Drawing the line
Moved by nature, ceramicist illustrates each plate, cup, vase by hand
Mariele Ivy translates mountaintop wanderlust into bold black-and-white line art that zigs across ceramic dishes and zags across silver jewelry, like a meandering hike in the woods.
“My work, each piece, it’s not a stamp, not a stencil, and it’s not a decal. It’s an illustration right into the clay. Each plate, each mug, each ornament or vase is all drawn on that exact (piece), so I really just let my mind wander and do what I feel. It’s very graphic. It’s very meditative.”
That’s the spirit of her pieces, the Mill Valley artisan says, and her spirit, too. She grew up in the “rivers and woods” that make up Montana, with a boat builder for a father and gardener for a mother. It laid the foundation for an artist’s life centered on nature.
It’s why she named her line Young in the Mountains.
“I grew up in a woodworking studio, and I grew up with (my dad) always encouraging me to be my own boss,” Ivy says. “It’s natural that I’m here in this place now, because I’ve been working on it since I was 5.”
She’s now in more than 40 stores and growing from Manhattan to San Francisco.
Ivy had always considered fashion her path, and when she first tried ceramics, she inevitably broke all her pieces and gave up. It was just three years ago, when she decided to try again and “not let ceramics beat me,” that she discovered her signature style, sgraffito, while taking a class at the Jewish Community Center in San Francisco.
“I feel like this has really been the year that people have found me,” she says. And, perhaps, she found herself.
Ceramics: $30 (tiny vessel)-$280 (Mountain Vortex plate set). Jewelry: $22 (Thunder stacking ring)-$575
(Squash Blossom necklace).
Available at the Perish Trust, 728 Divisadero St., San Francisco; Maker & Moss, 364 Hayes St., San Francisco; Marisa Haskell, 470-D, 49th St., Oakland; the Podolls, 251 Primrose Road, Burlingame. www.younginthemountains.com.