Sometimes inspiration comes from unexpected places. That is definitely the case with Sean Forest Roberts, the man behind Forest Ceramic Company.
Forest wasn’t always a pottery artist. He started out as a chemist and worked in a lab for four years, when he decided to explore other avenues and eventually found ceramics.
Most pottery art is pretty traditional – the clay is first molded into the shape of a mug, a bowl or anything else, then it’s burned, painted and burned again. At the end you have a beautiful painted vessel. But Sean’s process is different. Instead of painting over his pots, he uses a technique calls marbling: he uses colored clay and stacks it in layers, and then carves the pot to reveal those hidden layers.
Sean documents and shares his carving process on Instagram, where he’s gained a massive following. The carving process is as hypnotizing as the end result, which is probably why he’s so popular on social media.
The vessels themselves are stunning. They’re all made by hand, which means no two are the same. The carvings also change – sometimes Sean carve long lines, sometimes he pokes small round holes in the ceramics. What they do have in common is that they’re all so pretty you’ll want to buy them all and never use anything else.
