A Blooming Partnership

Two pots from Francis DeFabo’s collection for White Flower Farm.

Collaborations are much like a recipe: two independent creators – or, for the sake of the metaphor, ingredients – come together to form something new. This is the exact case for local potter Francis DeFabo and Connecticut-based White Flower Farm (WFF), two businesses that married their talents this year, DeFabo crafting gorgeous vases to hold the farm’s bright, spring blooms.

This distanced partnership was born out of Instagram. DeFabo posted a picture of one of his vases (created for a different retailer) stuffed full of herbaceous peonies that he purchased from WFF years before. The potter tagged WFF in his post, "because that's what you do on Instagram," he says, which drew the farm's attention to his flower-filled vases and prompted them to reach out for a collaboration.

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DeFabo designed a collection of vases to showcase the farm's extensive dahlia selection. WFF picked three of his creations to feature in their 2021 catalog: a high-necked, bottle-like vase that would fit one to three flowers, a tall, wide-opening vase, and – the most popular of spring sales – a broad flower frog.

“I do a little bit of gardening, so I know that the issue with something like dahlias is that they have big, heavy heads, and if you try to put them in a vase that has a really huge opening... unless you've got 50 dahlias, it’s not going to work,” he says, noting that he concentrated on making each vase sturdy and firm to hold the flowers.

DeFabo also traded his typical brown stoneware – if you’ve dined at Gi-Jin, you’ve seen his use of dark, moody stoneware in person – for all white material, show off the flower’s bright blooms.

Though spring flowers are no longer available from the farm, DeFabo says they’re working on future collaborations.

“This has gone so well that we’re going to a couple of other versions of that particular pot,” he says, referring to the flower frog. “Plus there are a couple of other things they want me to do for next year’s catalog," he continues.

“It’s been like his really great collaboration,” he adds, “and it all worked out because I tagged them on Instagram.”

Find more of DeFabo’s work available for purchase on his website or at local retailers Pittsburgh Mercantile, PG&H, and more.