Designer: Emma Bossons

Since her last visit to South Africa, Emma Bossons FRSA remains entranced with the huge diversity of wildlife to be found within its boundaries. Not all birds are beautiful. Emma knows that, but when she studies them, it is other features which emerge and catch the designer's imagination. If all birds were pretty birds, the world would be a very dull place. It is much the same with human beings. The head of an eagle can be cruel, but if you only look at an eagle in that way, you are blind to its strength, its almost regal flight patterns and the sheer elegance of its shape. Emma is enthusiastic, and so she should be. Strange Company is a design which features three very special birds. In the top layer of her design, Emma has placed the rare Grey Crowned Crane with, (despite its name) a golden crest which resembles a fan.

In the middle layer of the design stands a Grey Heron which tends to be at its most active at dawn and dusk. The third bird is a Secretarybird which also has a crest made up of quill-like feathers hence the name. Strange Company is a South African picture of birds at sunset. To do full justice to the subject matter of her sign, Emma has designed both a vase and a charger. In reality, the birds in Strange Company would never be found together hence the name of the design. There is a different design purpose, and that is to embrace in a single image three remarkable birds. Each one of which is virtually unique. Distant places on the other side of the world are real places, but they do not readily identify with the more comfortable world of the Northern hemisphere. Strange Company is held together, not so much by the birds, but by the landscape at sunset in which they live.