Thursday night we hosted our second solo exhibition with Japanese potter Masanobu Ando. We were very happy to see so many familiar faces coming to greet Mr. Ando again during his second visit. Thank you very much for making him feel at home.

One of the only sculptures in the exhibition, a “box of air”.

During the exhibition we had a focus on Tea Ceremony tools, and the center of the Tea Ceremony is the Chawan or Tea Bowl.

A tea whisk stand, and cloth holder.

I really love these silver glazed ceramic trays, and wanted one for myself but alas they sold right away.

A torch shaped wall vase, such a symbol for humanity it’s something every ancient society has in common.

Maybe some of our favourite pieces in the show are these large scale wall-mounted flower vases.

Flower plates.

A “Coffee Ceremony” Chabako. All of the beautiful implements fit in the gorgeous bamboo basket below.

A specially made Tea box with objects made or commissioned by Mr. Ando. Sorry this also sold right away.

For a limited time, full sets of coffee cups!

A unique Mizusashi with a geometric handle (a water jar used in the Tea Ceremony).

Amazing ceramic pedestals for serving food or display.

A special edition of the coffee funnel in a silver glaze.

Mr. Ando performed a special Tea Ceremony in our front window. People crowded around him from the inside and wrapped all around the front window. It was quite the spectacle, I wish I took some pictures! If you have any, please send some to me.

A close up of some of the special Tea Utensils, I’m sorry none of these are for sale.

Please let us know if you see anything you might be interested in.

We are really excited to announce our second exhibition for Japanese potter and Tea Master Masanobu Ando. For this exhibition we are diving further into our exploration of the Japanese Tea Ceremony. We will be offering Tea Ceremony tools made by Masanobu Ando, considered the highest level of expression in his work, as well as a large collection of unique ceramics for the home.

The opening reception will be held Thursday May 29th, and Masanobu Ando will be hosting a public Tea Ceremony for our visitors.

Above: One of the unique Tea bowls made especially for the exhibition.

A wall mounted flower vase.

A silver glazed coffee funnel.

One of our favorite pieces, a beautiful black and iron glazed footed bowl.

A silver glazed milk pitcher.

We will also be selling a special Chabako (Traveling tea box) put together by Masanobu Ando commissioning work from some of the most renowned artisans in Japan. It is a really special collection for anyone interested in learning Chad?.

We hope to see you next week!

We’re really excited to announce our 2nd exhibition of 2014. We were lucky to host Mr. and Mrs. Hira of Studio Prepa during a group show with Oji Masanori two years ago. Our follow up to that exhibition is a solo exhibition entitled “Mold All”. This series is the result of an experimentation with wooden molds, the same technique used by mid-century Finnish glass artists to create “Ice Glass”.

A log is hollowed out and glass in blown into the mold. The end grain, knots, and grain are left imprinted on the clear glass. Since the molds are made of wood they can only be used a few times before they are destroyed so as a result the works are very limited and each piece has a unique size and shape.

We will also be offering a collection of Studio Prepa’s studio line, which includes bowls, dishes and glasses.

We hope to see you this weekend! We will be hosting an evening reception with the artists Saturday evening from 5:00 – 7:00pm.

I hope everyone had a nice weekend. Monday is our day off so today was pretty relaxed, with brunch at Luna, a visit with Sali Tabacchi, coffee at Full Stop and some grocery shopping. Since the dwell article a few things in our home have changed so we thought we would give you a little update.

The first little thing is our tiny little Peace Lily in an Arabia Finland planter, along with the Luca Nichetto Timeline bowl and copper Zoo table by Claesson Koivisto Rune. We also sell the TMM floor lamp by Spanish designer Miguel Mila, we always have his designs on display at Mjölk.

Available at Mjölk but not on the webstore yet: Luca Nichetto Timeline bowl and TMM floor lamp in white oak, beech, walnut or wenge. Please enquire here.

Underneath this little side table is our new (old) mid-century Swedish carpet by Judith Johansson. She is one of our favourite rug designers, you might recognize her work from the red and blue carpet we have at our cottage.

