In the Studio: Hannah Morrow

We visited Hannah Morrow, the artist behind H For Hannah, at her home studio in the Mt. Washington neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Can you start off by telling us a little about your background and growing up in the UK?

I grew up in London and had a very feral childhood. My three brothers and I were often left to our own devices. We would go off and make films, go swimming, or have adventures around London with little to no adult supervision. My father was Irish and had trained as a painter but became a musicologist, putting on concerts with his early music group. My mother is an enigma who up until recently had been living in a cave in France for 30+ years. They encouraged our independence and creativity and to follow our various passions. My mum would take me to the Design Council in Piccadilly as a child and marvel at a well designed spatula, and this attention to the seemingly small things in life along with my Austrian grandmothers’ impeccable taste and ability to create everyday beauty, really helped steer my life towards design.

What brought you across the Atlantic to Los Angeles, and how did this change in geography and culture affect your practice as an artist?

I moved to New York first where I worked as a prop stylist and met my husband there. He loved California and we really moved to LA on a lark. I’d never even been to LA when we decided to come here, it just felt like the right thing. I think the light, beauty and colours of California were the beginning of my journey back to making. I also saw a David Hockney retrospective around that time that included his LA pool paintings which inspired my first collection using coloured clay again. Los Angeles continues to be a huge influence, there’s so much here.

We all know you at Commune for your beautiful and delicate ceramics, but you have also had a long career in the music industry! Is it difficult to move between these two fields, or do you find that one influences the other?

My career in music starting when I was 17 at Virgin Records in London where I worked for 11 years and more recently a small label here in LA. My Virgin years where incredibly influential on my life, and I worked with amazing people on incredible artists. I’ve worked with many wonderful graphic designers for most of my career and that continues to be a big influence. Up until recently I was a weekend warrior but I actually left my job in May of this year so I'm finally doing ceramics full-time, talk about going around the houses! Music continues to be a constant, that’s never going to change.

One of the things we love about your work is your technique of slip casting. How did you find this particular method over throwing or hand building?

I fell in love with turning plaster and working with moulds when I was at college doing my BA in ceramics (after leaving Virgin) and that naturally led to slip casting, I felt like I’d found my medium. Slip casting is such a beautiful process, it still feels like magic.

Color is very important in your work. Can you tell us about your relationship to color and how you create your distinct palette?

I think of colour as memory and in many ways it’s like another sense. We all have personal and cultural associations with it and I draw from that. I particularly love different colour combinations and look for ways to incorporate them within my work, while also keeping the shapes uncluttered.

The colours I’ve done with Commune have been chosen by Roman and Steven and it’s so fun for me to inhabit their colour world, it’s like visiting another city.

How did you come to collaborate with Commune?

I wrote to Roman during lockdown and we started there!

Not many people know, but you are also an accomplished quilt maker! We loved seeing your incredible compositions! Quilts have always been fascinating to me as objects. They require a lot of time and effort and are most commonly gifted rather than sold. They become these heirloom recordings of someone’s time and care that aren’t really part of a capitalist structure. Can you tell us about your own personal experience and relationship to this craft?

I started sewing with my Viennese great grandmother Lili when I was a very small child. She made these incredible cross stitch samplers for family and friends that are still cherished all these years later. I sewed on and off but then made a quilt for a friend who was having a baby many years ago and have continued. In the same spirit as Lili, I like to make them as acts of love rather than as a commercial endeavour. My favourite thing of an evening is to sew and watch TV, it also helps offset any guilt about watching so much crap!

Do you have a dream collaboration that you would like to realize in the future?

I have so many dream collaborations but to narrow it down to a few, I’d love to do something fashion related, an installation for a space that really plays with colour or custom tableware for a restaurant.

Interview by David Kasprzak
Photography by David Kasprzak and Jes Largey

Shop H for Hannah Ceramic Pitchers