Eye Spy: Rina Menardi Bowls

Amid the buzz of the Jackson Hole Fall Arts Festival—an annual event animating downtown every September—we offer a moment of repose in the form of the serenely sophisticated vessels made by Italian ceramic artist Rina Menardi. 

For more than four decades, Menardi has been creating ceramic serving pieces and decorative objects that draw inspiration from everyday life yet ultimately elevate the experience of setting a beautiful table.

“Clay allows me to give a three-dimensional shape to the here-and-now me,” she says on her website. “It is a way of communicating with myself, and therefore with others. I simply strive to respect the natural surfacing of things that are already within us.”

Such reverence for materiality comes through in her sculptural work: even though she creates from a stable of essential designs, each object becomes a unique expression of her hand, her creativity. Irregularities enhance the textural personality of each piece.

Menardi epitomizes our core mission: to source pieces that are as beautiful as they are functional. Our interiors live as beautifully as they look. So too do Menardi’s sculptural wares: each vessel, sculpted by hand, speaks to a sense of care that cannot be mass produced. Menardi describes her own designs as “forms in balance between mind and soul.  The mind demands defined borders and lines; the soul expresses itself in softness and movement. The experience is the oscillation of opposites. Balance is the real goal, quiet the purpose.”

Balance and quiet—what commendable concerns to hold not only as an artist, but also a person at large. Mirroring her, we strive for serene equipoise in our designs, hoping to share this aesthetic with our showrooms clientele as well. No matter where we place a piece by Rina Menardi, a sense of harmony settles on the scene. Her work creates a balancing orbit, pulling other elements into her gracious gravitational force. With so much artistic energy swirling around us during Fall Arts Festival, we welcome this calming influence on our everyday expressions.

*photo credit: @eyestudio