I made this ceramic piece during a moment of creative pause, stepping away from my usual projects to reconnect with the process of making something from raw material. It wasn’t planned, but born out of exploration, a way to remind myself of the relationship between hands, form and material. I’ve had it for a couple of years, though it feels like it’s always been with me. It has a brutalist character, yet its shape is layered – overlapping strata that remind me of a palimpsest, where stories and textures build upon one another over time.
The glaze is rich in nuance, revealing subtle imperfections that feel intentional, as though the material itself decided its final state. It’s small enough to hold, but it carries a weight that’s not just physical, but also emotional and conceptual. I never gave it a name, for me it just is.
The sculpture has become something of a companion over the years, and my husband and I often joke that it deserves a passport for all the places it’s travelled. It was part of Minotti’s 2024 advertising campaign, photographed alongside the furniture I designed for the brand. Its presence grounded the scene in something personal and familiar.
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When, one day, it was broken, my initial reaction was disappointment, but over time I’ve come to love it even more. Life left its mark – instead of diminishing the piece, it added a new layer of meaning. Now, it feels even more alive – a testament to resilience and the beauty of change. The crack is a story, a moment in time etched onto its form. Brokenness doesn’t equate to worthlessness; it simply becomes something different, richer. This philosophy mirrors how I approach design and life — it’s a constant reminder to embrace transformation and imperfection.
It inspires my work by reminding me of the importance of material honesty and the interplay of control and surrender in design. It encourages me to approach design with a sense of openness – to let the materials speak and embrace the unplanned. It embodies the ethos I bring to every project: that beauty can be found in complexity, in the tension between the deliberate and the accidental. hannespeer.com
