animals

Amelia’s Magazine | An Interview with Yasmin Dilekkaya of Yas-Ming Ceramics

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Yas Ming ceramics by Lauren KellyYas -Ming by Lauren Kelly

I’m a big fan of collaborations and the wonders they can produce, and Yas-Ming Ceramics is no exception. Begotten from a project between Yasmin Dilekkaya and Ming Wai Sun during their time at University for the Creative Arts in Rochester, these animal mugs, bowls and other items could give the Urban Outfitters homeware section a run for its money. Talking-pieces as well as beautiful kitchen thingymabobs, their handcrafted ceramics are slip-cast, with press moulding and hand building also used in their creation.

Yas Ming
Yas Ming (1)

Fun is vital part of the brand and the product lines are named accordingly: Moo Cups, Rawr Bowls, Oink, Squeak and Nay. The mugs are my fave, available with an animal head or a bum on the mug instead of a handle, you can choose from a delicate giraffe, fierce lion, stern horse, cute pig, grumpy cow and majestic ram. There’s all sorts of other stuff too including bowls with animal faces and posteriors, dishes with adorable characters patiently watching you munch down your nosh, and even little ceramic chopstick holders that let your eating implements have a quick rest.

Having bumped into Yas at the Ohh Deer Pop-Launch and spent an evening with her talking about ceramics, I can confirm that not only are the products from this exquisite little brand lovely, but the people behind it are too. I spoke to Co-Founder Yasmin Dilekkaya about mugs with bums and getting a creative company off the ground.

Yas Ming
Yas Ming

Can you tell me a little about both yourself and Ming?
We met while we where studying on an Applied Arts degree, Ming Wai was born in Hong Kong and is now living in the UK with her husband and daughter. I have a Turkish Cypriot background, but born and grew up in England. Our multicultural backgrounds were a stimulus and inspiration to us while designing and making at university.

Yas Ming by Lilly Allen
Yas-Ming by Lilly Allen

How did you get the idea for the mugs? 
In our final year at uni, as a year group, we had to raise money for our end of year Graduate Show. At this point I was making a set of Turkish coffee cups and Ming Wai was making beautifully elaborate 3D ceramic picture frames that had animals coming out of them.  We had the idea of attaching the animals to the cups so we had a product that we could sell around university.  The cups were really popular so after Graduation we decided to see how much further we could push the idea.

Yas Ming
Yas Ming ceramics by Lauren Kelly
Yas -Ming by Lauren Kelly

Why did you start making the mugs with ‘bums’?
In the beginning we experimented a lot with cutting the animals in half and seeing where they worked on the cups/bowls and we thought it was a fun idea to have bums as handles as well as the heads.

Which events have you been at in the last year, and what do you have planned for future?
In the past year we have been part of lots of great events from trade shows to markets and pop-up shops. We have had the opportunity to work with some fantastic organisations. Highlights include being selected by The Secret Emporium to be part of their Christmas Market and their Boxpark Pop-Up. Also, exhibiting in Launchpad at Pulse, getting to meet lots of new potential stockists and being part of the Ohh Deer Pop-up where we have been asked to run a ceramic workshop. We have another pop-up with Crafty Fox and Brixi next month, with lots to look forward to in the coming months.

Yas Ming
Yas Ming

What kind of reactions do the pieces usually get? 
They generally get a great reaction, sometimes it takes a while for people to register what they are looking at, and you can watch as their face goes from confused to a smile. There are always lots of smiles, laughter, and people love to pick them up and try out holding them.

Can you explain the process that goes into making the mugs?
We use moulds to cast the animals and moulds to cast the cups/bowls/dishes, once they are out of their moulds the two pieces are carefully attached together by hand and put into the kiln for the first firing. They then get glazed and put into the kiln for a second time.

Yas Ming by Lilly Allen 2
Yas-Ming by Lilly Allen

Is handcrafting your products important to you, or do you think in future you would consider mass-production? 
It is important to us, we use traditional techniques and are proud that each piece is touched and crafted by the hand of a skilled craftsperson. It gives the work personality and quirks that you would not get from factory mass-production.

