Artisan Karen Konzuk’s jewellery designs have been described as “wearable architecture,” so perhaps it’s no surprise that her artistic endeavours led her to creating the coveted line of household design objects that we carry at Provide. (In fact, we admire Konzuk’s work so much, we partnered with her to introduce a new addition to her Orbis Collection: the Noctural series features black concrete paired with black wax, and a bespoke, meditative scent of cedarwood, sandalwood and black spruce essential oils.) We caught up with her at her home studio on the Sunshine Coast to chat about her studies in concrete, precision and celebrating the beauty of an imperfect design.

You started your career as a jewellery designer, but you’ve expanded your practice into household objects. What had you move in that direction?

I’ve always wanted to do a larger home accessory product line right from the beginning. I kind of fell into jewelry at school, but my main area of focus was sculpture and larger things like that. I wanted to be an architect, but I couldn’t do the math! The Orbis collection came from jewelry that was spheres and various shades of grey. And it was the failed castings of the concrete, when I would cast them in the molds—I’d pull them out and some of them wouldn’t be a perfectly round sphere, but it would have a really raw edge. I thought, well, this is a cool object—could I make it into jewelry? And then, what if it was a larger scale as a candle? 

And then I just wanted to create more and more things that were more exemplary of concrete. So in the Habitat tea lights, where they’re more like structures where you see the light through the windows, that was one thing that I was really excited about doing and figuring it all out—getting a 3D printer and learning Rhino. Rhino’s a 3D modelling program—that’s how I make the models and then make the molds from that. 

How did the Habitat series come about?

It was about trying to do something that was an interesting object, yet still functional. And I think I was just desperate to do something that was more of an architectural form itself. After Orbis, we did the Monument candles, and that was just pure cube, cone and the fountain shape—a straight brutalist kind of thing. And then it evolved into the Habitat series, where it was more architectural. That’s going back to my love of architecture, just wanting to try my skills at doing things like that.

How challenging is concrete as a medium at the scale you’re working at? 

I did a lot of experimenting and I’ve gone through a lot of different types of concrete. When I started, it was Home Depot concrete that I would sieve the rocks out of! I didn’t know what kind of concrete was out there, so that was hard to work with for jewelry. I finally discovered a concrete that is specifically for artisans. So the way I work it with the Orbis vessels, it’s a really thick mixture that I apply by hand, and then I just smooth it along the inside of the mold.

And with the other structures, like the Monument candles, they have a really rigid structure. So if you have a pit in one area, it looks terrible. For those, I add a plasticizer to the concrete, which liquefies it so it’s more of a pouring concrete and it will fill the mold. I’ve learned how to make sure to get all the bubbles out of that. The learning curve is huge on it, but it’s a lot of learning about what can be added to concrete to do certain things. With the jewelry, I add a resin instead of water so that it’s a stronger mixture and it adheres to the metal. So that’s a completely different kind of concrete.

Is your technique mostly self-taught? 

Yes—a lot of online research and trial and error.

You also have your new Oiseau line—how did that come to be?

It was through more explorations of working with concrete and how I can mold it into different shapes. I wanted something organic this time, so I was casting the concrete into balloons, large balloon structures, and I was just experimenting with wrapping them around things. And through one of the castings came this object, and it wasn’t perfect. It had a giant air bubble in one spot and another air bubble in another. But we were looking at it and thought, it’s such a beautiful structure, it looks like a bird—this could be the wing and the head. And so I ground off those areas and that was the foundation for that collection. And then making that into a mold was another story altogether. It was painful!

Some of your line is about perfection and some of it is about imperfection. Tell me a little bit about that process.

The jewelry itself has to be perfect. It’s so minimalistic that if you have any kind of mistake or a little flaw, it’s known right away. It shows. So that’s honed my skills. I’ve always admired German jewelry, which is the most precise stuff you could ever imagine.

And then the Orbis collection came out of that and it’s beauty and it’s imperfection. 

And so when I was doing the Habitat collection, I was casting them in solid concrete without the layered look to it. And, it wasn’t as interesting, it was kind of a boring structure, just something that anyone could do. And we wanted it to be different.

At the time, I was studying rammed earth techniques for architecture. I really love that aesthetic. I started experimenting with pouring the different layers, and I was trying different tints on each layer. I’d take one pour or one mixture, and then let it sit under a heat lamp for half an hour, pour another layer and let it sit, and then pour another layer. And I just love the outcome of it, that it’s still a perfect structure, yet the imperfections in the casting make it even more interesting. It’s the juxtaposition between the two, the look of that. I love that. 

How did you first connect with Provide?

It’s been a great relationship working with them since we started. They’re open to new products and if we can, we talk to them about what they think about price point, if it fits with the store—that’s our audience right there. We take their advice seriously. We recently did the product shots for the new collections in their Gallery—they were nice enough to lend it to us.

It’s such a beautiful store. Their taste is amazing and anything we would want in our house is what they sell. And they’ve got the right clientele: people who appreciate Canadian design, first of all, and also an aesthetic where it’s different but it’s also contemporary. It’s like, how do we get all of our stores to be just like Provide?

What’s next for you?

I’m currently working on a jewelry collection right now, which is coming out soon. It’s a mixture of resin and concrete, and it’s going to have colour for a change. It’s been a long time since I’ve done colour. It’s more of a merging of the two materials to create an effect of light and shadow. So I’m really excited about that. And I’ve got lots more product in the back of my head for household as well.

The hardest part is the making it into realization from your head to the computer and then actually having it work as a product. You’ve done the model, the molds, and you finally make it—that’s the longest time from conception to making it a realization. It’s the hardest and longest process.

Konzuk's Household collection is available at Provide.

Photography by Seth Stevenson and courtesy of Konzuk.