PEPEL is a place where you can view and purchase hand-made artisan ceramics crafted in Zagreb by the artist Martina Franić. Each piece is unique, and as such it reflects a different story and idea behind its design. The objects’ decorative nature is combined with their everyday purposefulness, as they are intended to compliment flowers, food and drinks.
‘Pepel’, which translates as ‘Ash’, is the quieting remnant of a fire; one that eventually overcomes the force of its own cause. It’s potential for ‘finishing’ has been harnessed by ceramics since their traceable beginning as a coating or glaze: we discover in ash an unbelievable spectrum of color. – We can imagine ash in the kiln, falling like snow that stains the surface of its contents. Fire makes its alterations as quickly and voraciously as perspective. Ash remembers this event, as impermanent and neutral a substance it may seem. But ash is fundamentally indifferent to the activity of the fire, what the transformation itself may have been; it expresses only that a transformation has indeed occurred. Pepel reminds us of the nuanced and distilled energetics of the remnant. It celebrates supreme eventfulness and the great reduction of a fire, crucible, or of change.
Pepel is interested in nurturing and preserving an awareness of sustainability, the value of natural material, and the value of craft: the convergence, in a single gesture, of creative and manual labor. Visit Pepel, find out more about the story behind these unique pieces and enjoy a cup of fine handpicked tea leaves with us.
