Want to add a hint of the tropical interiors trend in your hut? Take a look at our new tropical leaf range and add a slice of Aloha to even the most minimal interior. Here in the mud hut we have been looking ‘mauka’ to Mount Waiʻaleʻale and its rain forest for inspiration. On these towering slopes grow the humble banana (Mai’a), the focus and beginning of our new botanical ceramics range.

Polynesian and Hawaiian legend tells many stories of the Mai’a. It was known as one of the ‘canoe plants’ that the Polynesians took when exploring vast stretches of the pacific ocean in search of new islands, Hawaiian legend tells of Mai’a being kinolau, the body form, of Kanaloa, the Hawaiian god of healing. But the use of Mai’a leaves in food preparation and cooking was the perfect inspiration for our new table top range.

Committing pen to paper we have explored the intricate details that form these beautiful tropical leaves and created a new mould for slip casting using ingenious methods to create the veins that are synonymous with these leaves.

Slip casting is a process we follow in our London workshops where clay is mixed with water, poured into a plaster mould and allowed to form a layer on the inside walls of the mould. Once the water is absorbed the rest of the liquid clay is removed and the cast piece is set free from the mould. It can then be fettled (trimmed) and any detail lost in the casting process is added back in before the piece is fired at temperatures above 1000 degrees where it can then be glazed to a finished piece. We hand make around 3000 ceramic Tiki mugs every month in this way.

Gifting plants for times of scarcity is also the Hawai’i way, so perhaps this could just make the perfect gift too, head on over to ‘New In’ to get yours.