About Daphne

Under the banner of Studio DHP, Nashville-born and Philadelphia-based ceramicist and designer Daphne Hawkins Parker channels her creative energy into forms that blur the line between art and object. Her practice achieves a risky equilibrium of exploration and deliberate execution. The sculptural pieces that emerge carry her philosophy of slowing down to notice overlooked rhythms, textures, and cycles that echo the human experience of beauty, fragility, and strength.

With a foundation in Art History and Interior Design, Daphne approaches clay and materials as living mediums—full of possibility. Daphne first began working in clay at Greenwich House in NYC, and refined her technique by assisting clay artists. She draws inspiration from botanical forms, oceanic life, cellular structures, and geological faults to create dreamlike and alive objects. Crafted at The Clay Studio in Philadelphia, her forms emerge through an intuitive process evoking a sense of suspended transformation. Her artistry ranges from traditional handbuilding and 3D technology to imbuing vessels with layers of overgrowth and eruptions. Whether in the layers of surface detail or variegated flows of textured colors and multi-firings, her work evokes the  innate tensions of the natural world but also its unplanned beauty.