Mr. Forager & I both marvel at the way architects here in the Northwest deal with the terrain.  Houses and other structures are built to hug the earth or conform to it, often leaving us wondering what a feat of design and engineering it took to solve that problem!  The ceramic compositions of Philadelphia artist Ben Fiess  remind me of those precariously perched buildings.. seemingly random or off-kilter, yet as a whole making perfect sense.

Fiess, whose more practical design I featured in last week’s Design Foraging, puts together these compositions with great care and concern for the elements of texture, materials and space.  Indeed, each piece seems like a perfectly balanced still life in three dimensions.

In addition to line, form, and texture, color plays a key part in Fiess’s compositions.  He works within a tight palette, each cool tone balanced by the natural warmth of wood and textile elements.

Want to see more of Ben Fiess’s work?  Be sure to check out his website here.

All images are via the artist’s website.