10 Years of Cloudware
It will be 10 years this summer since Chris and I started Haand. We have done many different styles and colors since then, but something that has been in production from the very beginning is Cloudware. Cloudware is unique to Haand- we blend a blue and white porcelain slip in the plaster molds while the piece is being made. This makes every single piece of Cloudware unique, in fact, we encourage our casters to make their own spin on the process. A trained eye can tell the difference between Nickolas’s Cloudware and Helena’s, or if it’s a very old piece, between Chris’s and mine.
I always loved Wedgwood Jasperware, my mom and grandmother had a few of the famous light blue and white pattern ware. Because it was either in a china cabinet or hung on a wall, I would sneak a chair over to stand on and run my little fingers on the surface- it was such a strange feeling! Similar to my plastic toys in its smoothness, but fused and mineral-y in a way that blew little mind (and continues to).
I grew up in North East Florida within a 5-minute walk of the beach. Clouds and weather impact your life during the summer and you are always aware and looking west starting around 1 pm, where the storms would form daily and interrupt whatever you were doing outside- surfing, playing outside, fishing. I will always remember the feeling of wonder and awareness of my own minuteness as the huge, dramatic thunderheads scudded toward me as I bobbed in the warm ocean.
10 years ago, Chris and I would watch the clouds as we enjoyed a beer outside at our first studio, as two poor young people without a TV or anywhere to go, it would always spark an easy, happy conversation about the future and what Haand could be as we watched the clouds move and change. When I look back on that time nostalgically, I think maybe we saw our future written in the patterns there and our meandering journey from 0 employees to our current headcount of 22. We don’t have nearly the same amount of time to stare at clouds every day, but whenever we get a chance to, we still do.
-Mark Warren, Co-Founder and Creative Director, Haand