We began with a paper notebook in a closed apothecary in Porto, in the spring of 2019. The shelves were bare except for a brass apothecary scale, two cobalt jars with their stoppers still in place, and a single cracked azulejo tile leaning against the wall like an afterthought. We bought all three before we'd named what we were doing.
That summer the studio was a kitchen table. Each object was numbered as it arrived — No. 01 through No. 47 — and we lived with them for a season before deciding which had earned their place. Some left for friends. A handful left for nowhere in particular. Eleven stayed.
Three years later the studio moved north. Luxembourg has quieter mornings and longer evenings, and a particular kind of attention that suits objects rather than crowds. The window faces east. The shelves face north. A cup of coffee at half past seven catches the light differently here than it did in Cedofeita, but the cup is still the same cup.
A piece earns its way into Aurixly only if we'd still keep it ten years from now.
We don't manufacture. We choose. Each object is photographed at the kitchen table — the same kitchen table — and lived with for at least a fortnight before it appears in the catalogue. We never carry more than sixty objects at a time. Editions rotate with the seasons.
A piece earns its way into Aurixly if it answers, quietly, yes to three questions:
- Does it deepen the room rather than fill it?
- Does it improve with use, not in spite of it?
- Would we still keep it ten years from now?
Some of the objects in the catalogue come from small studios in northern Portugal — friends of friends, mostly, in the old way. Others come from further afield: a ceramicist in Setúbal, a brass turner whose grandfather cast lamp bases between the wars, a pair of woodworkers we met at a market in Trier. The provenance varies. The standard does not.
There is no warehouse. There is a small studio in Limpertsberg with one window facing east and a north-facing wall of shelves. From there each order is sent on its way — sometimes via a workshop in Porto, sometimes directly, always carefully and with a folded note inside the box.
Casa, lume, vagar.
Studio Aurixly