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Alexandra Vaga

@sourceandtradition

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Porcelain for extraordinary tables
From Michelin-starred restaurants to your home
Jean-Georges • Four Seasons • The Shinmonzen
Seasonal commissions

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Today is the Spring Lake Kitchen Tour and I’m so happy to have contributed!

Some of the work I’ve made over the past few years hasn’t appeared here because much of my dinnerware and tile work lives in private spaces. Kitchens, fireplaces and the homes of people whose lives are often very public but whose most meaningful moments happen away from view.

Today Alex Faherty and Kerry Docherty of @fahertybrand are opening their home for the tour and I’m delighted to finally share a little of what I’ve created for them!

From the handmade verdigris tile in their kitchen and fireplace surround to the porcelain dinnerware on their table this has been such a fun opportunity to bring two sides of my work together.

The tablescape draws from the colors and textures already living in their home. Verdigris, jade, deep greens, warm porcelain and touches of bronze, layered with woven textures and beautiful fall flowers by @lomefloraldesign

A special thank you to Kerry and Alex for welcoming my work into their home and to the entire @springlakekitchentour team for sharing it with the community today!

#sourceandtradition

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Kips Bay Decorator Show House Palm Beach @kbshowhouse is featuring a stunning interior by @colleenrosardesigns “Where Plans Get Cancelled” I am honored she chose to include my Porcelain Show Plates!

Some objects are designed to live in one place. These live in two. Installed on the walls at Kips Bay as art and used on the tables at Jean-Georges Restaurant in New York.

Functional art formed in thin porcelain, each piece is finished with a hand-applied gold rim. The pink glaze blooms naturally in the kiln and no two are identical.

I have always strived to create work that lives between categories where the wall becomes intimate and the table becomes a gallery. A limited number are available through my website and in our Charleston shop. Handmade in my coastal New Jersey studio.

#sourceandtradition #kipsbayshowhouse #porcelainart
Photo credit: images 1-4 @sargentphoto images 5-8 @christinalilly images 9-11 @jean_georgesnyc

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After a full decade, I have officially moved my kilns and equipment out of my Bay Head studio!

This space and this town gave me far more than a place to work. Bay Head gave me community, connection, and deep lifelong friendships. Looking back over a decade of photos, 2016–2020 were wild, creative, and free! 2021–2022 held some of my most cherished projects. 2023 tested me deeply, and 2025 threw every curveball imaginable. Every chapter shaped me, strengthened me, and clarified exactly what I want moving forward.

Thank you to the friends that stopped by just to say hello, neighbors who checked in during very late nights and long firings, collectors, chefs, and clients who trusted my hands and my vision for their table, studio assistants who showed up with patience, humor, strength, and heart.

And most importantly, thank you to my family and husband, who lived alongside the dust, the deadlines, the risk, and the joy of making.

Thank you all!!!

This chapter is closing because time is precious and life is shifting. My children are growing, my creative work is evolving, and I am choosing a season that allows more freedom, focus, and courage as we begin our next chapter between New Jersey and Charleston.

Over the next few months I will be building a private creative space and giving myself the gift of time. Time to create, to explore, and to find the right commercial home when it truly fits.

If there’s one thing this decade has taught me it’s that pursuing your dreams requires perseverance, faith, and a circle of people who believe alongside you! No one succeeds entirely alone. To everyone who supported me and this studio in big and small ways thank you! This decade was built on community, trust, and shared creativity.

Here’s to 11 years and to new beginnings!

#sourceandtradition #handmadeinbayhead

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Sharing photos from ten years ago, behind the scenes making for @goodfolksupperclub and a few other gems all from way back in 2015!

This afternoon and evening the studio will be closed to the public for Good Folk Supper Club 29 and it feels like another full-circle moment!!!

Ten years ago this very weekend, I created dishes for a Good Folk Supper Club dinner in Asbury Park. It was also my very first date with Shayne! The evening was photographed by Christina Lilly, who became a lifelong friend and an essential part of my visual branding. And it included Barnegat Oyster Collective, a connection still woven into my work and this community today.

A decade later, I’m closing this Bay Head chapter with another Good Folk dinner, this time held within my own studio walls. A final farewell inside the historic space that shaped so much of my creative life.

Tonight’s charity recipient is Operation Beachhead @opbeachhead_ an organization doing extraordinary work for veterans and individuals with disabilities.

Honored, grateful and really feeling this moment 🤍

Photos: early Instagram + @christinalilly

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The scallop shell is one of the oldest symbols of protection and safe passage. It appears throughout antiquity, in maritime traditions, and along pilgrimage routes as a marker of direction and return. A simple form that has carried meaning for centuries.

It has also been part of my studio vocabulary since the very beginning. I started sculpting porcelain scallop shells and adorning my pots with them in the 90s and they’ve quietly stayed with me through every collection from individual seashells, plates and platters to tea cup handles and branding.

Meredith of @beyondtheseaco (my very first Bay Head retail employee!) and I have been making these porcelain scallop necklaces together for several years now. What began as a fun studio collaboration has become one of my favorite extensions of this motif.

Each tiny porcelain shell is edged in 22k gold luster and hung from beadwork or a delicate chain, meant to be worn close to the heart and carrying the same symbolism that has lived in my work since the beginning.

The newest batch will be available this Friday at the Bay Head Christmas Walk and online next week.

