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“We’ve been trying to tread a line between romantic notions of countryside and its slightly darker side,” says Emma Peascod, pointing to a circular mirror whose glass is tinged green, backed in copper verdigris. “It’s an oxidisation process I’ve been working on for a long time,” she says.
The mirror is offset on either side with clumps of ivy, sculpted in jesmonite — a non-toxic resin-based composite — by her husband, Tobias. “There’s a very British theme running through the designs,” he says of their new collection — their first “joint manifestation” as Peascod. “They’re kind of baroque; they’re not symmetrical — that’s very important — and I put a lot of detail into them.”
The couple began living and working side by side in 2011, sharing a warehouse in Stoke Newington, north London, and practising their respective crafts — Emma in verre églomisé (reverse glass gilding) and Tobias in bas-relief sculpture. They have been commissioned for bespoke projects by the likes of Claridge’s, Raffles London at The OWO and Skye Gyngell’s Spring restaurant, as well as private homes around the world. Along the way, their separate practices began to organically overlap.
Tobias grew up in Wiltshire. “When I was at art school, I never made anything that actually looked like something,” he recalls. “It was all pontificating about glasses of water and stuff like that.” In 2012, a commission to create decorative elements for Alexander McQueen stores proved pivotal; he discovered a love of sculpting lifelike forms, which were used on a bas-relief fireplace and wall panels, as well as to create feet for furniture and coat hooks.
Emma, who is half Japanese and was brought up between Cumbria, Edinburgh, Tokyo and Sydney, worked in graphic design and illustration before discovering the art of verre églomisé. A year spent in Japan in 2010 — “I did a three-month course in washi paper making; a bit of calligraphy and nihonga painting, including gilding” — had a significant impact on her craft.
A visit to their current studio, in the former Anglo-Bavarian lager brewery built in 1864, in Shepton Mallet, Somerset, reveals a catalogue of ongoing projects. One table is scattered with delicate sheets of gold leaf, sourced in Florence; another holds a large and swirling gold mirror, the final section of a bar splashback destined for a London members’ club. On a wall, a bas-relief of swallows and trailing ivy is a test for a ceiling design. There are wax-carved forms, moulds and prototypes dotted all over.
And there are mirrors in all available free spaces. The series, launching this month at London Craft Week, includes a wreath of black-toned feathers encircling burnished gold glass and an atmospherically mottled arch shape hung with sculpted drapes of fabric. Most of the poetic “frames” are cast in jesmonite, some in bronze, which is produced at the foundry next door. On one design featuring a tangle of brambles, the thorns are tipped in gold.
“We work a lot to commission, but with this collection no one’s dictating what we do,” says Emma. Both she and Tobias are relishing the freedom, and they are already planning further additions to the made-to-order Peascod line. “It’s a chance to create something we would want to have in our own home.”
Peascod.studio; bespoke commissions from £25,000; the mirrors (from £22,000) are on show at The Lavery, London, May 12-18
London Craft Week, May 12-18
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