reviews > Durham, NC

Dianne Freund
Dianne Freund

5/8/10 5:11 PM

Every morning I wake up and pad to the kitchen, grind the espresso beans, brew my coffee and then stand at the cabinet pondering the first question of the day: what cup do I feel like? Some kitchens are stocked with a single set of matching dishes and there are no such choices to make. Not so mine. Not so Dianne Freund’s, potter of cups and bowls of the lightest touch. A cupboard full of her usable stoneware and porcelain offers objects for many moods, determinable both by touch and sight. Need comfort and contemplation? Choose a handle-free mug to be held with both hands, hands whose fingers fit gently into structural grooves. Need serenity? Take a white-on-white patterned cup, its inside glazed an elegantly graduated jade. Need some cheer? How about the one sketched with kiddie drawings of birds and bees or lollipop trees? Rough, smooth, polished or primal, Freund makes wares with all of these qualities, fit for all of their users’ corresponding moods. The trick, then, is to be sensitive enough to how one feels, and to therefore be able to choose the right container for nourishment.

—Lori Waxman