Over the years, Sullivan Owen has nurtured an entrepreneurial spirit. After a childhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, she attended art school in Philadelphia for a few semesters, then worked her way up the corporate ladder at Urban Outfitters, Destination Maternity and Under Armour. “I was willing to say, ‘Well, this is how they say it’s supposed to be done. What happens if we try something a little different and see?’” she tells Business of Home, adding that this mindset had been fostered by the ethos of her employers. “I was fortunate that even though these companies I worked for grew into these billion-dollar companies, they kept that entrepreneurial spirit of what can happen if you’re willing to try to look at something a little bit different.”
Owen pivoted to floral design once her peers started getting married. After 15 years of designing luxury weddings and events, the pandemic hit and projects slowed. Owen threw herself into gardening. “Being home, it became my way to connect with flowers,” she says. “I was growing whatever I could from seed.” That time to tinker sparked a fresh understanding: “I had always realized that there was a void in vases,” she explains. “The disconnect that I could never put my finger on was that vases were made by people who don’t arrange flowers, right? They’re made by product designers, industrial designers or large factories. My whole focus became: I love these flowers so much. They’re doing so much for me: [I’m] getting up out of bed in the morning, growing them, learning about them. I want to make pieces that celebrate them, that look like the way I arrange them in a vase form.”
She took local pottery classes during Covid and was introduced to slip casting. “I realized that you could do these curves and contours and things with these very delicate, thin walls, with all the beauty that you see in porcelain light fixtures, and you could do that in a vase form that you would never be able to hand-build or throw on a wheel,” she says. “My pieces are sturdy, but they have a delicacy to them too. That was what the process of slip casting first introduced me to.” Owen established her own studio, creating vases that were built for blooms. “I want everyone to have their home filled with flowers, because I know how that can transform a mood, a space, a vibe, make guests feel welcome—or even on the sadder side, how flowers can be sympathy and can make people think of a favorite memory or a relative that’s no longer there,” she says. “How could I make a product that illustrated my experience with flowers, but make that something you don’t need to have to use the vase [for].”
When creating her vases, she begins with a sketch, and then maps out the design with a 3D printer—using a plant-based corn material—to get the measurements and proportions just right, drawing inspiration for shapes and forms from fashion magazines. “When I need to look at something for the way fabric drapes, or a ruffle or something, I just pick up [a magazine] and flip through until I find a few pages,” she says. After perfecting the prototype, Owen works with a manufacturer in Oregon to sculpt the final mold, and then liquid clay is poured into the vessel and sits, thickening, until it’s ready to be finished by hand.
Owen now employs seven craftspeople at her studio in the Mount Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia. Her most popular piece is the Baby Twist vase, a sinuous piece with a cinched waist. “What was interesting about Baby Twist is that I had made the original prototype because we were in an art museum for a client’s wedding, and I couldn’t find anything that felt sculptural and affordable that would work for cocktail tables,” she says. “It’s for your desk, your bedside, or some people put them in guest rooms. This is something that needs very few flowers. It’s something that’s just about taking a few minutes and doing something for yourself.”
Another favorite vase is Barely Cinched. “It’s the sleeper of the collection—the least flashy and most useful. People who get that vase use it all the time. My studio assistant’s partner is not a florist, and he is obsessed with it. He uses it every week, whenever she brings home flowers,” she says. “That’s gratifying to hear about its usefulness. Not from a ‘Oh yeah, I sold it’ point of view. But for me, that’s kind of what success is— knowing people really do love using these things—because I didn’t want to make something that just caught dust.”
