Every ceramic piece at Ariela Nomi Kuh’s Portland, Maine–based ANK Studios is hand-carved, so each one is ever so slightly different from the rest. That time-intensive process generates especially stunning menorahs, in curvy, abstract designs that Kuh creates each year (you can see an archive of past designs here). As is true of most coveted objets d’art, however, this attention to detail also means the menorahs can be hard to come by. Kuh drops several designs throughout the holiday season, and you can keep track of them on Instagram. But if you can’t find one immediately available for shipping, you can pre-order a menorah and wait the few weeks it takes for Kuh to form, dry, fire, and glaze it. The menorahs come in three finishes: a smooth cobalt blue and a textured warm white or pale blue gray. The textured glazes have a rough, pumice-like finish, which makes scraping off candle wax a bit tricky. To melt the wax, we recommend running the menorah under hot water, or you can freeze the menorah and then chip off the wax.
