One clay.
One place. One vessel.
First collection. Spring 2027.
Varde is a ceramics project built
from the ground up. Literally.
The first collection ships spring 2027.
In summer 2026, I will walk the coasts, rivers, and mountain passes of Norway collecting wild clay by hand. Each site will be documented: its geology, its coordinates, its mineral signature.
In winter, that clay becomes vessels. Each one fired with materials gathered from the same landscape. No two pieces will be the same, because no two sites are.
Norwegian wild clay and glaze
Shaped by glaciers, deposited by ancient seas, weathered from volcanic rock over millennia.
Wabi-sabi
Temmoku
Oribe
Every element in a Varde piece
is traceable to a specific place.
Each deposit carries a distinct mineral fingerprint.
Clay
Fine glacial lake sediments that fire pale and quiet. Rare kaolin pockets, hidden from ice for thousands of years. Iron-rich greenstones that fire dark and speckled.
Glaze
Pegmatite veins. Ash from coastal seaweed. Bog iron from wetland streams. Rutile sands. Cobalt from mines that once supplied the porcelain houses of Europe.
2026 - 2027
The Process
Fieldwork and Expedition
1
summer 2026
Collecting clay and mineral samples from documented sites across western and southern Norway. Each sample tagged with GPS coordinates, geological context, and field notes on texture, plasticity, and color.
Studio Processing
2
fall/winter 2026/2027
Experimenting and documenting. Slaking, sieving, testing. Shaping vessels on the wheel and by hand. Developing glazes from wild-sourced feldspars, ash, iron, and stone. Failing, adjusting, refining.
Kiln firing
3
early spring 2027
Two firings per piece. The first sets structure. Clay becomes ceramic. The second melts the glaze at 1100–1200°C. Feldspar, ash, iron, and stone fusing into surface.
Temperature, atmosphere, and timing determine the final color, texture, and weight of each vessel. Irreversible.
Shipping
4
spring 2027
Each piece carrying its biography: where the clay slept, what the fire remembered, which hillside gave its ash. Wrapped. Packed. Sent into the world carrying more documentation than most people bring to a border crossing.
One vessel, one destination.
Each Varde
piece ships with
A vessel that exists once.
A card that knows where it came from.
A photograph of the place that gave it form.
A numbered certificate it will carry forever,
not as paperwork. As a memory.
The first collection
is limited to 50 pieces.
No restock. Ever.
Pre-order now at the founding price: €150 – €250.
Final pricing for future collections will be higher. This is the first and lowest entry point.
You'll receive updates on the expedition, studio progress, and firing results throughout the year.
Your piece ships spring 2027.
The Maker
The Artist
The Geologist
Varde is the work of ceramicist Sara Emilia, based between Oslo and the Norwegian coast. This project began with a question: what happens when you make pottery from the specific ground you stand on, in a world where most objects are made nowhere in particular?
The answer, it turns out, is that you lose control in the best possible way. Wild clay behaves on its own terms. The kiln decides. Mark of everything that couldn't be planned.