Interiors reign supreme for Tanvi Arora. Before she even touches a piece of clay, the Vancouver, British Columbia–based ceramist imagines the kind of space an object will occupy. “The environment informs the physical shape and structure of each piece—and the emotional response I hope it will evoke,” she tells Business of Home.
Born in South Asia and raised in Dubai, Arora studied interior design at the Manipal Academy of Higher Education before embarking on a career as a designer for the next decade. In the evenings, she took pottery classes as a way to unwind after work, eventually purchasing her own pottery wheel so she could experiment at home. “I would work 12 hours a day and then practice on my wheel late into the night,” she says.
In 2018, she and her husband relocated to Canada, where she continued to work as an interior designer by day, while making ceramics in her downtime. However, as time passed, she eventually narrowed her focus to pottery. “I launched TAV Ceramics in April 2019 with a small line of handmade dinnerware,” she says. “When I started, I was working out of a shared pottery studio, but now have my own space in East Vancouver.”
All of Arora’s ceramic designs begin with sketches that are translated into digital renderings that she uses to guide her on the wheel. “A piece can take anywhere between two to four weeks to finish,” she explains. “Also, the bigger you go in scale, the longer a piece takes, as it needs to have ample time to dry slowly and evenly to prevent cracking.”
The artist describes her pottery as “pared down,” defined by simple geometric forms and neutral glazes that “highlight the tactility” of the material. “Raw clay is the hero in my work,” she explains. “I try not to cover it up with glazes; that way, form and texture can play key roles in the overall aesthetic.”
Recently, Arora began incorporating pit firing into her designs, which requires each piece to be baked in a fire pit filled with natural combustibles—such as wood, cotton and coal—for up to 24 hours at a time. “The fire leaves behind stunning impressions of smoke on the surface of the pieces, allowing each piece to be completely unique and unrepeatable,” she says.
At the WantedDesign fair in May, she unveiled the first-ever TAV Ceramics lighting collection, X, featuring a quartet of aquatic-minded pieces: the lighthouse-shaped Manara table lamp; the matte Oyster wall sconce with glass globe; the shell-like Pearl sconce; and the underwater-rock-inspired Monolith vase. “This line is a result of my cumulative experience in design and ceramics—hence the name of the series: It marks the beginning of my focus on high-end ceramics for commercial and residential spaces,” she says.
In addition to creating these pieces, Arora also collaborates with interior designers on custom installations. For a recent M Moser Associates project in downtown Vancouver, for instance, she turned 300 handcrafted ceramic beads into a room-dividing display that resembles an abacus. “I love working with interior designers to create something bespoke for their projects,” she says. “It feels like a full-circle moment in my creative practice.”
Currently hard at work on a collaborative art installation for a local restaurant, she also has plans to release a capsule collection of one-of-a-kind objects and vases in 2025. “I finally feel like my studio is on the trajectory to getting to a place I want it to go,” says Arora. “I hope to continue launching new products once or twice a year, while working with the talented design community, so I can keep learning more about this beautiful medium.”
If you want to learn more about Tanvi Arora, visit the TAV Ceramics website or Instagram.
