Eva Zeisel Quotes

The playful search for beauty.

I don't call myself an 'industrial designer,' because I'm other things. Industrial designers want to make novel things. Novelty is a concept of commerce, not an aesthetic concept.

When I met my designs in the market of a remote village in the West Indies, or in the airport restaurant in Zurich, I felt like the mother of many well-behaved children.

Everything I do is a direct creation of my hands, whether it is made in wood, plaster or clay.

I never wanted to do something grotesque. I never wanted to shock. I wanted my audience to be happy, to be kind.

Beautiful things make people happy.

When I design something, I think of it as a gift to somebody else.

Art has more ego to it than what I do.

Men have no concept of how to design things for the home. Women should design the things they use.

If I hadn't been a designer, I'd have been a painter. I began as a painter and learned the craft of pottery in order to support myself.

My time in Weimar Berlin was the most elegant in my life. I would have parties for a hundred people - writers, scientists, artists.

My work is very bodily. It's not a shell, but a body.

I made the things particularly because I wanted them to see the world.

Novelty is a concept of commerce, not an aesthetic concept.

I don't know the difference between working and not working.

I am a maker of useful things.

When you begin your work, nothing exists. When it is finished it looks as if it just happened, spontaneously, effortlessly, convincingly. It looks as though it had been there all along.

When you have clay in your hands, it's hard to avoid making birds.

If you think of beautiful things, you’re not sad.

I think with my hands. I design things to be touched-not for a museum. A piece is ready when it has the shape of something to cherish.

My designs are meant to attract the hand as well as the eye.