Tracie Hervy
Tracie Hervy’s austere ceramic cylinders are plainly forthright, all elegant lines and iconic shapes: In these pieces, she says, “all the superfluities have been stripped away to reveal their essence.” They also, though, represent a baton-pass from designer to owner, and in that transfer of ownership, they reveal their true purpose: to serve any one of myriad aims, and to be pressed into action for needs as varied as their new owners themselves. Their simplicity is not a final statement but a starting point. “My work functions in the world similarly to the Mason jar, in that it leaves space for your imagination,” says the designer, who began her work in ceramics at Greenwich House Pottery in New York City and earned her masters in fine arts at the Rhode Island School of Design. “They are basic cylinders that can be used to fulfill many needs, both utilitarian and aesthetic: They can be a planter — or bowl, or art object.”