Pawena Studio Features Ceramic Designs Inspired by Taliesin West
Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation | Mar 19, 2021
The Frank Lloyd Wright Store is thrilled to announce its newest artisan collaboration with L.A.-based Pawena Studio. The ceramics artist Pawena Thimaporn has created hand-crafted ceramic planters inspired by bold Wright designs found at Taliesin West.
The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation caught up with ceramic artist Pawena Thimaporn to learn more about her design inspiration for her exclusive Taliesin West line.
The work of Pawena ceramics will be back in stock at the Frank Lloyd Wright Store on August 6.
Do you have some specific touch points that influenced the overall look of your planters for the Frank Lloyd Wright Store? Was there a particular Wright design used as the basis?
My main artistic inspiration came from a combination of Wright’s organic patterns and abstracted drawings of nature found throughout many Frank Lloyd Wright publications. I was particularly interested in his solid geometric shapes and I drew inspiration from his manmade structures for the line work found on these planters.
Steps into the drafting studio at Taliesin West; program designs for the Taliesin Festival of Music and Dance by apprentices Eugene Masselink and Vernon Swaback
Tell us about the way you selected your materials for these ceramics.
I chose a light brown clay body with some texture as my base to represent desert rock and sand. I also purposely left some raw clay body in the work to showcase the material.
We noticed that you created two design variants. Tell us more about them.
There are two color variations for the planters which I chose to represent the surrounding nature of the desert and the Taliesin West building during different seasons. One incorporates red and black, plus brown with red lines, which I call “Summer.” The other variant is white, brown, and black with red lines for “Winter.” I want the colors and the design to feel in harmony with the surroundings of Taliesin West.
The work from Pawena Studio is highly sought after and one-of-a-kind. Pawena’s ceramics will be back in stock August 6 at the Frank Lloyd Wright Store. Make sure to grab one (or two) before they sell out!
About Pawena
Pawena Thimaporn was born in Thailand’s countryside. When she wasn’t at school, a typical day for Pawena included playing with the materials she found around her in nature: wooden sticks, clay, and mud.
Pawena began her career studying Industrial Design with a major in Ceramics at KMITL in Bangkok, Thailand. She then moved to the United States and completed an additional undergraduate degree in Graphic Design at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. Since graduating from the Art Center 15 years ago, Pawena has been working full-time in the design industry. She continued to make things by hand outside of her day job in order to keep her true passion alive. By 2015, she had the opportunity to return to her first love of ceramic design with the founding of Pawena Studio.
Pawena currently lives and works in Los Angeles with her husband, also a graphic designer, and her two boys.
To see more of Pawena’s ceramic creations, visit:
PawenaStudio.com