When we first moved in we didn’t have any rugs on the floor at all, and in the beginning it was really nice and minimalistic. However, as we grew into our home we starting craving the warmth you get from incorporating textiles. They are also so nice underfoot and remarkably cut down on sound.

The full shot of the living room rug.

The untreated vegetable tanned leather on our 2213 sofa is about 2 years old, and wearing beautifully. Eventually it will be a cognac brown.

Elodie rolling around on the carpet.

You might be wondering where our old Berber rug moved to. We found a great place for it in our bay window underneath the Conoid bench. The two carpets play off each other really well. We’ve always loved textiles but incorporating different styles in the same room can be challenging. That’s why we really took our time waiting for the perfect rug to tie everything together.

All of the subdued fall colours are really nice. Funny enough, when we bought the rug via an online auction, the colours in the photograph were more blue, pink and orange, so we were really disappointed when this colourway showed up. Thankfully because of all the white oak and natural leather it works and it ended up being a win!

A photo of Elodie to end with.

Wednesday night we hosted the first Canadian exhibition for Italian designer Luca Nichetto. It was an incredibly cold night, but we were so happy to see the showroom quickly fill with hundreds of people for our opening reception.

A platter of meats, cheeses, and our newly installed brass pendant lights by Jonas Lindvall for Wastberg.

The exhibition was the debut of the Sucabaruca coffee set, as well as a retrospective of some of Luca’s most iconic works.

The round tables from the Wolfgang series Luca designed for Fornasarig created a collection of “lilly pads” for displaying all of the exhibited works.

Luca Nichetto talking to Scott Eunson who made the model used to create the porcelain slip-cast for the coffee set.

The next morning Juli took some photographs of the showroom without people in them. Ceramic bookend for Petite Friture.

We debuted the coloured versions of Sucabaruca during the exhibition, so these haven’t been shown anywhere yet. The collection called “pop” is a tribute to the eclectic artist Jean-Paul Goude. As well as the 1980s Memphis movement.

The white porcelian set is inspired the fashion designer Martin Margiela.

The pastel tones are reminiscent of the colours and sensitivity used in Japanese architecture.

Stereo chair with oak legs for Casamania, Italy and a sandcast aluminum and oak side table for David Design, Sweden. Sitting on top is Luca’s timeline bowl for Swedish brass maker Skultuna.

A cedar wood “Doc” car designed for part of the collection of toy cars by TobeUs – a project, 100% TobeUs, devised by Matteo Ragni.
Its goal is to take us back in time to the age of lightheartedness, if only for a few moments.

We received two Design Lines loves tags, thank you very much for the support!

Red Spoon vases for Salviati, Stewie floor lamp for Foscarini, and Timeline bowls for Skultuna.

Ceramic clocks for Petite Friture.

A ceramic floor lamp called “Vader” for Swedish design company David Design, as well as a concrete bench designed for Beijing Design week.

A beautiful glass vase for Salviati.

The ceramic umbra vase for Bosa.

Sali Tabacchi designed an incredible book to compliment the exhibition. Luca had the idea of using these brass paper weights to keep the book open and lined them up on our long teak shelf.

We’ve had an incredible amount of snowfall during the first few days of the week, but of course if you’re in Toronto today you can appreciate the irony of this blog post since it is raining. We can all agree that any city is much more beautiful with a sprinkling of snow so despite all the inconveniences it causes I would take the snow over the slushy winter rain any day.

During this snowfall, there were some really nice moments in our little courtyard. First being the snow falling on the delicate bamboo leaves, which remain a strong green colour.

There are so many paintings with snow on bamboo, it’s just cool to see it in real life.

Also on our bonsai.

The snow creeping up onto the window sill.

Kazumi Tsuji’s “Snow” bowl looking very appropriate.

Elodie’s first real snow experience.

Our view outside our bedroom to the parking lot behind, luckily with some bamboo making a small privacy screen. If you close the window just right, all you see is bamboo. Very Japanese.