When a New York couple opted to build a home in Cape Town, they honoured its location by furnishing it with pieces by some of South Africa’s most renowned artists.

It was 13 years ago in 2007, that New Yorkers Jim Brett and Ed Gray were first enchanted by Cape Town. At the time, Jim was Head of Home at leading US retailer Anthropologie and was on a buying trip to South Africa with local design promoter and exporter Trevyn McGowan of The Guild Group. The three of them embarked on a trip cross-country, visiting the studios of artisans and designers, and formed an immediate bond. “I had never met anyone who could match my passion for handicraft and design,” Jim says of Trevyn.

“As we travelled to South Africa more often, we fell in love with the country, specifically Cape Town and its environs,” Ed says. So, it came as no surprise to family and friends when he and Jim decided to build a home for themselves in Hout Bay, just 30 minutes from Cape Town’s city centre, in which they hope to eventually spend six months of the year. Enlisting the help of Trevyn and her husband and business partner Julian, it was only natural that they would continue their trajectory of working with local designers, furnishing the home with pieces by some of the country’s most prominent names.

For the new build, the couple briefed architect Francois Swart of PADIA, requesting barn-like structures that suited the expansive property, on which they also have a guesthouse. Pitched roofs, a silo structure, and a variety of window shapes brought this vision to the fore. “As a reference to the informal way sheds grow into existence, there is a certain charm in the creative use and placing of windows,” says Francois, explaining the forms that are stackable and hidden in places, lowered for framed views in other instances, or inserted flush against walls in corners in order to allow light to flood in unobstructed. “The ‘journey’, surrounded by nature, can be experienced open or closed, and doubles as a pause area that can be used as a sunroom or gateway to the pool garden,” says Francois of the thoroughfare that offers glimpses of the furnishings beyond.

“It’s really enjoyable creating a world for people you care about,” says Trevyn of the project that has dressed the home in pieces by the likes of Gregor Jenkin, Charles Haupt and Laurie Wiid van Heerden, designers represented by the McGowans’ collectible design gallery, Southern Guild. “It’s a beautiful homage for the work we all continue to do for South African design,” she says of the result.

The newness of the home and its interiors paint a fresh African story for the US couple. “It’s important to us that our home feels warm and welcoming, with a degree of humility,” says Jim. Their modus operandi in eliciting the desired warmth was a crafted use of colour. An abstract artwork by John Murray mounted above the dining room cabinet – where striking tones mix with neutral hues – informed the colour choices for sofas, walls and decorative objects.

As with the varying patterns in John Murray’s painting, a myriad forms exist in the home – from tapered pot plants and circular nesting tables to curvaceous dining chairs and elliptical sideboards. “There are very few hard corners on the furniture items,” Jim explains of their brief. “Ovals, circles, or rectangles with rounded corners… it’s very subtle details that add a softness to the experience.” Equally considered is the collection of ceramic vessels. “I’m a bit of a ceramics junkie – I just can’t seem to stop buying them,” says Jim. It’s a passion he and Trevyn have shared since the start of their friendship, which made it easy for her to suggest new pieces by Andile Dyalvane, Zizipho Poswa, Anthony Shapiro, John Bauer, Madoda Fani and Chuma Maweni for the home.

What began as a professional exploration between Jim and Trevyn over a decade ago has resulted in a very personal celebration of South African design. “We still manage to inspire each other,” Jim smiles, gesturing around the home that proves his point.

Looking for more architectural inspiration? Take a look at the colourful, bold contemporary Johannesburg home.

The post Hout Bay Home appeared first on Visi.

When three celebrated ceramic artists put together a special exhibition, Collect and Connect in Constantia’s Art in the Forest, even the hares came out to play.

She may live in the far-away Karoo dorp of Nieu-Bethesda, but Charmaine Haines’s world-renowned ceramics often sell faster than hot cakes, and her husband Martin’s quirky clay hares have the habit of hopping straight out of the studio door while he’s fixing the last whisker.

Then there’s their friend and fellow ceramicist Anthony Shapiro, who hardly has time to throw his famously beautiful bowls because he’s too busy running the Art in the Forest Centre in Constantia’s Cecilia Forest: a social business enterprise presenting pottery classes and exhibitions, as well as producing its own range.

So, how to inspire these ceramic luminaries to make more work? Well, with Antony’s 50th birthday looming, he thought why not organise a big celebratory exhibition at the Art in the Forest gallery?

And that’s exactly what he did. He got Charmaine and Martin on board, and soon everybody started working towards a special show he called Collect and Connect.

Charmaine made more of her famous figurative vessels, sculptural works and plates, embellished with some of her signature designs: fish, birds and portraits.

Martin crafted more of his strangely charming rustic hares, decorating them with a combination of 17th-century motifs and contemporary designs.

In the meantime, Anthony put on his Zen hat and threw together the most beautiful bowls, and the Art in the Forest team of artists helped to produce a new ceramics range that they called the Forestware collection.

Their beautiful works are on show right now until 31 January 2016, so hurry up before the plates and bowls hop along out of the door, hot on the heels of those hares.

The post Last Chance: Art In The Forest Exhibition appeared first on Visi.