Product Details

Hand-built platter formed from Oxidising St. Thomas stoneware clay, hand-decorated with underglaze and a shiny transparent finish.

Size approx: 35.8 x 27 x 3cm ( 14.1 x 10.6 x 1.2 inches)

Decorative plate, hand wash only (no dishwasher).

THE STORY

Natalie Ferstendik is a London based artist, illustrator and ceramicist.

This collection of generously-sized, handbuilt platters with large bountiful text, proclaims a love for both nature and the illustrative properties of handwritten fonts.  These are tiny fragments of poems, writ large for all to see, feel and revel in.

“Many years ago I came across a poem by Federico Garcia Lorca. I loved it so much I scrawled it on a piece of paper and put it, crumpled, into my pocket. One of the lines ‘a forest of kisses’ has stuck with me all these years.”

“I love the romance of words. Their sensuality, the way they are enhanced and play with each other when they are arranged in just the right way. Words can be even more beautiful than pictures.”

Using the Lorca poem as a starting point Natalie explored themes of nature using words to inspire the form and decoration of the plate. 

These are celebratory, uplifting pieces in bold graphic designs which are in keeping with an artist who spent the first part of her career as an illustrator for British Vogue. Having grown up with a mother who was an ‘obsessive collector of floral chintzware’, it is no wonder these pieces feel almost nostalgic, emanating the sense of long, warm summer days.