Olivia Barry / By Hand
American
A ceramicist since childhood, and trained as an Industrial Designer, Olivia Barry / By Hand is the natural marriage of her two passions. Her business began when she was invited to participate in a fund-raising auction for The Design Trust for Public Space in New York. After a bidding war resulted for a pair of her Scroll Luminaires, she took the design into production, developing, perfecting and creating further variations, now made available to the public.
Olivia’s handmade works are meditative and peaceful, inviting and introspective. The natural world is visible in the delicate curved of the Scroll Luminaires and wall pieces inspired by ocean water, pebbly beaches and shadowy moons.
In her career as an Industrial Designer, Olivia has had several dinnerware collections produced by the English earthenware manufacturer Royal Stafford for retailers including Crate and Barrel and Bloomingdale’s, and in 13 years of apprenticeship under the designer Eva Zeisel, Olivia and Eva worked together to bring Eva’s new designs to the market, as well as reissuing previous works. Olivia has also worked and trained under other notable designers such as Dakota Jackson, Issac Mizrahi, and she assisted the designer Amy Lau in a collection of textiles for S.Harris. Olivia has also created hand-thrown and glazed ceramic lamp bases for Robert A.M. Stern architects.
