Devin Wilde

Ceramicist Devin Wilde’s 2023 debut collection flaunted his love of architecture, with vases shaped like Ionic columns and bowls that resembled plinths. For his second series, he expanded on the first and pushed his medium even further by making ceramic furniture in richly colored glazes, with playful nods to the design languages of art deco, neoclassicism, and other architectural movements. In January, he introduced striking new pieces with furniture retailer Design Within Reach, and, in May, he launched his first lighting collection, a series of elegant steel-and-ceramic chandeliers, pendants, and sconces, in collaboration with New York design studio Astraeus Clarke.

Walking the streets of New York is central to Wilde’s process. He studies the way light falls on buildings so that he can mimic the effect in ceramic and then twist, exaggerate, or multiply it, adding a dash of postmodernism to traditional forms. “A lot of what I try to achieve with my work is shadow and relief, through repeated geometric elements,” he said. Here are the tools he uses to create his distinctive work.