One of the reasons we love Del Ray is the fact that there are so many talented artists living and working right in our own backyard. We also love when readers share stories and introduce us to new people. So when we received an email from Mary Louise Marino simply wanting to “spread the word” about another local artist, we knew we wanted to share this story.
Here’s what Mary’s wrote about Amber Kendrick, a local ceramic and glass artist. The content comes from Mary’s blog, which she agreed to let us reproduce.
Amber Kendrick lives in Del Ray, is my yoga teacher at the local Y, pixie petite, and is laced with beautifully tattooed writing and feathers. She moves us through yoga positions we didn’t think we could do to the backdrop of decidedly non-yoga music. She’s awesome.
It was no surprise to discover she was an artist and soon we were exchanging each others website addresses. Amber Kendrick is a ceramic and glass artist and her recent work is designing custom tableware for high-end restaurants. She describes her work as “minimal and subtle design with an emphasis on details and craftsmanship.”
Amber’s inclination has been more theoretical, studying architectural theory and philosophy of art. It wasn’t until later that she decided (and it was a huge decision) to study architecture. She spent seven years in San Francisco as an architect and two years ago moved back to DC. It was her mom, an accomplished artist herself, that lured her into ceramics. She taught her everything she knows.
This gorgeous set is a recent commission for Ashby Inn that Amber has just finished—bread and butter plates meticulously designed to cradle the butter.
Amber works thoughtfully with her clients. In the case of chefs, the first meeting is to understand the concept for the restaurant, to learn how they plate, to get a sense of the menu, and discuss intentions for the tableware. She encourages the chef to share inspiring images that hint at their thinking—be it color, space, form, word, or mood.
“My creative process still originates with schematic sketching. I can’t escape an architectural approach to design… I begin to sketch forms and simultaneously think about surface, function, how the piece will be transported from kitchen to table, how it feels, how the plate or bowl might serve as a ‘blank canvas’ for the chef while creating an inspiring backdrop. It’s very similar to architecture to me, designing walls and openings, creating a space or an object for some event or experience to take place.”
These are final prototypes from a current commission by chef Johnny Spero, who is opening a restaurant in DC this fall, Sūna. There are ten forms, with a total of 600 ceramic wares by the times she’s done.
It’s not luck that Amber lands these great commissions. Her talent, dedication to form and expression, and insane perfectionism are exactly what is needed to create tableware for high-end restaurants. When she was starting out she would send prototypes to a few restaurants to get their honest feedback. She gets her work out there, knows how to network, and draws on word of mouth.
Amber reflected that it’s important to strive to always do good work, to keep working on yourself, and continue to refine one’s craft and design. She’s looking forward to an upcoming intensive workshop at Arrowmont to take her craft further and is already poised to take on new commissions.
Her greatest challenge at the moment is emerging from her studio, which is not a bad challenge. At all. But I get it. I’d love to be working in my studio all the time, too!
Thank you Mary for sharing this studio tour. For more information about Amber, visit her website at http://www.cloudterre.com.