#sourceandtradition #porcelainjewelry #bayhead #scallopsymbolism #handcrafted #beyondthesea
#shesellsporcelainseashells photos: @christinalilly

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‘Aloha’ by Shayne Boyle
45” x 34.5” | $5000
Custom lacquer frame

Shayne’s been painting nonstop and I’m doing my best to keep him busy and out of the construction zone of my new studio!

If you ever glimpsed his attic studio above mine over the past ten years, you know exactly what I mean. My husband is a prolific painter, surfer, and collector of boards + memorabilia and this painting is one of my favorites!

He’s now accepting commissions. Nautical, surf, pet or personal works. DM me to inquire.

#shayneboyle #silverfoxpaintingstudio #artistatsea #nauticalart #bayhead #surfart #coastalart #sourceandtradition #shipoffools
Art: @shaynedawg
Photos: @christinalilly

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This past May, I had the honor of creating porcelain seashells as guest favors and table accents for the Bermuda wedding of @chefnoahp and @georgina.poses Each piece was handmade in soft pinks, sea greens, and blues with 22k gold edges reflecting the island’s beauty and the couple’s own magical light!

From the joy-filled ceremony in the ruins of the Unfinished Church to the spectacular raw bar and wedding cake, it was a celebration brimming with beauty, love, and wild late nights!

Grateful to have shared it with my best friend Allison Feehan @integrativehealingandwellness and to see it all captured on film by my dear friend Christina Lilly @christinalilly This dream destination wedding is featured today on @loverly and on Christina’s site

Congratulations Noah & Georgina! You two are living your best life while marathon training and culinary adventuring across Southeast Asia! Follow their journey here! @joggingjournals

#bermudawedding #islandelegance #travelnow #bermuda #seainspiration #sourceandtradition #shesellsporcelainseashells #dowhatyoulove
Photos: @christinalilly

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Tomorrow I get to spend the day with one of my favorite humans! The wildly talented and endlessly generous @christinalilly. A true collaborator, creative force, partner in crime, and one of the greatest souls I know.

Since 2015, she has been the photographic eye behind every collection capturing thousands of pieces and countless moments with grace, creativity, and heart. She has styled, edited, and organized alongside me in ways that go far beyond photography, always offering the kind of wisdom that keeps both the work and the life around it in balance.

Tomorrow we’ll be closing the studio for the day to shoot the collection heading online next month. Christina inspires me endlessly, keeps up with my impossible timelines, and somehow makes the entire process feel like pure joy.

Forever grateful for you, Christina. 💙 #teamwork #collaborators #girlbosses #goldengirls

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“Surfing is attitude dancing” – Gerry Lopez ⚡️

Happy Birthday to my true love @shaynedawg If surfing is attitude dancing then Shayne is the life of the party!

Ten years ago you walked into my studio and never left! Six years ago we married at sea, and since then it’s been waves, canvases, clay and endless laughter.

Your bottom turn is epic, your paintings sublime, your appetite for food + life is unmatched! You carry a heart of gold, a style all your own, and a light that cuts through every season.

This year’s been one hell of a wave but if anyone knows how to hold a line, it’s you. Here’s to another lap around the sun: surfing, dancing, and making me laugh harder than anyone else.

Forever my silver surfer + color muse!

Swipe to the last pic for the day Shayne walked into my shop… and never left. I love you @shaynedawg 🌈⚡️🌊

#shaynedawg #silverfoxpaintingstudio #howsyourbottomturn #houseboatpirate #gramercypirate #surfart #surfartist

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Completely sold out by 10:30
I’m still wrapping my head around it! Deeply grateful for every single person who showed up, supported, and carried these pieces into your homes. Your encouragement fuels the work I love most. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. 💙 #sourceandtradition

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✨ Seconds + Sample SALE ✨
Saturday, August 30, 2026
9am–3pm

For more than a decade, my Bay Head studio has been a place of clay, color, and community. It’s where so many of you first collected pieces and where countless ceramics + paintings have been born. This may be our final sale in this space, so we’re sending it off the only way we know how with a big, joyful clear-out.

Once a year we empty the shelves and by “we,” I mean me (the minimalist) and @shaynedawg (the collector)

I’ve always found joy in sending my work out into the world, while Shayne would happily live surrounded by every painting he’s ever made. This is the one day of the year we meet in the middle and this time it’s also a goodbye to Bay Head as we’ve known it!

📍 Source & Tradition
524 Lake Ave, Bay Head, NJ
9am–3pm

Hope to see you there!

#SALE #ceramics #porcelain #pottery #painting #handmadeinbayhead #sourceandtradition #shaynedawg #bayhead #bayheadnj
Photo: @christinalilly

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Thank you all for the incredible love and encouragement on my last post!!! Every message and comment has meant so much. I feel deeply supported by this community 💙

My separation of production and retail is still very much in the planning stage, and with so many moving pieces it will take time to unfold. Don’t worry I’m not going anywhere quickly! I’m simply a planner at heart. We’re slowly working through the details, and I’ll share more when the moment feels right. For now, my focus remains on the studio and the work I love most.

And on that note, I’d love to see you this weekend for our Labor Day Seconds Sale!!!

📍 Source & Tradition
524 Lake Avenue, Bay Head, NJ 08742

📅 Saturday, August 30th

⏰ 9 AM – 3 PM

This tradition has become one of my favorites. It’s a chance to discover pieces with a little extra character at deep discounts and a great time to place your holiday tableware orders. I can’t wait to see so many of you there!

#sourceandtradition #handmadeinbayhead #sale

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