Artist couple Elissa Ehlin and James (Jay) Leritz, opened Kiln Design Studio, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in 2001, and have been designing and making enamelware sculpture, mobiles, tableware, and jewelry together ever since. Each piece is hand made in traditions that can be traced back to the tenth-century Byzantine Empire, and popularized in the American Art Deco and contemporary art scenes.
When Ehlin and Leritz opened the studio, they didn’t know how their work would be accepted, but the public just responded to it intuitively and immediately. It is easy to see how in a world of thousands of similar home products and jewelry designs that theirs was at once fresh and new. Because of Kiln Design Studio, enamel work is enjoying a resurgence, and although it has not fully found its place in the market yet, it is moving in quickly.
Kiln Design Studio’s glorious pendants, made of fired stained glass enamel on copper, explore organic flower motifs that are as delicately drawn as those reflecting an ancient Asian aesthetic, yet as fresh and dynamic as their young American designers. Each enamel disk, a lovely work of art, hangs from a sterling silver neck wire that gently rests on the collarbone.
Kiln has designed for Kate Spade, Barneys, Bergdorf Goodman, and Calvin Klein. Their work has been shown in Elle Décor, Vogue, and InStyle magazines, and featured in San Francisco MoMA, Art Institute of Chicago, The Smithsonian, and, of course, on verbena.net.
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