Yas Ming
Yas Ming

Do you have a favourite animal?
That’s such a hard question, I have favourite animals for different products. I like the Rat Oink because I like the way he looks when he has sauce in the dish. The Cow Rawr is also a favourite, I use it for my cereal most days. The Giraffe Moo I also love as it’s is beautifully elegant.

What’s the greatest challenge of setting up a business? 
Like a lot of new businesses we have had a huge amount of challenges, ours were mostly kiln problems and production issues at the start. Now we have some great people in Stoke helping us produce the products, the challenges have changed.

How do you take your tea? 
Two sugars and not much milk.

Yas Ming
Yas Ming by Nikki Miles
Yas-Ming by Nikki Miles

To get your hands on these Baa-utiful ceramics, check out the Yas-Ming website at www.yas-ming.co.uk

Written by Jessica Cook on Friday July 5th, 2013 11:28 am

Categories ,animals, ,Applied Arts, ,Boxpark, ,Brixi, ,cast, ,chopsticks, ,Clay, ,Crafty Fox, ,glazed, ,Graduate Show, ,graduation, ,Homeware, ,jessicasrcook, ,Lauren Kelly, ,Lilly Allen, ,moulds, ,Mugs, ,Nikki Miles, ,Ohh Deer, ,Pulse, ,The Secret Emporium, ,trade shows, ,workshop, ,Yas-Ming, ,Yasmin Dilekkaya

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Amelia’s Magazine | Caitlin Hinshelwood’s natural history

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Life on earth

Hawks, more about snakes, seek dinosaurs, discount sharks and bears – there isn’t a kitty in sight in Caitlin Hinshelwood’s excellent fauna. We fell in love with the work from the textile designer and artist when she, alongside partner Rose de Borman, put on the Field Work pop-up shop in Spitalfields last month. In gentle earth tones, patterns of vegetables, flowers and arrows are repeated in the fabric, sometimes interspersed with Caitlin’s scratchy handwriting. The result is ever so subtly brilliant, like a cake that’s not too sweet and gets better as you eat it. I don’t want just a cushion with Caitlin’s prints – I want wallpaper. Because as we all know, too much of a good thing is wonderful.

Ghost arguments

There is something quite playful about your work – like you’ve sat down with your pencils and doodled, almost effortlessly. Is that anything close to the reality of making your art?
In some respects yes; I definitely like to get all my books and photos, put on music and just start drawing or painting with it all out in front of me. But more often than not an image is already partially formed in my mind and it’s a case of putting it down on paper, getting it out of my head. Often it is words and colour that inspire the initial ideas and then the drawing comes, that’s especially true of my paintings. The playfulness is an aspect of my work I am happy to be recognised, I know I am making work I am going to be happy with when I laugh to myself whilst I am doing it.

There’s drawing, painting, etching, embroidery and printing, I think … what’s your preferred medium?
Initially, and most recently, I’d say drawing in pen or pencil. I have rediscovered how much I like using a simple pencil of late. However, I love mixing and using colour so then painting or printing always come in. I love the process of screen-printing regardless of how infuriating it can be, I enjoy the skill of it and building up the imagery. It’s like processing photographs yourself, it still feels like magic when the image appears on the screen.

Whale cushion

Your style seems perfect for textiles – like the fantastic ‘par avion’ swallow cushion. Is the choice to use textiles a commercial one, or is this just how you prefer to work?
I studied printed textiles at the University of Brighton so it was natural to continue using it as a medium for my work and, as mentioned before, I do love the technicality and physicality of screen-printing. Making your drawings translate to textiles gives them a new lease of life, a new context. The confines of designing in a square for a cushion or making things repeat can be part of the enjoyment. I like the variety of textiles; you can produce a print design that can be reproduced and used for fashion but you can also treat a cushion like an art piece in itself. Some of my textiles can mean as much as any painting that I do.

