O&G

Photography by Angel Tucker

"If O&G were an oyster, it wouldn’t be served on a silver tray with caviar. It would be shucked in your palm on the beach, just a few steps from where it was harvested." - Jonathan Glatt

What do you find yourself collecting over the years?

I’ve eased up on accumulating objects, but I’ve never stopped hunting. The search itself—the possibility hidden in the rough—still pulls me in. Even so, two collections continue to grow.

The first is utilitarian New England stoneware from the 1830s through the late 19th century: hand‑thrown jars and crocks, some small enough to fit in a palm, others large enough to store a season’s worth of provisions. These were once inexpensive, everyday vessels, but their handmade origins reveal an honesty of form—and a variability—that makes each piece distinct. I focus on the dark brown slip‑glazed examples, especially the ones the potters of the time dismissed as flawed: over‑fired rims, under‑fired bodies, unpredictable swirls of umber and ash. Those so‑called mistakes are the soul of the collection.

My other collection is more obvious, maybe even predictable, but I can’t resist them: 19th‑century regional stormy seascape paintings. The darker, more foreboding, the more I love them. Every collector has the one that got away, and I’m still recovering from missing out on a once‑in‑a‑lifetime shipwreck painting back in November with a recent buying spree.

How does the past inform your work?

The past is a deep archive of human ingenuity, and I treat it as such. Early in my career, I worked as an intern in the American furniture department of an auction house, cataloging pieces that spanned three centuries. Day after day, I studied silhouettes, joinery, ornament, materials. Eventually, a narrative revealed itself. Styles didn’t appear abruptly—they evolved, each generation refining or rebelling against the last. It was like watching a flipbook: turn the pages quickly enough and a lineage of ideas moves before your eyes.

That experience shaped how I think about design. Everything I create is another page in that flipbook—rooted in the pages before it, and hopefully offering something that future designers will turn to when they begin writing the next chapter.

How are you inspired by nature?

Nature is the main character in New England. Sometimes epic, often controlling, and endlessly varied. It can be understated with quiet shifts of light and long stretches of gray, or spring to life with sudden bursts of brilliance and power. Living by the ocean means living with continual change: migrating birds, shifting winds, the horizon re‑drawing itself with every weather front, it's impossible not to be inspired.

This wide array of natural patterns and occurrences are always present in my design process. They become abstractions—color palettes, silhouettes, gestures of movement.

In what ways does the East Coast shape your craft and design?

Authenticity is essential in design, and the most honest source material is the life you live every day. For me, that’s daily life here in New England—its materials, its history, its weathered pragmatism. My work reflects qualities that are embedded in this region: restraint, clarity of form, rich but unpretentious materials, a kind of quiet, luxurious durability and ease. There’s beauty here that's rich and satisfying if not always overt.

Those words can describe many places and aesthetics, so here’s how I think of it: if O&G were an oyster, it wouldn’t be served on a silver tray with caviar. It would be shucked in your palm on the beach, just a few steps from where it was harvested. You'd slurp it down and pitch the shell back into the sea.