Simone Bodmer-Turner’s Tableware: The Artist-Designer’s Made-in-Massachusetts Collection

When Simone Bodmer-Turner moved from an apartment and studio in Brooklyn to a 19th century farmhouse in a rural corner of Western Massachusetts, her initial settling-in period became known as”the year of living without a kiln.” During that time, the artist-designer, best known for her sculptural ceramic vases, worked with bronze, plaster and wood, creating chairs, one-of-a-kind standing lamps, and fireplace surrounds in refined, organic shapes that could be mistaken for 1930s French.

Recently, she’s begun firing again—SB-T Studio, her new, dedicated ceramics setup, is located in a historic mill building in the Pioneer Valley. Having spent her post-college years working for restaurants and farms—and for Good Eggs, an online ethical grocery in SF that connects urbanites with local growers and bakers—Simone has also, she says, returned to her “food roots” and been gardening and doing a lot of cooking herself. The time felt right to create her first tableware line.

As she often does, Simone teamed up with collaborators—two ceramic artists with deep knowledge of glazing and production—and spent months fine-tuning exactly what she was after: stoneware plates, platters, and mugs in a nuanced ghostly glaze, pieces of rarified beauty intended for everyday use. Join us for a look.

Photography by Myrthe Giesbers, unless noted, all courtesy of Simone Bodmer-Turner (@sbit.studio and @simonebodmerturner).

Simone was an English major at the College of Charleston. It was post-college that she began her ceramics practice; in lieu of grad school, she traveled, studying firsthand in a series of workshops in Japan.

“We add one more layer than what most production pottery would do—a dark clay body, a white slip, and a glaze,” continues Simone. “Somebody’s hands are taking each piece, dipping it and then shaking the slip off, so that you see the movement and the slip running across.”

In addition to the studio’s own shop, the tableware is newly available in NYC at Quarters, In Common With’s concept store in Tribeca.

Browse the Remodelista Tableware Archive for more favorites, including:

• Dishes that Double as Art: Emma Kohlmann’s La Pittura Collection from Hay
• At Paris’s Bazar d’Alger, Old Tableware Gets a New Gleam
• Softedge: Durable Dishes for Daily Use Made in Japan