The Inkwell is a glazed ceramic inkwell vase that holds one or two stems in a squat, deliberate silhouette modeled on the desks of people who wrote letters by candlelight and regretted them by morning. It measures three inches in both height and diameter, sized for a nightstand, a bookshelf, or the corner of a desk that has never once met a fountain pen. The matte black bud vase colorway is the dramatic one; the tan version pretends it has never heard of drama. Nobody I know has blotted a letter in living memory, and still the shape reads correctly — an ink bottle vase down to the lip, holding a stem instead of regret, which feels like the appropriate demotion for an object this theatrical. Designed in 2016 and glazed inside and out, it wipes clean in moments and refuses to tip. Shaped by hand at Chive Ceramics Studio, then finished one piece at a time.