Giving up ghosts

I love the animal themes, and the fact that it’s not just the ‘cute’ animals but also whales, dinosaurs and so on – and the vegetables! What inspires these?
Natural history is something I often gravitate towards. It seems like an obvious thing to me as I have always liked this stuff since childhood; I wanted to be zoologist when I was little, my favourite toys were plastic dinosaurs and I have been brought up to love gardening. One of the places I am happiest is in my garden and growing vegetables. The recent animal drawings are part of a collection meant as a homage to David Attenborough and his ‘Life on Earth’ programmes. Hence my new ‘Attenborough Cushions’ which as well as featuring his portrait, complete with Soviet-esque beams, depicts a different series from ‘Life on Earth’. Whale imagery and all things maritime are a personal obsession of mine I find difficult to move away from and even if I do leave it alone for a while I always end up revisiting it.

Trio of Davids

You have an impressive list of designer names on your client list. How did you build up your customer base?
After university I won a place with Texprint, an organisation that selects 24 textile graduates from across the country and takes them to show at Indigo in Paris. I think this experience really showed me the reality of life after university and what you needed to do if you wanted to work for yourself. And that meant pestering people and slogging my portfolio around Paris, London and New York so people saw my work.

You collaborate a lot with Rose de Borman, both with the homeware range and the recent ‘Field Work’ pop-up shop. Could you tell us a little about how you two work together?
Rosie and I met at Brighton and apart from becoming great friends I think we recognised in each other shared tastes and admirations, and realised our work sits well together. Since we graduated we naturally started collaborating on certain projects, sometimes it’s more enjoyable to work on something with a friend, but we have always maintained working independently of each other. The homeware range is the only truly collaborative design project we have done together and this developed from a commission to go to India and work with a manufacturer in Jaipur to produce the range. Field Work was born in 2009 out of a desire to showcase our work, in all its different forms, in a setting that we could curate and in which we could also celebrate the work of other artists and designers we admire.

Vegetable plot dress

What are you working on these days – any new projects you can tell us about?
I am mainly going to be in the print workshop – I have a load of t-shirt commissions to finish and plenty of production to do. I am going to Mexico later in the year that will hopefully inspire a whole new range of work. It is in its very early stages at the moment but I am going to be doing some work for a Whale Festival in Vancouver, which is exciting and pretty perfect for someone that likes drawing whales. And then there is another Field Work to organise – hopefully before the year is out.

Wittgenstein

Then there’s your printed t-shirt business – will you draw anyone or is it just famous people? By the way I get why you don’t want to draw Paul McCartney, I do. The other three are cool though.
Yeah I don’t have anything against the Beatles; it’s purely McCartney I have reservations about! It doesn’t have to be famous faces; I just want it to be particular to the person that has requested a t-shirt. I’d draw anyone within reason. Obviously some choices are more populist than others and I do prefer the more obscure ones, the faces that people are less likely to recognise. I am slightly dismayed by the serious lack of women though!

Caitlin Hinshelwood

See more of Caitlin Hinshelwood’s work on her website. You can read her blog, visit her shop and look at her t-shirt site too.

Written by Jessica Furseth on Thursday April 14th, 2011 9:33 am

Categories ,animals, ,art, ,Caitlin Hinshelwood, ,cushions, ,David Attenborough, ,drawing, ,Field Work, ,Hinshelwood de Borman, ,Life on Earth, ,natural history, ,painting, ,Paul McCartney, ,print, ,Rose de Borman, ,T-shirts, ,Texprint, ,textiles, ,the beatles, ,University of Brighton, ,Whale Festival

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Amelia’s Magazine | Caitlin Hinshelwood’s natural history

by

Life on earth

Hawks, more about snakes, seek dinosaurs, discount sharks and bears – there isn’t a kitty in sight in Caitlin Hinshelwood’s excellent fauna. We fell in love with the work from the textile designer and artist when she, alongside partner Rose de Borman, put on the Field Work pop-up shop in Spitalfields last month. In gentle earth tones, patterns of vegetables, flowers and arrows are repeated in the fabric, sometimes interspersed with Caitlin’s scratchy handwriting. The result is ever so subtly brilliant, like a cake that’s not too sweet and gets better as you eat it. I don’t want just a cushion with Caitlin’s prints – I want wallpaper. Because as we all know, too much of a good thing is wonderful.

