Custom & Commissioned Work
The pieces I'm proudest of were never listed in the shop.
They all began the same way — a photograph of a kitchen, a ceiling height, a color someone had been looking for and never found. Somewhere in the conversation, a thing that didn't exist quietly began to.
A custom vessel, made to the scale of the room it lives in
Commissioning isn't ordering
When you buy from the shop, you're choosing something I already know how to make. A commission begins somewhere quieter — with a room, a feeling you can't quite name, and the sense that nothing you've seen is right.
We find it together. You'll be speaking with the person who will actually make it, from the first sketch to the moment it's wrapped — and it will take the time that clay takes.
That slowness isn't a delay. It's the reason the piece will still feel considered in twenty years.
Meli · Cary, North Carolina
What I've been asked to make
No two have ever been the same — and that is the whole point of it.
- Custom ceramic wall art & installations
- Bespoke lighting for homes & commercial spaces
- One-of-a-kind sculptural vessels
- Bespoke dinnerware, made for one table
- Kitchen storage sized to your space
- Bells, in clusters or alone
- Heirloom & commemorative pieces
- Something not yet on this list
How it unfolds
01
Tell me the room
A photograph, a paint color, a rough sketch — or simply the gap you keep looking at. No cost in asking, and no question too small.
02
I'll be honest with you
What clay can do, what it can't, and which finish will behave in your light. If I'm not the right maker for it, I'll tell you plainly.
03
You see it before it exists
Finish samples in your own hands, in your own light. Nothing is made until it feels right to you.
04
Then, slowly, it's made
Built by hand, dried for weeks, fired twice, signed, and packed with full replacement insurance.
The investment
Most commissions begin around $600. Lighting, bespoke dinnerware and wall installations usually fall between $1,500 and $5,000 — though the largest piece I've made ran to thirty-three feet, so nothing here is a ceiling.
Each one is priced individually. Lead times for custom work are typically 6–10 weeks, longer for lighting and large installations — clay must dry slowly before it can be fired, and that part cannot be hurried. Made in one of eighteen finishes.
4.92 ★ from 2,567 reviews
Tell me what you're imagining
Even if it's only half-formed. Especially if it's only half-formed — that is usually where the good ones begin. A single sentence is a perfectly good place to start.
Prefer email? Write to me at hello@muddyheart.com
— Meli · Muddy Heart Studio · Cary, North Carolina