Claymates
This year, we’re taking a moment to reflect on 15 years of East Fork—a milestone that set the tone for our 2026 color story. We started with Thistle, pulled from our earliest days, and moved into Water Lily, a new hue that nods to the soft greens found in the wood-fired kiln. Lagoon carries us forward, bridging past and present as we look toward a bold, clear future this fall.
We spent some time with Nicole, our Head of Design, to trace the roots of this spring’s palette. Inspiration spanned from the grasses of North Carolina to the water lilies of Giverny (and it seems we’re not the only ones looking to Monet this year).
Can you tell us about your inspiration behind the spring colors this year?
The inspiration came from a mix of art history and East Fork’s history. It starts with just a little ember—an idea, a color—and over the course of a year, through a massive group effort, it becomes this fully realized collection you can hold and live with. We’re really proud of it.
How did you land on what to bring in from the archive and what to introduce to our color world?
Our color stories are part emotional, part analytical. I’m thinking about what we’ve done recently, how one season flows into the next, what it feels like our customers are craving and so on. But it always starts with just a little tug toward a color. This time, it was Thistle. As we celebrate our 15-year anniversary, it felt meaningful to return to one of our earliest *color* colors.
From that anchor color, I think about pairings. How each color can stand on its own while still being in conversation with the others. With Water Lily, we were exploring a pistachio direction as a cool counterpart to Thistle, and when Emma came back with this soft, reactive glaze, it immediately felt right. Both the color and its movement offer a subtle nod to earlier moments in our history, from Ash glaze all the way back to our wood-fired pots. It’s new, but it carries a sense of continuity.
And then there’s Lagoon. LAGOON. It's one of those colors that’s been stuck in my head for years. The other two colors were tied to our past, and this one brings us to the present moment, like a deep inhale after a long exhale. I know color is pretty much the most subjective thing, but if there were such a thing as the most beautiful color in the world, this might be it.
What does it look like taking the colors from concept all the way through to photography and that bigger vision? (Please tell us more about that lily pond shoot!)
As always, the colors really led the way. As soon as we locked them in, all I could think about was Monet. His haystacks, his water lilies. His brushstrokes are these interwoven threads of color, impossible to separate and impossible to recreate stroke by stroke. Their meaning only comes alive when you see it all together. He painted the same subjects over and over, but the color story shifted with the time of day. They’re a moment in time, made physical.
Thistle goes all the way back to our early days in Madison County, and the thistle, thicket, and grasses of that North Carolina landscape felt like a natural backdrop. So we brought it outside. We had picnics with it, tucked it into tall grasses, and even built our own haystack of Thistle in the studio.
From there, it felt intuitive to name the reactive green Water Lily and let it float like lily pads, with Thistle as blooms. That image struck me as beautiful and also kinda funny (my favorite combination) so we loaded up the photo team and carloads of pots and went to my friends’ farm last November. The goal was to let the surroundings act as a collaborator. The way light reflects off the water, the way the plates drift, so much was outside of our control and we went in ready to embrace that.
We set the tone for the season with a foundation in Impressionism, and the first two colors carry a strong sense of looking back to the past. For Lagoon, I started thinking more about capturing the present moment - imperfect and unfinished. It draws from the period when photography began to reshape how the world was seen and recorded.
The Impressionists, some of whom were masters with this blue/green hue, were the first generation of artists deeply influenced by photography. They were inspired by its ability to capture shifting light, gestures mid-motion, and scenes that felt spontaneous rather than staged, and we tried to bring these ideas into our photoshoots for Lagoon. Photography both influenced and liberated them. Painting was no longer the primary tool for documentation, which opened the door to exploration over precision, and personal perception over a sense of objectivity. That shift changed the course of art history.
I love using our pots in everyday ways, but I love using them as a medium even more. They become something to build with, a surface to compose on. The pots are threads of color that we can layer and weave together to create an image. Sometimes that means wearing waders and floating pots in a pond on a warm November day, or sitting outside a window with a leaf blower, letting nature, materials, and a bit of chaos help shape the composition. Sometimes it just means plating a meal, setting a table, or simply noticing how color, texture, and light come together in a moment. The beauty of it isn’t in any one piece, but how it comes alive as a whole.
Everyone at East Fork trusts you with all things color, can you tell us your favorite pairings for the season?
I love how these three colors work together, and all feel special on their own as well. These are some of my favorite combinations with our core colors and past seasonals. I’m also really excited about how they’ll layer in with some of the new colors we have coming later in the year. 👀
Thistle + Malachite + Molasses
Water Lily + Heron + In the Pines
Lagoon + Night Swim + Thistle
