THIS LOVE STORY started in a little railroad apartment above a country store in Dekalb, IL. Brad just started his post as a design professor at NIU, and I had just moved to the US from Canada, having given up my job at an ad agency so that we can finally live in the same city after two years of being apart. We were graphic designers but our infatuation with mid-century modern design was in its very infancy. I think we had one piece of modern furniture at the time, a red Eames side shell chair that we spotted while driving through Minneapolis (we did a lot of driving in those days).
The Country Store below us was actually a thrift store run by a local women's organization. Brad spotted a set of dishes in their window one day and told me about it. Needless to say, it was love at first sight. The undulating forms of the platters, the oblong (not round) plates, and the graceful sweep of the jug handles (plus the $10 price tag for the set!) proved irresistible. The stamp at the bottom of the dishes read "Hallcraft by Eva Zeisel" but we had no idea who she was until she was profiled a few months later in the June 1996 issue of Martha Stewart Living magazine. We found out that Zeisel was one of the most prolific and groundbreaking modern designers of the twentieth century. We learned that the dishes we now owned was from a line called Tomorrow's Classic and the pink and gray pattern was named Harlequin.
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| Harlequin pattern |
We saw pictures of the other dishes she designed. We were mesmerized, and we were hooked. Sixteen years later, we are still in love with Zeisel's designs, and surprisingly—even through hundreds of pieces, irrational treasure hunts, and harrowing cross-country household moves—with each other. These are our stories, told through the pieces of porcelain, china, and glass conceived by a remarkable woman we simply call Eva.
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| Photo by Talisman Brolin. www.talismanphoto.com |
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