The Woman Vase
There’s a good chance you’ve already seen a few of Saunders’ elegant, minimalist pieces on Instagram—they’re painfully photogenic—her woman vase being among her most well-known. “When Trump got elected, that made me feel kind of powerless,” she explains, calling from her west coast studio. “I didn’t intend for [the piece] to be any kind of political statement. I just loved the functional aspect of it.” The rest of her line contains an array of simplified abstract shapes in either the natural cream shade of the stoneware, or with a black, blue, or periwinkle glaze. “I focus more on the form and shape and function. I really like to showcase the beautiful inherent characteristics of the clay bodies. They’re all from the Pacific Northwest, where I live, and I just think it’s so amazing that I’m working with something that literally comes from the ground I walk on.”