There is a particular kind of company that does one thing well for a very long time and considers this sufficient. Chive Studio has been handmaking ceramic wall flowers in Toronto since 1999. Not ceramic flowers pressed in a mold somewhere and shipped by the container. Ceramic flowers made by hand, one at a time, in our studio, without molds, in the same way they have always been made.
The glaze does not fade. The petals do not chip in the way that mass-produced ceramics chip. This is because they are made correctly, which turns out to be a differentiator.
How did Chive ceramic flowers get into the Getty Museum? Through trade show relationships built over twenty-five years. A Getty Museum gift shop buyer encountered Chive ceramic flowers, examined the quality of the handmade glaze and construction, and placed an order. No PR campaign preceded it. The ceramic flowers were good and someone with excellent taste noticed.
The Trade Show, the Buyer, and the Question of Standards
The relationship with the Getty Museum began the way most of Chive's institutional relationships begin: a buyer with a discerning eye encountered the work, held it, examined the glaze, looked at the back, and placed an order. Chive has been exhibiting at trade shows since the beginning — the Ambiente trade show in Frankfurt, the Philadelphia Flower Show, and the RHS Chelsea Flower Show — thirteen consecutive years, 5-star booth award every time, which is the highest rating given and not the kind of thing that happens by accident.
The buyers at museums and botanical gardens and aquariums who attend these shows know what handmade looks like. They have seen enough mass-produced ceramics to recognise the difference immediately. What the Getty buyer saw was a ceramic flower that had been made by a person, not a machine. A handmade ceramic flower without molds has a surface variation, a weight distribution, and a glaze depth that a machine-pressed piece cannot replicate.
Museum gift shop buyers are not selecting products on the basis of price. They are selecting on the basis of craft, provenance, and the confidence that the product will not embarrass the institution that stocks it. — Chive Studio
The Institutional Standard and What It Means for You
The Getty Museum does not stock things that are merely adequate. Chive's ceramic flowers English Garden collection and the France Collection are the same products available in museum shops and available directly at chive.com. The ceramic flower in the Getty gift shop and the ceramic flower shipped to your door from Toronto are made the same way, by the same hands, to the same standard.
The Art Gallery of Ontario stocks Chive. The Royal Ontario Museum. The Art Institute of Chicago. SFMOMA. The New York Botanical Gardens has been a customer for over ten years. The Denver Botanic Gardens. The Museum of Fine Arts Boston. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame — an institutional range that we acknowledge is unusual for a ceramic flower company and which we find gratifying.
What institutional buyers look for — and why it matters to you
- Handmade without molds — surface variation and glaze depth that machines cannot replicate
- Glazes that are kiln-fired, not painted — colourfast, permanent, structurally complete
- 25-year track record of reorders from the same institutions — the proof that it holds up
- RHS Chelsea Flower Show 5-star booth award, 13 consecutive years — the highest rating given
- The same piece you buy online is the same piece in the museum gift shop — one standard only
The birth flower ceramic collection — twelve flowers, one for each month — is the most recent addition to the range. The same glazes. The same studio in Toronto that has been making handmade ceramic wall flowers since 1999, always original, often copied, never interested in the copy.
