For the past eight years, we have invited craftspeople from around the world to apply for our New Makers programme. Selected artists receive expert guidance to support the growth of their businesses, along with a platform on TOAST to sell their handcrafted goods, with all profits returned to them.
We launched this mentorship scheme as an extension of our core values, rooted in thoughtful production and the preservation of centuries-old crafts. This year’s makers have been chosen for their innovative and inspiring approaches to such traditions.
“I'm trying to be a full-time ceramic artist, which isn't always easy,” says 2026 New Maker Yuichi Romita. “I really appreciate how this programme supports craftspeople like me.” His inclusion in this year’s cohort comes at a pivotal point in his practice. After four years in Japan apprenticing under a master ceramicist and learning a centuries-old pottery tradition, he is now based in Malmö, Sweden, where he is refining an approach which balances heritage and innovation.
Shaped on the wheel, Yuichi’s stoneware pieces blend elegance with everyday utility. “I want people to experience my work. I don’t want it to just sit on a shelf, gathering dust. It’s made to be used.” Though unglazed, their distinctive finish is achieved by tightly packing the wood-fired kiln, limiting the movement of the flames and leaving striking ash deposits across the clay’s surface. “I like this type of firing because I'm not a very decorative person,” he says. “It's almost like a collaboration – I really think about the form, and the rest, I leave to the kiln.”
Another ceramicist in our 2026 programme, Linnan Ye, is also influenced by Japanese pottery. “There’s a little shop here in San Francisco that showcases Japanese artists’ work. I came across an espresso mug with a notch for your finger to sit in,” she recalls. “Holding it, I could feel how it was designed to connect to the person using it.” Inspired by the idea of creating objects that bring thoughtful details to daily life, Linnan decided to follow an impulse that had been lingering for a while. “I studied architecture, but throughout my career, I always wanted to do something on a smaller scale.”
Linnan’s pieces are wheel-thrown, though some incorporate hand-built elements that break free from their gently rounded forms. She gravitates towards dark clay for the way it responds to layers of white porcelain slip. “It creates a lot of interesting variation.” Experimentation sits at the heart of her practice: one piece in the TOAST New Makers collection features a softly dappled surface, achieved by pressing cheesecloth into leather-hard clay and applying slip on top, transferring the fabric’s woven pattern onto the piece.
A sense of exploration is also central to Jacob Marks’ craft, particularly as it was hardly a craft when he first came to it, compelling him to find its potential and test its limitations himself. Jacob works with pine resin, a natural substance sourced from damaged fir, pine and cedar trees. This overlooked material, discovered by the maker during a furniture design project, drew him in with its translucent finish and deep amber tone, as well as its biodegradable and renewable properties.
“It's always been used as a glue, for example, attaching flint to sticks to make hunting spears,” Jacob explains. “But I started wondering, how could I work with it to do something different?” Highlighting the versatility of the material, his works for TOAST range from utilitarian door handles to a large, sculptural vessel. “I’ve been working with pine resin for a few years, and I’ve only just reached the point where I feel my pieces could be in people’s homes,” he says. “I’m ready to share them more widely, and I can’t think of a more fitting brand to do that with.”
Jeweller Egle Silko is similarly guided by her material, sterling silver. She started her creative journey as a textile designer, carrying an instinct for texture and structure into her jewellery practice. Sterling silver soon became her chosen metal due to its fluidity and maleability. “It goes from liquid to soft to hard, allowing you to shape it in so many different ways,” she says. There's an eternal quality to it, too: “You can take a piece and melt it down and make something else… metal can have many lives.”
Egle’s process echoes and responds to this sense of fluidity, favouring experimental techniques despite their unpredictability. She uses reticulation to produce ‘bubble’-like textures across the surface of her pieces, deliberately cracks the metal to form organic fissures, and makes earrings out of molten silver nuggets with unplanned curves and ripples. “In a way, I play against the rules. All of my jewellery has marks that show the metal resisting me.”
Like Egle, ceramicist Hannah Watts embraces marks left by the making process. Each of her large stoneware platters, defined by colourful linear patterns, carries a distinct character. “Everything has imperfections, but that’s part of it,” she says. “My work is a bit wonky, and as a former perfectionist, I think that’s been really good for me.” From faint traces of pencil where a pattern was first drafted to areas where the glaze has pooled or separated, these details act as reminders of the hands that brought each piece into being.
Hannah uses the sgraffito technique to decorate her platters, which involves coating leather-hard clay with underglaze and scratching lines into the surface. She discovered the technique in Cape Town, where she has enjoyed many formative trips with family and friends. “On my first day at a new studio, my mentor demonstrated sgraffito. The first thing I tried was quite a geometric pattern – it was like a ‘click’ moment, and I haven't looked back.” Her colour- and line-work are influenced by local textile traditions and African landscapes that have left a lasting impression.
Together, our five New Makers for 2026 represent a rich convergence of influences, techniques and creative visions, each bringing a personal perspective to contemporary craft. We are proud to support them as they move into the next phase of their practice.
Discover our New Makers 2026 collection.
Photography by Marco Kesseler, Mattias Bjorklund, Danica Taylor, Suzie Howell, Iris Kivisalu and Aloha Bonser-Shaw.
Add a comment