About Myrth

Handcrafted porcelain place setting in canyon glaze styled for a dinner party, Myrth Ceramics

Myrth is a porcelain tableware company founded by product designers Abigail and Eric Smallwood in East Providence, Rhode Island. Between us we bring over four decades of professional design experience — from sneaker design to consumer products for Fortune 500 brands — and we apply that same rigor to every piece of porcelain we make. We design and handcraft everything in our studio, and engineer our work to the same durability standards used by the restaurants that trust us to outfit their tables.

We started making ceramics in the evenings after our full time design jobs. Ten years later, it’s our dream job.

Our Story

In 2008, Abby and Eric were working full time as product designers when they joined a community pottery studio in Boston. They came for a hobby. They left with something closer to a calling.

Under the mentorship of ceramicist Darrell Finnegan, they learned the fundamentals of ceramic design and production — and realized that everything they knew about product development, materials science, and manufacturing applied directly to making functional ceramics at a high level.

In 2015, while still working their day jobs, they opened their first private production studio and launched Myrth — named for the warm, convivial homes they imagined their work living in. For five years they built the brand as a side hustle: designing new products in the evenings, fulfilling orders on weekends, and slowly building a following among home cooks, design-minded couples, and Boston-area restaurants who appreciated something better than the standard white hotel china.

In 2020, they left their design careers to run Myrth full time. They’ve never looked back.

Today, Myrth is one of the few remaining American studios producing porcelain dinnerware entirely in-house. Our restaurant clients — including Oleana, Tonino, PostBoy, Uchi, and The Koji Club — rely on us for tableware that’s beautiful enough to define a room and durable enough to survive nightly service. Our home customers rely on us for the same thing: pieces that look better the more you use them, and last long enough to become heirlooms.

Myrth ceramics founders Abby and Eric with their dog Raine at the studio.

Abigail Smallwood • Co-Founder • Head of Marketing

Abby brings over a decade of experience in product development, materials, and brand building to Myrth. Before going full time with the studio, she worked as a sneaker designer — a background that people are always surprised by, and one that informs everything from how she thinks about form and durability to how she approaches color and finish development. She leads marketing, design, and customer experience at Myrth, and is the person most likely to be found obsessing over a new glaze recipe. She loves cooking and especially cherishes eating brothy beans in a Basso Bowl.

Eric Smallwood • Co-Founder • Head of Manufacturing

Eric is the engine behind Myrth’s production. With over a decade of experience as a consumer product designer — working across Boston’s top design consultancies on products for Fortune 500 brands — he brings an engineer’s precision and a designer’s eye to the studio floor. Eric oversees all manufacturing operations, designs the molds that give Myrth pieces their distinctive forms, and is the person responsible for the proprietary clay and glaze formulations that make our work as durable as it is beautiful. He can usually be found tinkering. He savors his morning cappuccino in a Swig Cup.

Raine • C-ARF-O • Head of Customer Relations

Raine is an Australian Shepherd and the embodiment of Myrth — the best boy ever. He heads up client relations and security at the studio, adores booping studio visitors, and enforces mandatory ball-toss breaks throughout the workday. He prefers his water served fresh in a Helping Bowl.

Mix and match Myrth porcelain place settings in Vertigris, Nightfall, and canyon glazes

Promise

We make ceramics because we believe the objects you eat from every day matter. Well-made dishes make food taste better. A beautiful bowl makes Tuesday night dinner feel like something worth sitting down for.

Our dream is simple: to make porcelain that your family is still using three generations from now. Not because you’re being careful with it — but because it’s built to last that long.

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Made In Rhode Island

Every piece of Myrth porcelain is handcrafted in our East Providence, Rhode Island studio — from proprietary clay formulation to hand-applied glazes to final kiln firing. No overseas production. No contract manufacturing. We’re one of the few remaining American makers producing porcelain dinnerware entirely in-house, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Read more about how we make our work →

Restaurant Grade

Myrth porcelain is trusted by restaurants across New England — and that trust is earned through performance, not just aesthetics.

We engineer our clay and glaze recipes to the demands of commercial kitchen service: nightly dishwasher cycles, heavy stacking, the wear of silverware against glaze, the occasional drop. Our pieces are tested for durability before they ever reach a restaurant table or a home kitchen.

The result is tableware that gets better with use instead of showing its age — no hazing, no chipping, no glaze degradation over time. Restaurant-grade isn’t a marketing term for us. It’s an engineering standard.

How to care for your Myrth ceramics →

Myrth ceramics can be found in:

Oleana (Cambridge, MA) · Tonino (Boston) · Giusto (Newport, RI) · PostBoy (MI) · Nadair (Atlanta) · The Koji Club (Boston, MA) · Uchi (Denver) · Bar Volpe (Boston)

Learn about our trade program →

Porcelain appetizer plates being formed on the roller jigger at Myrth's East Providence studio

Process

Each product begins with a detailed sketch, which is transformed into a handmade prototype. Samples undergo rigorous testing and refinement until they meet our standards for both form and durability.

Our manufacturing process uses three forming methods: plates and bowls are jiggered on a roller press, drinkware and vases are slip cast, and occasional limited edition items are hand-thrown. Every piece is finished with one of our hand-applied semi-matte glazes.

Throughout every step, we maintain the handcrafted characteristics that make each piece distinctive — small variations in glaze and form that remind you something made by hand is in your hands.

Our finest dinnerware yet →

Materials

All Myrth ceramics are made from a durable porcelain clay fired to cone 5 in our electric kilns. We developed proprietary clay and glaze recipes that give our products their distinctive durability, surface quality, and depth of color. Our glazes are built from scratch through a rigorous process of color development, surface refinement, and durability testing — the resulting palette of earthy, textured shades is designed to complement your home seamlessly and age beautifully.

Learn more about our materials →

The art of glaze design at Myrth →