Stockholm-based ceramicist Andrea Tsang's vase and candleholder feature in the latest season of The Bear
Noma wasn’t the only Scandinavian inclusion on the latest season of The Bear. Featured on Carmy’s meticulously set table were ceramics by Stockholm-based artist Andrea Tsang. Alongside plates by famed American ceramicist Jono Pandolfi, one finds Tsang’s Terra candleholder and Amphora vase.
Photo: FX
Photo: FX
“I was watching TV on the sofa at home at 9pm at night and I got a phone call from Chicago,” says Tsang. “I was just wondering who on earth would contact me so late from the US, and I thought it was a scam call.” The woman was hoping to place an order, so Tsang, a bit confused, suggested that she make the request via email instead. It was quite a large quantity of items, and the woman desperately needed to receive them in three weeks. “My eyes scrolled down right to the total quantity she ordered, and I didn't even notice what this order was for,” she says. “Then my boyfriend sitting next to me saw the subject of the email and screamed, ‘It’s for The Bear!’” She surmises that the producers discovered her work on Instagram – in fact, she later learned that producers had also slid into her DMs.
Drawing inspiration from her East Asian roots (Tsang first tried her hand at ceramics when studying visual arts in Hong Kong) and Scandinavian functionalism, Tsang crafts her pieces with the same care as a chef, creating a Michelin-level menu. In fact, Tsang has seen herself in Jeremy Allen White’s Carmy since season one of The Bear. “The show touched me deep down because I can relate to it. How desperate Carmy is to make it work, and the everyday routine in the back kitchen – the preparation, the communication between people, the struggles, the cleaning up,” says Tsang. “These things sound so ordinary, but they are real, and they are also parts of my life when setting up my own studio.”
The Amphora vase. Photo: Andrea Tsang
Photo: Andrea Tsang
As for how she felt seeing her pieces on screen for the very first time? “Excited! Touched! Dreamy!” She says. “Especially, when uncle Jimmy shouted to Carmy, ‘To stop spending my fucking money. Don’t think I’m not seeing these fancy, new earthenware, fucking hippie plates’. This made me laugh because the show did spend lots of money on the earthenware and plates!” And for those also keen to spend some money on Tsang’s singular pieces, she’s recently released a limited edition of the very Amphora vase seen in the show.