IN December last year I was invited to Mervyn Gers Ceramics’ factory in Paarden Eiland for a consultation to choose my own personal set of tableware. You can read the background story about this service here. I spent time with Shireen Ridgway, who as far as I’m concerned is the boss there and Mervyn would probably agree.
Shireen took me through so many options; the set would comprise four place settings of a dinner plate, side plate, and two types of bowls. Plus a serving platter. Sounds easy, right? No, not so much. First of all, there are all the different shapes and sizes of every piece (only about 180 of them, all stunning). What kind of bowl? I love the breakfast bowl, which I use for much more than scrambled eggs. I was certain I wanted more of those, even though there were other options.
Oh but then you go on to the glazes – more than 55 of them, and two surface finishes (smooth and earth clay). Shireen gently advised and guided me as she watched with a keen eye to see where my heart was already leading. At Mervyn Gers Ceramics everything is individually hand made; not only that, but each piece passes through 22 pairs of hands before it gets to yours. This means every cup, every vase, every dish, every jug, every plate and bowl is ultimately unique and different.
Yes, by all means choose your glaze – I find myself returning time and again to the one called Churchaven (the heart wants what the heart wants), and Rockpool – but what you see in the showroom is not going to be identical to what you unpack later. Indeed, each piece in the box is varies from the others, a work of art, one of a kind. I love that, it’s so special. And then you turn them upside down and they’re all distinctly unalike underneath too. Little wonder Mervyn Gers Ceramics are stocked in designer stores from Cape Town to Copenhagen, London to Lagos.
After the consultation, Shireen said okay, it goes like this. It was the end of the year, holidays, and 17 pieces had to be handmade (that was just for my order). Delivery would only be February the earliest. All right, no problem. Off I went and carried on with my life. Turned out that included travel so they could only bring my dinnerware when I got back. The boxes duly arrived and stood in my hallway for…quite a while.
What was I to do? How could I have such fancy things in my little house? I’d have to move. Or at the very least clear out a cupboard in the sideboard to keep it all. Now I had four place settings, was I to have a dinner party? Lovely idea but not high on my To Do list. Then I remembered that in fact I already use Mervyn Gers plates and bowls every day. Like the breakfast bowl of which has been spoken. The lemons on the dining table are in a MG bowl, as are the aubergines and avocados and tomatoes in another larger one on the kitchen counter. The teaspoon I use for my coffee rests in a tiny blue dish which others might perhaps use for salt or pepper, or to put their rings in when they take them off at night, like the one on the bedside table in the suite where I stay at Le Quartier Français in Franschhoek. There’s one glazed with gold that I recklessly fill with nuts to nibble while watching TV. And so on and so forth.
Thus I made peace with my fancy pants dinnerware and unpacked it, and have been using it ever since, along with all my existing pieces. Sometimes I like to take them out and just play with them, layering the complementary colours, finding new combinations, taking photos. My leaning is towards the blues and greens but then I was invited back to the factory to do a photo shoot with Mervyn and the plates last month. The legend who is Sumien Brink did the styling and somehow there appeared two Acid Yellow cups. I fell head over heels in love with them, and they came home with me. Two side plates have been ordered for future bright sunshiny breakfasts. Oh heck. Shireen, I had better get some breakfast bowls in that glaze too. Imagine how good they would look with some black pieces…this is a slippery slope.
It’s fairly obviously I adore these gorgeous works of functional art, and you can see posts about my love affair on Mervyn Gers’s Instagram (including a reel in which I am way out of my comfort zone but everyone said I did really well), but I am particularly enamoured of my platter. It is a thing of beauty, just look at how I’m holding it.
And no, no dinner parties. Yet.
For more information, click here.
- A studio sale will be held on Thursday, July 27 and Friday, July 28 from 8.30am to 4pm, and Saturday, July 29 from 8.30pm to 12pm. My advice is to get there early. It’s a great way to begin a collection, or add to it.
