Nic Newcomb

“Whenever I make things that will hold plants — either as a cache-pot or even a simple flower pot — I’m always thinking about how this vessel will support the bigger message — the flowers themselves,” says ceramicist and sculptor Nic Newcomb. Bloomist recruited Newcomb to create special vessels tailored to the unique demands of ikebana, the formally austere style of Japanese flower arranging — happily, a suitable match for his aesthetics and his long-standing affinity for Japanese artisanal practices. Newcomb’s interest in pottery stems from an early window on the work of a neighbor who worked as a sculptor: “He had to do a project where he had to throw on the wheel, and I was just immediately taken by it,” he says. That youthful interest was further developed at Skidmore College, where he focused on ceramics; now he divides his time between efforts ranging from wholesale commissions to sculpture earmarked for exhibition this summer at the Saratoga Clay Arts Center — a practice that fuels his commercial projects as well. “I consider any sort of three-dimensional object to have an element of sculpture in it, at least when it's coming from me,” Newcomb says. “Even when I'm working on a handle on a mug or the profile of a vase, I'm thinking about it in terms of the elements of sculpture.”