On the window sill behind colorist Cassandra Ellis’s right shoulder are rows and rows of seedlings. It follows that her first public-facing venture is not only domestic in size but also in approach: a space for tea drinking and daydreaming.
From the street, an unassuming shop sign catches the light: “I’m very conscious that our branding has to be quiet,” says Cassandra.
The window seat was made on site from oak floorboards left by the previous tenants. (For environmental reasons, Atelier Ellis stopped selling sample pots at the start of the year.)
For the store opening, Cassandra has curated a selection of images by the photographer Jessica MacCormick and a display of 50 hand-thrown cups by Catherine and Matt West of Pottery West.
The view through to the front room. Both artists resonate for Cassandra, who was born in New Zealand.
The framed photograph is by Jessica MacCormick.
The front gallery is painted in Under Wood, “a meditative dark green”; the cabinets and fireplace are Aged Black.
There has to be enough room for people to find themselves within the work, which is what I think Jessica has done with this series.”
50 Cups by Pottery West in an antique display cabinet. You offer then a tea, a coffee, a drink, which is how the idea for the cups emerged.
An Atelier Ellis color box sits on the desk in the rear gallery, where the walls are painted Tamaki: “It’s always summer somewhere, where the ocean is the perfect milky shade of blue.”
Zumai walls in Cassandra’s studio space.
“Food is really important to us as a family, and I love gardening and flowers, and I wanted that to be part of who we are as a business as well.”
Staff are encouraged to spend a couple of (paid) hours a week at the Atelier Ellis allotment, “fiddling in the soil” or cutting flowers for the store “so that we always have something alive.”
The walls of the back gallery have been painted in Tamaki; the cupboard is painted in Block Print Yellow with a hanging piece in ceramic by Epure.
The framed photograph is by Jessica MacCormick.
The most recent collection, which is aptly named “Beginnings”, is, according to Cassandra, “my best yet and the most me.” A reflection on the rhythmic migration of birds that marks the changing of the season...
...the palette includes avian shades such as Lark, Floof, and Hummingbird as well as personal memories of transportive colors such as the milky, oceanic blue, Tamaki.
Cassandra Ellis, founder of Atelier Ellis.