Emmanuel Cooper. It is a brilliant biography and places her life and pots in context. From her training in Vienna to her exile in London through to the creation of her then 'challenging' modern style, she comes across as a wonderfully direct, hardworking and astute lady.

yalebooks.co.uk

Elephant Ceramics

The intense teal, sloppy glaze and irregular outline of these plates and platters by Elephant Ceramics is intoxicating. Each piece is hand pressed by Michel Michael, a former prop stylist and features the texture of traditional homespun linen pressed into the clay.

Made from either porcelain or stoneware, each piece is unique as Michelle experiments with brushing, pouring and dipping to create her trademark painterly glaze finishes. I love the looseness of the pieces and the way they coordinate together to make the perfect mismatched tableware collection.

www.elephantceramics.com