In a New Production Space in the Berkshires, Ceramist Danny Kaplan is Scaling Up and Dreaming Big

Ceramists tend to have an easygoing embrace of fate. Misfirings happen in the kiln, and happy accidents do too. Last year, as the New York City–based designer Danny Kaplan began canvassing for a larger Brooklyn workshop—a search complicated by steep rents and necessary buildouts—his longtime production manager, Val Shamma, shared that he and his wife were moving to North Adams, Massachusetts. “It occurred to us that maybe the solution was actually to follow him,” says Kaplan, best known for his sculptural lighting and furniture. The Berkshires city, like so many once-bustling mill towns, had experienced a downturn in the mid-20th century before art institutions like MASS MoCA helped put it on the cultural map. Former industrial spaces beckoned. “Once the pieces started to fall into place, it made perfect sense,” he says, eventually landing on a roomy, ground-floor warehouse in a converted textile mill.

Now, with its electrical system updated to support three kilns and a glass garage door added to let in natural light, this is where Kaplan does much of his ceramic casting and larger sculptural work. (His original Bushwick workshop still produces lamps and other hand-built pieces.) This past summer in the Berkshires, the studio was churning out slim, colorful tiles for his Delf collection—a collaboration with Vince Patti’s furniture firm Lesser Miracle. (Dutch for canal or ditch, delf refers to the grooved wood that holds the tile.) The pair have been working together since 2024, when they teamed up on a custom bed for Kaplan featuring a wraparound headboard and a border of inset tiles. This fall, Delf II extends that design language to a console, a coffee table, a desk, and a nightstand, all in oiled oak with octagonal tops. The ceramic components, made in a range of glazes, travel to Lesser Miracle’s woodshop in Brooklyn, where Patti oversees the final assembly.

While this new space has increased Kaplan’s production capability, he’s more interested in the opportunities it poses for expansive thinking. In time, he’d like to host visiting artists in need of a scene change, all while knitting in with North Adams neighbors. “It’s very serene,” he says, “and ceramic people love community.”

This story appears in the November issue. Never miss a story when you subscribe to AD.