Look at these pieces!
All of them so very different and still they catch my eye, inspire me and bring joy whenever I use them.
Some are new, some old.
If you have a bit of time I will tell you about them...
The vase with the branch in it, it’s sides looking like folded paper, origami, catching light and giving structure. This is one piece of ceramic that I bought a long time ago, had it in my very first flat back in Germany, packed it away on a box before I came to see New Zealand and rediscovered this treasure years later on one of my visits to my parents house. It was a Christmas holiday when I chose a few precious things from home in Germany to come to my new life here in Taupō. Good care and lots of bubble wrap was used to pack books, exhibition catalogues, pictures in their frames and a few ceramics that were dear to me, all in a cardboard box to be sent to NZ.
It all arrived. This vase was one of the only unbroken pieces of all the things that I was so keen to see in our house.
Frames got repaired and the books found a place on the shelves, but I think of this big box of goods whenever I fill this ceramic origami vase with water.
The Crown Lynn Beehive bowl is old and dear and used often for several things. Making the dough for my bread. Holding the flood of plums that ripen just after Christmas. Reclaiming clay....
I am sure I found it in an opshop somewhere around the country, where exactly I can’t remember.
There is a Wedgewood bowl on a pedestal (hidden in other bowls) which moved with me 3 times already. I found this bowl here in NZ, in Taupō, but I knew about Wedgewoods Edme Collection back when I was living a very different life. I was given a butter holder of the same collection, beautiful in its shape and the little cone on top of the lid to lift it up. I believe my mother is taking care of that butter dish, she too is a bit obsessed with wegewoods Edme Collection.
The cake stand and bowl on a pedestal you see stacked in each other in the foreground are prototypes of shapes I want to explore further. The stack of plates is waiting for its last few sisters to join and complete the set.
And the eggs you see? My wonderful chickens decided to find a new place to nest, under a cardboard box on the compost pile after I was convinced they stopped laying. I found about 20 of them, hidden in the shade of the box and halfway buried in the cool soil.
And lastly there are the fading blossoms on the foraged branches of wild plum, petals falling into the collection of bowls that is half obsession, half practical necessity in my kitchen.