Cincinnati’s Taylor Carter, owner of Level Up Ceramics, is blazin’ new trails. Yes, we’re talking about marijuana. It is 4/20, after all. The leafy green substance deserves its moment in the sun.
As asked by Noel Gallagher (frontman of ’90s Alt-Rock group Oasis), “Where were you while we were getting high?” We were probably shopping for cute and wiggly pastel ceramics.
Carter’s pipe pottery recently made it on Vogue’s list of “26 High-Design Smoking Accessories that Double as Home Decor.” Specifically, her “speckled bean pipe.” Shaped like its name suggests, the lil’ bean is seafoam green with gold sparkles and pale zig-zags. The pipe’s description says it “fits perfectly in your hand (and is) equipped with a choke for optimal use.”
A fine arts graduate of University of Cincinnati’s DAAP, Carter also co-owns CKTC Ceramics, a local design studio that offers quirky-shaped pottery and signature pieces like patterned color-gradient pots and planters and twee-infused ’90s-nostalgia squiggle vases, cups and other vessels. With CKTC’s other owner/artist, Colin Klimesh, she merges both digital and traditional elements by using 3-D modeling programs while handcrafting clays and glazes.
Priced from $65-$70, her twisty 4/20-worthy accessories are cute enough to display in your living room (your conservative parents will probably pass it off as a funky piece of decor anyway). Carter’s Level Up shop also offers more cutely-shaped smokers, including a squiggle style. Each comes in a variety of pastel-based colors — get lost in the haze with marbled blues and yellows, faded pink or shimmery teal.
This holiday, we’re proud of our own. Buy Carter’s work online at levelupceramics.com, pair it with rad pottery at cktcceramics.com or hop over to Over-the-Rhine’s highly aesthetic Continuum (located at 1407 Vine St., OTR) boutique to pick up some smoking gear. Either way, ditch the pipe you sneakily bought at Spencer’s in high school and get high in-Vogue instead.
This article appears in Apr 18-25, 2018.
