Simon Pearce Summer Photo Shoot

Just before the big tourist rush hit Cape Cod on the Fourth, a group of us made our way to Massachusetts for an on-location shoot for our summer campaigns.

The week was full of long workdays unpacking products, beachcombing for props, scheduling shoots around the tides, and chasing the most beautiful lighting (often quite early in the morning – and with plenty of Beanstock coffee to fuel our efforts) – followed by short-but-sweet evenings sharing grilled pizza and ideas for how to best show our customers how much we love doing what we do.

Together, we came up with new ways to show the beauty of our handmade glass and pottery, in settings that bring forth the strong influence nature has on our designs – like showing the rugged New England spirit of our Bristol Hurricane standing up to the waves of the mighty Atlantic or our Revere Hurricane serving as illumination for the perfect summer view.

And we welcomed our newest colleague into the mix: Victoria (also known as @daisy_roots_ ) who created visuals for our retail stores for over five years, and is now bringing her incredible eye to our digital marketing efforts. We’re thrilled to have her on the team!

We hope you love the images we captured as much as we do – and that they inspire you to enjoy every moment of your summer. Check out the homepage to see our photos in action!

The Crystalline Collection

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In a Parisian pottery factory of the late 1800’s, two chemists made a mistake, causing colorful glaze crystals to form on the outside of their pots. The results were, at once, striking and hard to control. The potters at Simon Pearce have revisited this technique to create one of a kind, decorative vessels.

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PURE Crystalline Rose Teardrop Vase (Large and Small)

The time intensive and expensive process fell out of favor with the large pottery factories, but in the 1920’s, a resurgence in the production of this glaze technique occurred (due to independent potters setting up their own studios and producing pottery separate from large production).

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Matt McFarland with the “Jade” glaze he developed.

Matt McFarland developed the glazes and the technique to allow the glazes to run down the entire ceramic form. The crystals are formed by a combination of added ingredients (mostly zinc oxide and silica) to float around on the glaze and cool slowly. The size of the crystals is determined by how long the minerals remain on the molasses-like glaze before it drops in temperature.

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Mike Trempe throwing a Crystalline Teardrop Vase (Large).

Only some shapes will adequately “hold” this type of glaze. The shape needs to orient itself in a way so, when the glaze is applied to the top rim of the vessel, the crystals form at the desired place on the piece. For this reason, many of the vessels are bulbous (that Mike Trempe throws), with a very narrow neck. Historically, this is known to create the most dramatic and aesthetically pleasing results.

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Crystalline Bud Vases: Contour, Modern, Curio, and Facet

Matt McFarland was instrumental in the first full line of crystalline products being launched at Simon Pearce, in the Spring of 2014. The introduction of these pieces brought a sparkle of color into the company owned stores. Today, the Simon Pearce crystalline assortment includes over a dozen different shapes in five different colors.

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The story of crystalline is the story of how research into the history of the medium can inspire masters to create a new standard of excellence.