Ghost arguments

There is something quite playful about your work – like you’ve sat down with your pencils and doodled, almost effortlessly. Is that anything close to the reality of making your art?
In some respects yes; I definitely like to get all my books and photos, put on music and just start drawing or painting with it all out in front of me. But more often than not an image is already partially formed in my mind and it’s a case of putting it down on paper, getting it out of my head. Often it is words and colour that inspire the initial ideas and then the drawing comes, that’s especially true of my paintings. The playfulness is an aspect of my work I am happy to be recognised, I know I am making work I am going to be happy with when I laugh to myself whilst I am doing it.

There’s drawing, painting, etching, embroidery and printing, I think … what’s your preferred medium?
Initially, and most recently, I’d say drawing in pen or pencil. I have rediscovered how much I like using a simple pencil of late. However, I love mixing and using colour so then painting or printing always come in. I love the process of screen-printing regardless of how infuriating it can be, I enjoy the skill of it and building up the imagery. It’s like processing photographs yourself, it still feels like magic when the image appears on the screen.

Whale cushion

Your style seems perfect for textiles – like the fantastic ‘par avion’ swallow cushion. Is the choice to use textiles a commercial one, or is this just how you prefer to work?
I studied printed textiles at the University of Brighton so it was natural to continue using it as a medium for my work and, as mentioned before, I do love the technicality and physicality of screen-printing. Making your drawings translate to textiles gives them a new lease of life, a new context. The confines of designing in a square for a cushion or making things repeat can be part of the enjoyment. I like the variety of textiles; you can produce a print design that can be reproduced and used for fashion but you can also treat a cushion like an art piece in itself. Some of my textiles can mean as much as any painting that I do.

Giving up ghosts

I love the animal themes, and the fact that it’s not just the ‘cute’ animals but also whales, dinosaurs and so on – and the vegetables! What inspires these?
Natural history is something I often gravitate towards. It seems like an obvious thing to me as I have always liked this stuff since childhood; I wanted to be zoologist when I was little, my favourite toys were plastic dinosaurs and I have been brought up to love gardening. One of the places I am happiest is in my garden and growing vegetables. The recent animal drawings are part of a collection meant as a homage to David Attenborough and his ‘Life on Earth’ programmes. Hence my new ‘Attenborough Cushions’ which as well as featuring his portrait, complete with Soviet-esque beams, depicts a different series from ‘Life on Earth’. Whale imagery and all things maritime are a personal obsession of mine I find difficult to move away from and even if I do leave it alone for a while I always end up revisiting it.

Trio of Davids

You have an impressive list of designer names on your client list. How did you build up your customer base?
After university I won a place with Texprint, an organisation that selects 24 textile graduates from across the country and takes them to show at Indigo in Paris. I think this experience really showed me the reality of life after university and what you needed to do if you wanted to work for yourself. And that meant pestering people and slogging my portfolio around Paris, London and New York so people saw my work.

You collaborate a lot with Rose de Borman, both with the homeware range and the recent ‘Field Work’ pop-up shop. Could you tell us a little about how you two work together?
Rosie and I met at Brighton and apart from becoming great friends I think we recognised in each other shared tastes and admirations, and realised our work sits well together. Since we graduated we naturally started collaborating on certain projects, sometimes it’s more enjoyable to work on something with a friend, but we have always maintained working independently of each other. The homeware range is the only truly collaborative design project we have done together and this developed from a commission to go to India and work with a manufacturer in Jaipur to produce the range. Field Work was born in 2009 out of a desire to showcase our work, in all its different forms, in a setting that we could curate and in which we could also celebrate the work of other artists and designers we admire.

