Ceramic product of the week - Sweet Vessels Blue Crystal

I have a penchant for turning in series. It is a fantastic satisfaction and of course a special challenge to turn a lot of identical mugs. They are never exactly the same, but almost the same, and therefore I never really finish working with one and the same shape, over and over again. After all, I get closer and closer with patience and a lot of time. But after all these years with ceramics, I am still not “finished” with any of my series productions.

Sometimes I go into my workshop and want to spend a day doing something completely different. Trying something new. Getting to know an idea. That's how this series of 7 unique objects and the series Sweet Vessels Blue Crystal came about. A completely unplanned workday that was driven forward by desire and curiosity. The only principle that guides the studio's products is that they should be usable in connection with food and drink, for the set table, for everyday life and for parties.

I call the objects in the series "vessels", an English expression that becomes kärl in Swedish. They can be used as small vases, as decorations on the table, as small jugs or as containers for table salt or whatever you want. They have small pouring spouts that can be used. The spouts are shaped like something between a bird's beak and a flower petal. The necks are narrow and tall.

I also call them "miniatures". That's not quite correct if you think about the 18th century fashion with tiny table decorations, jewelry miniatures and miniature paintings. They were all fascinating in all their detail, as if by looking through an inverted magnifying glass, with a reducing glass, everything was there to see in the small format. There were small exquisite stories to be seen in miniature scale.

They also radiated intimacy and were common as gifts and as collectors' items. Perhaps the most important function was their quality as "conversation pieces". Every table setting should have its own conversation starters. My little vessels are a bit cute and yet reminiscent of something from the animal kingdom as well as the plant kingdom, they can both have and not have a function. Everything is in the eye of the beholder.

My sweet Vessels Blue Crystal are turned in a light stoneware clay and they are glazed with my very best classic, my own glaze that has been around for 40 years. I call it Blue Crystal. It is a dark blue and semi-matte crystal glaze that forms small streaks or small dots in all sorts of colors from dark green and light blue to white. It surprises with every firing.