Cloud Nine ~ Cloud 9

Designed by Emma Bossons

Available to Moorcroft Collectors' Club members only.

Cloud Nine 65/9 - 9"h - $1326

The Moorcroft Collectors’ Club, founded in the Spring of 1987 has, since its inception, offered members a wide variety of exclusive designs. To celebrate the Club’s 20th Anniversary, Emma Bossons has designed a very special commemorative vase – Cloud Nine.

During a book-signing road trip, Emma & her companions, Hugh Edwards & Elise Adams (Moorcroft’s owner & Design Director), discussed ideas for the commemorative vase. They made a list of all twenty of the past Club vases. Out of this list, there were nine shining examples which had proved exceptionally popular with collectors.

The following week, Emma produced her tiny black design book, which she carries everywhere with her. There, tucked among the pages, was an outline of a design. Plumes of grey smoke billowed from Moorcroft's distinctive bottle ovens, and in between the smoke & chimneys were spaces large enough to be filled with flowers, berries and fruit. “I have no idea what shape I want to use yet,” said Emma “but I do know I want it to be special and, if possible, one that hasn’t been used before.” A new shape for a special vase! Hugh & Elise were enthusiastic, too.

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Emma returned to her design studio to bring her original 20-year vase idea to life. Several weeks later Hugh, Elise & Emma met again in the Moorcroft boardroom, this time to discuss the first bottle oven trial perched on the polished boardroom table. Small brown and black bricks, colored by decades of sooty smoke, had been drawn around the base of the vase. Other bricks had been scraffitoed onto the main bottle oven at the forefront of the design. A sky, warming with the rising sun in cool cream to warm pink, was offset with flashes of color coming from the central design motifs. The nine designs originally discussed during the road trip flowed effortlessly in the smoke and through the spaces between the chimneys.

The first panel features succulent, ripe cherries (Morello Cherry 1994), bright blue meconopsis poppies (Blue Rhapsody 2001) and warm pink & purple sweet peas (Sweet Pea 1991).

The second panel contains dark grapes (Grapevine 1987-88), a soft white daisy flushed pink with a bright orange center (Daisy 1988-89), and a bright yellow winter aconite with red stamens (Victoriana 1998).

The third panel contains a dainty hanging fuchsia (Fuchsia 1993), a red, pink & purple Iris (Iris 1997) with a stylized flower and purple berries behind it (Symphony 2001).

The room was totally silent with stunned awe, a silence eventually broken by Hugh & Elise congratulating Emma on what had turned out to be an incredible idea.

And the name? Cloud Nine, of course, partly as a tribute to Emma’s fascination with bottle ovens & smoke, an partly as a reminder of the nine wonderful designs forming part of the illustrious 20-year history of the Moorcroft Collectors’ Club.

From every view, this very special vase portrays Moorcoft’s history and dedication to design & inspiration.

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