Well considered and aesthetically pleasing tableware is Caroline’s ambition, creating vessels that are a pleasure to hold and behold, demonstrating her excellent knowledge of materials.
We asked Caroline: what is it that gives your work its unique signature? Pure form, textural detail and functionality are at the heart of all I create.
No matter how humble, the everyday object should be a joy to use; should function well, please the eye, feel good in the hand. Design and craft hold equal balance, without compromise. And in making functional objects these pleasures can be shared. That’s what sparks my creativity.
How did you make this new work? My new Luna tableware collection is produced in bone china. This very English porcelain is cast as a liquid clay in a plaster mould, each piece drying for a day before it can be handled and made ready to fire, such is its sensitivity to touch. Fired to around 1220°c this porcelain has a beautiful warm whiteness, is translucent, extremely robust, light and smooth in the hand.
Where did inspiration for this new work come from? It’s the simple pleasures in life that please and inspire me! The morning coffee, stems picked from the garden in the summer months.
I’m continually inspired to make objects that heighten these pleasures. Home is where I feel my creativity finds inspiration and resolution. I wanted to create a capsule collection that really integrates with life’s daily rituals; the meals that regulate our daily lives.
The shapes and contours are a response to how pieces sit in the hand and also a response to my own contemporary dining needs at home with my ever-hungry family. My material choice (and I love using different clay-types) of fine bone china is a happy marriage of functionality, purity, practicality.
Luxury is in the making those everyday rituals as pleasing as possible; a well-made coffee in the smoothest, whitest, lightest, strongest, most refined mug and a few moments of calm as the day begins.
Works shown: ‘Luna’ Bone China porcelain tableware capsule collection: Beaker, Mug, Small and Large Bowls, Side Plates, Dinner Plates. ‘Gold Top’ lidded jar. ‘Elements’ lidded jar. All photos by Yeshen Venema, styled by Jessica Jung.