Isabel Halley Ceramics Handmade Porcelain Pinch Pot: Lavender Speckle

Why We Love This

This tiny bowl is as delicate as it is functional. The lavender-colored speckle finish gives subtle dots of purple to the bumpy, white-glazed texture of this bowl. We love that it can hold rings or crystals on an altar or dresser, or can be used for salts and spices in the kitchen.

Story

The colored speckles in the clay are made by handómixed, ground, fired and sifted. The bowl itself is hand-pinched from the center out to the rim, as far as the porcelain clay will stretch. That makes for an organic form, giving each bowl different waves, grooves, shape and personality. The speckles are then wedged into the porcelain. No two works are exactly alike.

About the Maker

Isabel Halley’s slightly rustic, shimmering, heirloom-quality pottery is, in part, inspired by her Louisiana grandmother’s formal gold-rimmed china. The artist, who grew up in New York, has a fascination with early 20^th Century English porcelain, but modernizes that look with her own pinch process. The master ceramicist started sculpting items in kindergartenówith Silly Putty and other types of kids’ clayóbut after ceramics classes and a degree in visual arts, she switched to more adult materials, like porcelain, to craft a line of pearly pieces. Like the human spirit, her art is imperfect and perfect all at once.