Skip to content
Halewick.Demo

Halewick Studio / Fictional studio

Portfolio demonstration / Donovan Mercer

Useful things, made a little wild.

A maker’s hands lifting a half-finished willow basket from a dark workbench.
Fig. 01 / A Withy basket, five hours in

Demonstration website

Halewick is a fictional craft studio created to show what a distinctive portfolio website can feel like. The story is invented. The design and development by Donovan Mercer are real.

Project
Website demo
Designed by
Donovan Mercer
Concept
Fictional studio
Built with
Next.js

01 / Selected work

Five collections, never quite the same

These are working collections, not fixed editions. Each piece changes with the rod, the clay and the weather. Sizes and finishes vary.

  1. A round willow gathering basket, woven from pale rods, resting against a plain wall.

    Withy

    2023 / ongoing

    Discipline
    Basketry
    Materials
    Willow, hand-split rush

    Gathering baskets built from a solid slath, with no fixings anywhere. Cold-cut willow is soaked back to life and worked wet, so each rod curves without splitting.

  2. Slender beeswax tapers standing in copper cups on a workbench.

    Rushlight

    2019 / ongoing

    Discipline
    Candles
    Materials
    Unbleached beeswax, cotton wick

    Each taper is dipped around forty times over two mornings. Cooling between passes gives the wax its faintly uneven skin. They burn clean and hold their shape to the last inch.

  3. A group of shallow round woven trays arranged on a pale wooden floor.

    Winnow

    2021 / ongoing

    Discipline
    Basketry
    Materials
    Ash splint, hazel rim

    Flat trays woven from ash pounded off the log in spring, when the growth rings let go cleanly. They hang neatly in a row and carry bread, apples or a morning’s foraging.

  4. Unglazed clay candle holders and dishes drying on a canvas-covered bench.

    Ember

    2022 / ongoing

    Discipline
    Ceramics
    Materials
    Red common clay, unglazed

    Thick-walled holders for pillar candles, pinched at the lip while still soft. They are fired once and left bare, so spilled wax leaves a darker bloom on the clay.

  5. A pale stoneware bud vessel photographed against a fold of undyed linen.

    Marl

    2020 / ongoing

    Discipline
    Ceramics
    Materials
    Stoneware, wood-ash slip

    Small pouring vessels, thrown thin and finished matt. They come in runs of nine. No two agree at the shoulder, and I have never wanted them to.

02 / Studio

A working bench beside a potter’s wheel, crowded with ribs, sponges and half-finished clay forms.
Fig. 03 / The wheel end of the barn, Thursday morning

One barn. Three materials. No production line.

I trained as a basketmaker and found wax by accident. I needed winter work while the willow stood in the ground. The methods clicked: thin layers, steady hands, no rushing.

Everything here is made by me, in a grain barn I have been repairing since 2014. A dipping vat sits under the north window, a wheel fills the old feed room, and willow dries against the wall most of the year. Every form starts here.

A basket takes two days. A run of tapers takes two mornings and a cold night. Small batches are not a sales trick. They are simply the size of one person’s work.

“Handmade should show its hand. Quietly, honestly, and without apology.”

Marit Ilves
Willow
Cut December to March, sorted by length, soaked before it is worked.
Beeswax
Unbleached, filtered twice, never scented or coloured.
Ash & hazel
Pounded off the log in spring for splint, steamed for rims.
Red clay
Dug on the common, sieved, fired once and left bare.

03 / Process

Cut. Soak. Shape. Wait.

Each material keeps its own clock. The rule stays the same: give it the time it asks for.

  1. 01

    Cut

    A bundle of cut rush and dried grasses lit against a dark barn interior.

    Willow and rush are cut from December to March, then stood to dry in the barn. Wax comes in blocks from two keepers in the county. Nothing arrives ready to use.

  2. 02

    Shape

    Hands weaving damp straw rods into the wall of a basket on a workbench.

    Rods soak until they bend without complaint. They are woven wet, base first and upright by upright, until the shape carries itself.

  3. 03

    Dip

    Hands lifting flat cakes of unbleached beeswax from a paper-lined table.

    Wax is held just above setting point. Each wick goes in and out of the vat around forty times, cooling on the rack between passes.

  4. 04

    Finish

    Finished beeswax tapers laid in a compartmented wooden tray with handwritten labels.

    Handles are wrapped, rims trimmed and wicks cut to a quarter inch. Each piece is stamped, dated and left to settle for a week.

04 / From the bench

The good mess between finished pieces

Bases, textures, half-made things and the useful mistakes that stay on the bench.

  • Close view of the spiralling woven base of a shallow basket.
    Base of a Winnow tray, worked from the centre out
  • Woven baskets stacked and turned on their sides in a dim storeroom.
    Finished baskets stacked in the drying room
  • Macro view of tightly packed natural rush weave.
    Rush weave, close
  • Two small unglazed clay vessels standing on a potter’s wheel head.
    Ember holders leather-hard on the wheel head
  • Close view of coarse undyed linen cloth used for wrapping finished work.
    Undyed linen from the wrapping bench
  • Clay-covered hands drawing up the wall of a vessel on a spinning wheel.
    Pulling the wall of a candle holder
A single hand-rolled beeswax taper burning on a brass dish in a dim room.

Fictional brand / Real design work

05 / Contact the designer

Like the site? Talk to Donovan.

Halewick Studio is a fictional brand built as a portfolio demonstration. The maker, place and collections are invented. The design and development work are real.

Project type
Demonstration website
Designed by
Donovan Mercer

Real contact details

Work with Donovan

There is no enquiry form and nothing fictional to fill out. Email or call me directly about your website.

EmailDonovan@mercerwebdev.comPhone859 398 3934