Nourish Co. Ritual Cup Collaboration: An Interview with Ceramicist Tracie Hervy

The Nourish Co. Ritual Cup is a collaboration with celebrated ceramicist Tracie Hervy. Only a limited supply is available. Get yours here.

It’s here! I am so honored to officially release the Nourish Co. ritual cup, one of three heirlooms created in collaboration with my favorite U.S.-based artisans. For the Ritual Cup, I’ve partnered with one of my favorite ceramicists, Tracie Hervy. I have been following Tracie and her work for years, purchasing her vessels when styling homes in my previous career as an interior designer. Tracie is based in New York and inspired by the purity and simplicity of prehistoric vessels.

Ritual cups have been used in cultures and spiritual traditions spanning the globe for thousands of years. In this collaboration, we were inspired by the 500-year-old Japanese art of kintsugi. In our modern interpretation, a portion of the lip of the cup is brushed with white gold. Only a few of these limited-release ritual cups were created, so be sure to purchase one before they’re all gone! Once they are gone, this exact design will never be produced again. The beauty of handmade in small batches!

Nourish Co.: Can you describe your first or earliest experiences with pottery? What drew you to it?
Tracie Hervy: My background is in fine arts and architecture. In the late 2000’s I met a ceramic artist. I never thought about clay before this, but in ceramics I saw a way for me to start working in 3-dimensions again.  Like architecture, it’s an art (at least vessel making) that has real utility. Most of what I’ve learned has been from watching other people. 

I went to graduate school at RISD (Rhode Island School of Design) to study ceramics. At RISD, I did some ceramics but most of my time was consumed with making large-scale installations. It was a year after leaving RISD, when was thinking about how I wanted to spend the rest of my life (at least the next 10 years) that I decided to return to ceramics with the goal of making it the means to making a living.

One of the things that draw me to craft is that I feel like there are objective standards. I had confidence that if the work were good, there would be a market for it. Things are less random than they are in the art world. So often it feels like art is losing it’s inherent value, becoming a mere prop to be used in “artistic discourse”.  

NC: Was your family influential/encouraging in your pursuit of art?
TH: Neither of my parents had a real interest in art, but they new how to make things. My father was an electrician in his early adulthood. He renovated our house, and the homes of others on the weekends during his “off” hours. My mother knitted, and was handy with a sewing machine, which she used for making accessories for the house and the occasional school costume. My parents were handy in the same way that Scandinavians are. If it broke, you’d fix it yourself instead of calling the handy man.

NC: Can you talk about the experience and perspective you gained by learning pottery at Greenwich House? How did Greenwich House influence your style and approach?
TH:  I started taking classes at Greenwich House in 2009. It wasn’t an influence on my style or approach to ceramics. What it did provide me with was a great community of people who really loved the medium, and access to some of the most important ceramic artist working today. It’s an institution that has played a critical role in the development of new talent of the ceramic arts.

It was at Greenwich House that I saw an advertisement for studio space in Tribeca Potters. Two of the people working in Tribeca were Judy Jackson and Eric Bonnin. I had been following their work for a while, so I jumped at the opportunity to work in their studio. It was here where I learned how to turn my interest in ceramics into a real business. The discipline and the standards needed to make things work, were developed here.

NC: What is being at the wheel like? What do you feel when you’re in this moment in the act of making it?
TH: I’m thinking more about the material. I’m working on some vessels now that are quite big and challenging so I’m thinking about how I’m moving my hands, trying to be aware of what the clay is doing. If I move my hands a certain way, how does the clay respond? Everyday I’m striving to learn more about the clay and how to use my hands to get what I want out of the medium.

*All photos except profile shot by Nicole Morrison.

NC: What do you think you might be doing if you weren’t a ceramicist?  
TH: Whatever it is it would involve working with my hands in some way.

NC: Why is it important that people support artisans in the U.S.?
TH: It’s spiritually elevating. When someone makes something really well, it’s elevating. It’s life affirming to have things that are beautiful in the world. I also think it’s like you’re communicating with someone. One of the things I did before things just exploded was I was selling my work at the market and it’s something I love doing. They’ll buy something, but then they come back a week later and tell you they’re using this thing you made, that it’s become a part of their life. This is pretty amazing.

Thanks so much, Tracie! It has been an honor and such a pleasure collaborating with you, something I’ve wanted to do for so long.

Only a few of these limited-release ritual cups were created, so be sure to purchase one before they’re all gone! Once they are gone, this exact design will never be produced again; the beauty of handmade in small batches.

To shop the ritual cup, head here.

To read more about the other makers in the Nourish Co. Heirloom shop, head here.