SLOW MADE BY HAND IN SCOTLAND
Cured luxury concrete goods are created by artist Zoe Scott in her rural zero waste home studio near Glasgow overlooking the Campsie Fells. Inspired by the rugged natural landscapes, she juxtaposes the wild and organic with the brutalist and industrial to create sustainable hand crafted homewares.
Each design is first created in clay, the forms organically hand craved and built up before being glazed & fired. Ceramics are then cast creating bespoke moulds to product beautiful coloured concrete. Each casting is hand pigmented, spoon mixed then carefully poured into the mould.
Concrete is still thought of as a rough, industrial material and set apart from other ‘craft’ materials like ceramics, stone and even paper. But in the right hands it becomes something wondrous. Over the last 8 years artist Zoe Scott has refined her skills through dedication, experimentation and research from her home studio. There’s not a whole lot of training available in fine concrete casting that isn’t on a building site! She is now a highly skilled maker able to produce ultra thin, strong cast concrete. And beautiful at that.
Zoe’s creations are fundamentally functional, produced using one of the worlds oldest and most prevalent building materials. By taking this much-maligned material and elevates it to tactile, desirable luxury goods she creates a dialogue about intrinsic value and the essence of hand craft.
One of the joys of concrete is the lack of additional power and energy required to produce it. Unlike ceramics or glass it doesn’t need kiln fired and unlike Jesmonite, it’s plastic free. It just needs a small amount of water, a reusable mould and a whole lot of human mixing.
Zoe’s studio is decidedly zero waste, she only mixes what she needs in tiny batches. Each item is air dried over 28 days (Cured) and then hand waxed with a food grade natural wax.
From design to boxed product takes up to 3 months. Once moulds are formed products can be ready in 4 weeks to allow for curing time. These are thoughtfully produced slowly by hand one at a time and can craft around 12 of each product a month.