First look: Solange Knowles on designing her new glassware collection, ‘Small Matter: Form Glassware 001’ for Saint Heron

A new and frankly exquisite trio of glasses lands today on the shelves of the MoMA Design Store. The collection is called ‘Small Matter: Form Glassware 001’ and we’re calling it early to say they will be in hot demand. Topaz coupes top three different onyx bottoms each with a distinct personality: from an elegant deco stem wine glass, to a chunky ribbed trunk goblet, to a squat, graphic counterweight of a base for the cordial glass. The glasses are borosilicate (lightweight and strong), blown into graphite moulds. They feel ceremonial and glamorous, ancient and sexy simultaneously. For their striking beauty, and the fact that they are technically handmade, remarkably they are relatively affordable: the wine glass and cordial are $41 each; the goblet is $45.

It will be no small matter of interest to the design community that the glasses were designed by Solange Knowles for Saint Heron. Solange is a multi-faceted and mercurial talent. And Saint Heron, the multi-inter-disciplinary studio Solange founded in 2013, is proving to be a riveting ecosystem of prodigious, exciting expression. Back in 2013, Saint Heron was largely a music outfit in the digital realm. Today, it has morphed into a creative community of broader skills with a focused commitment to explore the possibilities of design in all forms, amplifying under-represented minds and hands, visions and voices in the process.

As ‘Small Matter: Form Glassware 001’ comes to market, we took the opportunity to find out more from Solange about the project and Saint Heron, and her thoughts and feelings on design more generally. Her answers are light and profound, illuminating and inspiring in equal measure. She mentions the (very real) potential for design to be elusive and the industry to be guarded, before delivering a powerfully succinct and unpretentious explanation of what design represents. Design industry: sit-up, listen and take note.

Congratulations on such a fascinating and beautifully realised collaboration - tell us how the project came about?

Thank you so much! It is all very humbling and exciting new territory for me. I've considered myself to have always practised design in other mediums of my work, whether it be stage design, sculpture, scenography, or graphic design. Five years ago I really contemplated transitioning the evolution of my ideas and philosophies into creating tangible objects to engage with the people I love and I'm in community with through Saint Heron. It is all just another extension of my world making. This was the birth of Saint Heron’s Small Matter.

I spent a few years just ideating, sketching, rendering and exploring designs with everything from modular sofa concepts, to lighting. I began to make silicone moulds to work with resin to just explore different forms , and I fell in love with the luminosity and transparency in these resin objects, but some months later I took some glass blowing glasses, and felt really connected to the process and material .

To work with glass is to surrender yourself to be constantly moving on the material's time, and then sort of freeze time with an object. I then spent quite some time working with an incredible glassblower, Jason McDonald, to bring my designs into fruition through a collection of Small Matter Hand Blown Glassware.

The glasses look like artworks but they are functional and accessibly priced, which is impressive. How have you managed to balance craft with manufacturing?

We at Saint Heron consider our Hand Blown Glass, Art Objects, as each glass is individually hand blown, and goes through a pretty rigorous process from start to finish. No two glasses are identical, and you’re really experiencing a human tactile approach. They are also pretty weighty as they are solid glass. During the production process, I realised both the beauty and the limitation, in terms of producing at scale and accessibility. I wanted these ideas to reach more people, and more people who I am in community with.

It became equally important to me to constantly be both materialising my ideas to be in full service to my imagination and mind's eye, while also making thoughtful design accessible to my community. We spent the next year working on how to materialise a collection with the same thoughtfulness and intentionality, and the result was our Small Matter Form Glassware Collection. The form glasses are made from borosilicate, frequently known as Pyrex glass, which is a significantly more lightweight material. What I love about the Form Glassware is that there is still a human touch in the process, these are individually hand blown into a graphite mould, but using the the mould, and the other elements of the production process allows enables us to offer a much more accessible expression of the design, with the same thoughtfulness, and intentionality.

What's exciting to me about the Topaz Collection, is being able to express other facets of myself I am usually more reserved to express. Playing with the opacity, and the rich and contrasted colour story, has been an entirely different expression of these objects. The MoMA Design store feels like the perfect home for this collection because of their celebration creating joy and experimentation through design.

What has surprised you and/or what have you learnt from the project?

Man, I've learned so much from this process. First off, I've had some incredible people who have really extended themselves to me in guiding me through these processes. That really has been such a gift. I find that the design world can be really elusive, and oftentimes really guarded about sharing resources, or processes. I’ve been so incredibly lucky to have the generosity of helping me bring these designs from idea into fruition, and am forever grateful.

Also, discovering the magic is in the process and that extends from everything from directing a performance piece, or producing a song. I have been working on new objects and forms, and the connection in doing 25 iterations of refining until the proportions are just right, or contemplating if there’s just enough transparency in the material, is very similar to the way I approach making music, or choreographing a piece.

The joy is in the process, and while it can be tedious and a little obsessive, when you can stand back with some space and time, you realise that all of the answers coming to you are from some intuitive place you can not describe. That’s the joy in creation. You answer questions about yourself through creation, seeing an idea birth from a seed to something you can hold, and that's something that no amount of talk therapy, or journaling can reveal to you. I also learned how interested I am in the science of all of the elements that come together. One of the really interesting things about the Small Matter Form Glassware, is learning about how so many elements that have to be perfectly aligned, from the temperature and material of the mould, to the thermal expansion, it really is all so fascinating to contemplate. I am experiencing personal growth as a human in this process.

Please complete the sentence: "For me, design means...."

For me design is the act of turning an idea or reflection in how you see yourself, or the world around you, into fruition, and creating a tangible monument of these ideas along the way. It is the idea of creating artefacts that will live beyond us, an expression of saying I was here, and this is how I not only see the world around me, but the way I’d like to contribute to it.

And what would your drink of choice be to fill these wonderful glasses?

It's funny, growing up I have memories of my mother pulling out her nice glasses for moments she really wanted to flex, or commemorate a beautiful cherished memory with her loved ones. Those were mostly special occasions like holidays or a birthday or a graduation. A lot of people who have gotten pieces from the previous collection will stop me and say I don’t let anybody touch my glasses!

I really love that kind of care and tenderness and protection and value over these objects. But then there's this other part of me that loves to create celebration out of everyday mundane gestures. I sometimes will even drink water out of the glasses because why not give drinking water a ceremonial moment in your day? In the same way when you’re feeling shitty, and putting on the right dress can bring light to your mood, I hope the glassware can bring a moment of beauty to the experience of your day whether that's alone, or within fellowship.

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