mid-century mending
MAISIE UTTING x STUDIO JANNEKE
2021

Maisie Utting is a collector of antique and vintage ceramics, homeware and textiles. She kindly shares some of her amazing finds through her online store - which is how I came to hunt her down to buy two miniature SylvaC-style vases.

We decided to turn our shared love of mid-century mantle vases ( and make do and mend mentality ) into a small collaborative collection. Maisie sent me four damaged but gorgeous mid-century ceramic vases, and I set about piecing them back together and decorating them with gold-tone lacquer.

I loved working with these pieces. The process of transformative repair - in this case, a variation on kintsugi - means getting to know each piece intimately. I feel that mending broken ceramics deserves the same level of care and attention as went into their creation, and the fact that they have been treasured for up to 70 years makes them even more precious to me.

These four pieces of transformative repair are the result: two are for sale in my shop, one was sold through Maisie’s store, and the fourth one we gave away through Instagram.

You can read more about this project below, and scroll through all images above.

ABOUT THIS COLLECTION

Maisie: "Three of the pieces in this collection came to me from the same owner, but sadly arrived broken. Although these were not particularly rare at the time they were made, I am attached to their history. After all, their previous owner picked, kept and valued these pieces for decades. That's what makes them precious to me. I remember feeling really disheartened: not because I couldn't sell them, but because they had already been in existence for such a long time."

The first piece is a SylvaC hyacinth vase, which arrived in quite a few pieces, and was a bit of a puzzle to put together. I love how the gold-coloured cracks now enhance the design of the vase: the way it seems to trickle down the leaves gives it a real lusciously liquid quality.

The second piece is a classic gurgle jug; it is one of my favourites, as I remember my own mum having one of these. It is named for the glugging sound it makes when pouring. This design has been produced for over a century, but became particularly popular in the 1950s, when Darthmouth Pottery revived the famous fish.

The third piece is a Darthmouth cornucopia vase. It symbolises the mythical 'horn of plenty': a goat horn filled with an abundance of flowers, fruit and corn to celebrate a bountiful harvest. I remade part of the missing chip at the base before decorating it with gold-tone lacquer.

The final piece is a shell and wave dish made by Darthmouth Pottery during the 50s or 60s. Maisie: "This piece reminds me of a particular time during the pandemic when I was working from home in a very, very tight space. I had a pile of vintage pieces to photograph for my webshop, and during an unfortunate tumble, this dish was chipped by a falling candlestick. I felt heartbroken that I damaged something that had already survived for half a century."