Vegetable plot dress

What are you working on these days – any new projects you can tell us about?
I am mainly going to be in the print workshop – I have a load of t-shirt commissions to finish and plenty of production to do. I am going to Mexico later in the year that will hopefully inspire a whole new range of work. It is in its very early stages at the moment but I am going to be doing some work for a Whale Festival in Vancouver, which is exciting and pretty perfect for someone that likes drawing whales. And then there is another Field Work to organise – hopefully before the year is out.

Wittgenstein

Then there’s your printed t-shirt business – will you draw anyone or is it just famous people? By the way I get why you don’t want to draw Paul McCartney, I do. The other three are cool though.
Yeah I don’t have anything against the Beatles; it’s purely McCartney I have reservations about! It doesn’t have to be famous faces; I just want it to be particular to the person that has requested a t-shirt. I’d draw anyone within reason. Obviously some choices are more populist than others and I do prefer the more obscure ones, the faces that people are less likely to recognise. I am slightly dismayed by the serious lack of women though!

Caitlin Hinshelwood

See more of Caitlin Hinshelwood’s work on her website. You can read her blog, visit her shop and look at her t-shirt site too.

Written by Jessica Furseth on Thursday April 14th, 2011 9:33 am

Categories ,animals, ,art, ,Caitlin Hinshelwood, ,cushions, ,David Attenborough, ,drawing, ,Field Work, ,Hinshelwood de Borman, ,Life on Earth, ,natural history, ,painting, ,Paul McCartney, ,print, ,Rose de Borman, ,T-shirts, ,Texprint, ,textiles, ,the beatles, ,University of Brighton, ,Whale Festival

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Amelia’s Magazine | An interview with Japanese embroidery artist Kaoru Hirota of HIPOTA

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Lobster by Hipota

It wasn’t that long ago that I watched The Secret World of Arrietty (2010), the Japanese, Studio Ghibli refresh of Mary Norton’s The Borrowers, and looking at Hipota‘s petite, crafted edibles and teenie-tiny animals, I can’t help but be reminded of the film. These artworks are so real, and so little that they have a Honey, I Shrunk the Kids element to them.

Pineapple by Hipota Banana by Hipota

33 year old Japanese craft artist Kaoru Hirota makes intricate embroidery pieces under the name Hipota. Having stumbled across her creations on the web, I was completely captivated with the detail and lifelike feel of her embroidery, especially the bite-size fruit and vegetables, which bear a strong resemblance to the real thing. With some pieces doubling as purses and brooches, these are the ultimate twee fashion accessory and the pinnacle of hand-made craft items. Dinner-table yummies, including peppers that bear beads instead of seeds, make my eyes water, not with hunger, but with fascination. Alice in Wonderland style pansies and blood-red lobster are all part of the foray into a thread-composed natural world that you encounter when you look at Hipota’s unique work. The detail of the pieces is striking and they have a cartoon-esque quality which gives them an extra pizzazz. Kaoru has a real talent for bringing thread to life and each of her pieces has its own personality.

Hipota Illustration by Jo Cheung Hipota by Freddy Thorn
Kaoru Hirota illustrations by Jo Cheung (top) and Freddy Thorn (bottom)

Initially these pieces look like crochet and the dexterity of Kaoru‘s fingers and the imagination of these works, really give her crafts their own stamp. The beauty is in the meticulousness of these small and lovable creations. Hipota‘s works range from tiny, delicate flowers to adorable little toadstools and I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next! With swans donning regal, fingernail sized crowns and character-full monkeys, these are the equivalent of soft toys for adults. More importantly, many of then are fun pieces that could give a real hand-made addition to any ensemble, or make a statement home-ware piece.

