Cloth Paper Clay

On our US trip I saw bison in Golden Gate Park, I watched Steve Earle in Williamsburg, visited Agnes Martin paintings in Chelsea and spied a snow-topped volcano too. But the best sighting of all was when I spotted, in real life, Lynn Russell of Satsuma Press, in Portland, OR.

Lynn and I are both lucky enough to be suppliers to Heath Ceramics, we both own the same spotty green coat from Boden (in different sizes, evidently), we’ve collaborated on stationery before, and we tweet each other often, but we hadn’t ever clapped eyes on one another, until last Monday, when we met for lunch in Portland.

Earlier this year, when Lynn heard I was coming to the US, she quickly decided that we should do a collaboration again, and make an event of it this time. Soon enough she’d got Lisa Jones of Pigeon Toe Ceramics on board, and with the exchange of a couple of emails, we’d decided what to do, how to do it, and I booked my trip to Portland.

Working with my Colt Circles motif, Lynn’s letterpressed Pinwheel flower design, and colours from Lisa, we each applied the design to our respective medium, and created the goods that make up our collaborative effort called Cloth Paper Clay.

Things escalated soon after, thanks again to Lynn, who managed to organise our launch to coincide with the Design*Sponge book signing at the West Elm store in Portland. So we finally met up on the day of the launch, visited Lisa’s studio, and then headed off to set up our stand. It all went remarkably smoothly for a bunch of people who hadn’t really met before, and soon enough we were selling our things and meeting lots of fab people (thanks so much to everyone who came!)

Now, with the event over, these Cloth Paper Clay first edition tea towels, cups and bowls and letterpressed cards will be available for sale directly from Pigeon Toe Ceramics, and also from Satsuma Press.

I have one or two tea towels left, and have listed them in my Etsy shop. Hurry, as this is seriously limited stuff!

I loved working with Lynn and Lisa, and meeting all the fantastic people who came to Cloth Paper Clay and enthused about our work. Fingers crossed we can make this happen again some day soon… next time in Cape Town!