Queen of Hearts

When my parents left my childhood home of Hillside, to retire to the fishing village of Tarbert in Argyll, Gregor and I took the opportunity and moved in! Mum and Dad’s flitting to their new smaller house was relatively straightforward because they could leave things in Hillside that we could now adopt. Along with the contents of the attic, my brother’s train set etc, came miscellaneous kitchen items such as the family biscuit barrel.

This was opportune because I really did like that biscuit barrel and it went on to inspire me to make ceramic jars of my own.

Dad brought the jar back from a trip to Sweden and looking and wondering about the Queen of Hearts depicted on it became the equivalent of reading about the Honey Monster on the Sugar Puffs packet. Did the Queen of Hearts work in the biscuit shop? Funny she wore her crown and long green dress while mixing the pink icing for her hearts, and was that her cat? I assumed she was the Queen of Hearts but maybe she was just a fashion conscious baker. To this day I think that, whoever she is, she actually lives in the barrel….it does have a door.

The power of design and narrative became apparent when a friend kindly bought me similar jars. The three headscarfed ladies having tea in a garden and the sturdy legged maid bringing lemondade to the spoilt looking children in a cafe, are charming and intriguing but are not actually alive like the stern Queen of Hearts. I can only assume this is because I have not lived with them for long enough or from young enough. Making domestic ceramics inspires me to provide a similar spark to the imagination of our customers who become familiar with the characters, birds, and plants that adorn the jars.

All three jars were made by the Swedish company Jie Gantofta. This was founded in 1942 by the wood turner John Evert who combined his skills in woodworking with ceramic designers to make a variety of household goods. The company grew considerably but in 1992, their 50th year, sadly went out of business.

I would like to think that John Evert would feel at home at Drey Workshop and consider our decorated jars a fitting tribute to his Queen of Hearts.