Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Ceramicist Cristina Vezzini and glassblower Stan Chen are as devoted to their craft as they are to each other. The couple’s delicate, organically constructed lights in hand-carved ceramic and blown glass, created in a studio under the low arch of a railway bridge in east London, have won them a global following.Vezzini grew up in Soncino, northern Italy, and came to England to study applied arts, then glass and ceramics at London’s Royal College of Art. “The craft movement here is very strong,” she says. “In Italy, we are strong in design, but less so in decorative art.” It was at the RCA in 2012 that she met Chen, who had arrived from Taiwan to specialise in glassblowing. After graduating, they set up a joint studio and have worked and lived together ever since. Initially, their styles were “very different”, says Chen. While both were inspired by patterns in nature, he was drawn to the simple, curving lines of leaves, shells and other visible structures, while Vezzini was intrigued by the “microscopic detail in seeds or in plants”. But over years of working together, their work has converged and harmonised — “the two materials started talking to each other”. On the wall behind Vezzini’s desk is a collage of photographs depicting natural phenomena from sea anemones to seed pods to magnolia buds. “Seeds contain information, life, growth,” she says. This idea is echoed in recent works such as “Allium-Wildflower Meadow” and “Bonsai”, in which translucent porcelain seeds, backlit by hidden bulbs, are encased in transparent glass shells that catch and reflect the light almost as leaves catch rainwater, casting magnified patterns of light and shadow on the wall behind them.They brainstorm by making prototypes. A model might sit in their studio for a year or two before they “suddenly click”, says Vezzini, and understand how it can form part of a finished piece. “It’s like in nature, you can’t force something to grow,” says Chen. “You need to take time.”Recent work by Vezzini & ChenInitially, they worked only in clear glass and cream-white porcelain, but have recently started to experiment with colour. A striking sight on the studio wall is three glass shells in a brilliant aquamarine, their patterns suggesting shoals of fish. The design was inspired by their experience of scuba diving, and the way in which the sea diffracts light. “We like the shadow they cast on the wall,” says Vezzini. “It becomes part of the work.”Something will ‘suddenly click’, says Vezzini. ‘It’s like in nature, you can’t force something to grow,’ says Chen. ‘You need to take time’One recent commission, “Water and Sand”, a sculptural light installed in a yacht and inspired by the texture of the seabed and marine microstructures, won BOAT International’s Excellence in Craftsmanship Award 2024. Another, a chandelier with floating porcelain and glass leaves, can be seen in the “fragrance library” of Diptyque’s new London store in a Georgian town house on New Bond Street. “We spend so much time creating [the lights] and seeing them grow,” says Vezzini. “It is nice to see them go to a home where they are loved.”Prices start from £3,600; timeframe ranges from 12 weeks to a year; vezziniandchen.comFind out about our latest stories first — follow @ft_houseandhome on Instagram