Avocado by Hipota
Brocolli by Hipota Hipota's Peas by May van Millingen
Hipota's Peppers by May van Millingen
Illustrations of Hipota‘s peas and peppers by May Van Millingen

Hipota‘s work is more than just embroidery, it’s like crawling into a craft created world where everything is carved from thread. Avocados, frogs, zebras, her range is startling and the pieces themselves are captivating. The only real pitfall of writing this piece, is that I’m dangling an (embroidery) carrot in front of you that’s out of reach as these little gems are only available from stores in Japan.

Tiger Purse by Hipota Hipota by Levi Bunyan Shark Purse by Hipota Illustration of Hipota zebra purse by Levi Bunyan

Although Kaoru Hirota, the needle behind Hipota proved hard to get hold of, and there was a bit of a language barrier, it was worth the challenge to get a quick insight into her lovely, dwarf artworks.

How long have you been embroidering?
For seven years.

Why did you choose the name Hipota?
My name is Kaoru Hirota so I thought that I would use the brand name Hirota. I was learning Russian at the time, and in Russian, p expresses r. I thought this was really interesting. Therefore, I used the brand name of not Hirota but Hipota. The right pronunciation is actually “Hirota”. However, people often call me “Hipota”. Incidentally, in Russian Hipota is хи pota.

Monkey by Hipota
Guerilla by Hipota

How do you choose the subject of a new project?
I like to use embroidery to express well-known forms, for example: animals, vegetables, and the often seen thing.

Do you use any other crafts to make pieces?
I only embroider, I can’t knit!

Leeks by Hipota
Onion by Hipota
Hipota Pea Brooches by Sam Parr Hipota pea brooches by Sam Parr

A lot of your work is fruit, vegetables, animals and flowers, is there a reason you focus on nature?
As in nature, results differ, so I can’t make the same thing twice. For example, if two strawberries are made, both strawberries would be completely different. I think that we can say the same thing about vegetables and animals!

What are your plans for the future?
I will continue only with embroidery from now on.

Hipota by Jo Cheung
Strawberry by Hipota
Hipota by Suky Goodfellow Illustration of Hipota strawberry by Jo Cheung and illustration of Hipota toadstools by Suky Goodfellow

How do you make the pieces so small? In such detail?
I observe things intently and I strive to express a colour and a form as it is. It’s mainly through trial and error that I learnt to do it. If you look at the work I did seven years ago you would be surprised!

What needle do you use?
It is a very ordinary needle. It is a thing called “nuibari” in Japanese.

Where can people buy your products?
I don’t have a webshop but you can buy my work in some stores in Japan. At Bazar et Garde-Manger and Tote.

Sea creatures by Claire Kearns
Illustration of Hipota‘s sea creatures by Claire Kearns

When I was little my grandmother would knit cuddly toys for me. These inanimate friends were different to my other soft companions, not because they were knitted, but because they had been made with love. Looking at Hipota‘s creations makes me feel a genuine sense of wonder at the power of human creativity that I thought was all but lost with childhood. Not just that, but I feel she really manages to put a part of herself into her art, especially as she mentions that each piece is unique. Just like the lovely, loyal cuddlies my grandma knitted for me as a kid, these pieces have stolen my heart, and hopefully, yours too.

Crab by Hipota
Seahorse by Hipota
Fish by Hipota

All photography courtesy of Kaoru Hirota

Written by Jessica Cook on Monday March 18th, 2013 1:59 pm

Categories ,animals, ,Bazar et Garde-Manger, ,Brooches, ,craft, ,crochet, ,embroidery, ,Freddy Thorn, ,Fruit, ,handmade, ,Hipota, ,Honey, ,I Shrunk the Kids, ,japan, ,japanese, ,Jessica Cook, ,Jo Cheung, ,Kaoru Hirota, ,knit, ,Levi Bunyan, ,nature, ,Purses, ,Russian, ,sea creatures, ,sewing, ,Suky Goodfellow, ,The Borrowers, ,The Secret World of Arrietty, ,thread, ,Tiny, ,Tote, ,vegetables

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