In the Clouds / Planes - Crowdyhouse premiere starting soon!

In the Clouds / Planes
photograph by House of Thol

It's been a couple of months since we first launched our original 'In the Clouds'-series during ShowUP. (Back then, i wrote this blog about the heritage of the clouds and birds as a porcelain print.)
In August, the initial pieces were received with great enthusiasm, and even more so in October, when we presented the first extension of the series: the In the Clouds bowls, during the Dutch Design Week.

In the Clouds / Planes - porcelain cups
photograph by House of Thol

And then... well, we didn't put any effort in getting the porcelain pieces out there.
Truth is: we had made the range of variations within the series too large for us to produce in the quantities needed.
This made us hesitant to approach stores and resellers in fear of orders that would be wildly inefficient to make.

production original In the Clouds-series
photograph by House of Thol

Well... we made a few minor adjustments in the design and are now launching a new In the Clouds series.
And this time we're keeping ourselves in check: Instead of offering 24 variations to start with, we're relaunching the In the Clouds cups in one size: medium, two versions: birds and planes, and three possible colours: white, greyish white and light-blue. All cups have a glazed finish.
Still plenty to choose from!

In the Clouds cups in light-blue and greyish white
photograph by House of Thol

To give ourselves the much-needed time to produce a little supply, we're launching the new In the Clouds / Planes cups as a Crowdyhouse premiere: From April 4th onwards, the In the Clouds/Planes cups will be available exclusively via Crowdyhouse for three weeks.
After this launch-period, the cups will be more widely available and we'll keep you posted about new points of sale.

In the Clouds cups
photograph by House of Thol

To be the first to own the new In the Clouds / Planes, check out our campaign on Crowdyhouse.

Interested in reselling these cups? Get in touch!

Messe to Zoo: visiting Cologne

The IMM/Passagen in Cologne seems ages away already, although it's only been five days.

We came back late Sunday night, pretty knackered from our lovely long weekend in Germany.

In hindsight, bringing the kids probably wasn't the best idea: it made Saturday and Sunday very much about entertaining them and very little about seeing any design. Well... The Zoo was pretty nice too.

Luckily we had a chance to run over the actual fair on Friday (i took over 23.000 steps that day - thank you Iphone), but we sadly missed most of the Passagen-programme due to lack of interesting stuff for three-year-olds.

Aside from the great weekend away and the lovely reactions in the shop, we received a more tangible token of appreciation from the city of Cologne, or -more specifically- from the 'Kölner Stadtanzeiger', a local newspaper. 

We were pretty happy to be featured in their Weekend-special last week. (Click on the photograph to enlarge it.)

And a few snapshots from the Weekend:

proud and a bit self-conscious | Fonds Kwadraat presents House of Thol

from our Instagram

A while ago the lovely guys from Koekepeer visited our studio and made this killer video portrait for Fonds Kwadraat:

Video by Koekepeer | commissioned by Fonds Kwadraat

We're happy and proud but also kind of self conscious about it (which will probably wear off over time).
Thank you Fonds Kwadraat and Studio Koekepeer!

This video is part of a series of portraits from artists who received an interest-free Fonds Kwadraat loan, the series is aptly named 'Fonds Kwadraat Exposeert". Click here for more video's from the series (even more will be added over the next weeks)

Interested of seeing more from Koekepeer? Visit the Koekepeer website, or check out their page on Facebook.

ps. - we'll look into the possibility of adding subtitles to the film later.

IMM / Passagen - all set up!

Passagen / IMM 2016 has started and we're all set up at Salon Zwei in Ehrenfeld, Cologne.

If you're visiting the IMM, don't forget about Ehrenfelds' design parcours, and -more specifically- make sure to visit Salon Zwei at the Gutenbergstrasse.

Here's a close up of the little map from the Passagen booklet, showing where you should be (#76):

Don't just look through the window, but walk in for a closer look of our latest projects: The first chapter of our stoneware glazing experiment Off the ground and the Confetti & Fireworks necklaces.
Also, many of the products are for sale. Some of them only during this week.

We're having a little soiree with music and drinks this Thursday.
Will we see you there?

Not to miss: Ceramix @ Bonnefantenmuseum Maastricht

Ceramix - Bonnefantenmuseum Maastricht until January 31st

Last Weekend i got to flip through the catalogue of the beautiful exhibition 'Ceramix' that's currently on show at the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht.
Looking through the book made me realise i almost forgot to mention that House of Thol is a tiny bit part of the show: For the duration of the Ceramix exhibition, our porcelain tableware 'In the Clouds' is part of the collection of the gift shop of the Bonnefantenmuseum.

Ceramix exhibition at the Bonnefantenmuseum, with work by Ai Wei Wei
photograph by Jeroen van der Wielen

Sadly we didn't have a chance to visit the exhibition ourselves yet, but i hope to be able to schedule a trip to Maastricht somewhere in the next weeks.

With the catalogue in mind i'd advice anyone with a love for ceramics and art to visit Ceramix before the end of this month.
The exhibition will travel to France later this year: first to Paris this spring, and after that to Sevres.

Bita Fayyazi, Cockroaches, 1998-1999
By courtesy of Isabelle van den Eynde Gallery, Dubai

Thomas Schutte, Basler Maske, 2014

In the Clouds tableware - temporarily part of the collection of the Bonnefantenmuseum gift shop

A few DDW snapshots

4 Days down, 5 to go...
We're halfway trough the Dutch Design Week and we're having a blast at Designperron.

The stream of visitors is steady and we've made a lot of new contacts and had many lovely conversations.
Aside from enjoying the interesting talks we have with visitors walking by our stand, we're having a great time with the other exhibitors at the location.

Have you been to Eindhoven yet?
Come visit us at Designperron and have a look at the beautiful projects of Studio Hamerhaai, Roos Soetekouw, Bas Vellekoop, Kikke&Hebbe, Studio Ineke van der Werff and many others!

Baking corks and firing kilns against the clock / DDW prep

Only a little time left before the Dutch Design Week officially kicks off in Eindhoven. And although we thought we were on schedule, this final week before the show always seems to have about three days too few.

We'll probably make it.
In the end.

Anyway...
Right now we're fighting the clock newsletter writing, cork making, cone casting, waterworks packaging, cold battling, porcelain producing, exhibition building and (especially) kiln firing.

Come check out the results of all our hard work at the Design Perron in Eindhoven next week.
We'll be there every day and would love to see you.

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All square images are from our Instagram account.

Press package DDW

The first sentences of our DDW press release, click here for the full text (pdf).
The Dutch Design Week is only a few weeks away, and this time we're stepping up our game with a pre-expo press package.

All the images below are part of the press pack we've prepared and which should soon be available via Dutch Design Press Desk.

Photography Waterworks: Masha Bakker Photography
Photography Bathtub: Johannes van Assem
Other photographs by House of Thol

Please get in touch if you'd like to receive high resolution images or more information about the studio and our projects.