FOCUSAerende
Life-improving homewaresEmily Mathieson sets out to make homeware products that are genuinely life-enhancing – not just for the people who buy them but to those who make them as well. The Makers page on the website for her non-profit online store Aerende (an old English word meaning ‘care’) makes for uplifting reading. Here are beautifully made, honestly designed products being made by marginalised people who have found dignified and meaningful employment through craft.

Camphill Village Trust’s Grange Village in Gloucestershire is a residential centre for adults with learning disabilities. Those disabilities don’t stop them making traditional stoneware in a pottery overlooking the Severn Hills, like the small bowl photographed here. The eternally useful and stylish dip-glazed jug was hand-thrown by adults with learning difficulties at Parkwood Centre in Derbyshire, which helps to develop skills and social interaction at the same time as making a range of classic pottery for Aerende.
Mathieson saw the potential of the stock range the potter was making. ‘I said, “Could you make it chunky and dip it in black glaze?”

It’s original but timeless.’
The wooden platters are similarly useful – an important quality for Mathieson – and made by volunteers at Landworks on the Dartington Estate, which helps support prisoners back into work. aerende.co.ukWatch the film here:PHOTOGRAPHS BAKER & EVANS | STYLING CLARE PIPER