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Unconventional beginnings: Andrew Carvolth’s AP Souvenir

Andrew Carvolth

 

The granular, highly textured surface of designer Andrew Carvolth’s AP Souvenir candle holder speaks to both its materiality and its making. As he puts it, it’s ‘a snapshot of my hands carving and sculpting, captured in aluminium’. 

Carvolth is based in Adelaide, and his work shows an interest in blending traditional craft and manufacturing techniques with experimentation through the testing of new materials and processes. The AP Souvenir candle holder reflects these concerns, but in a more compact size than is typical for Carvolth. This is design to take home or gift to someone. 


AP Souvenir in-store
AP Souvenir in-store (Image credit: Michael Pham)
‘It’s a slight rewinding of a familiar object, putting character back into the ordinary,’ says Carvolth. 

He is drawn to working with cast aluminium from growing up around—car parts, utensils and machines, ‘As a designer-maker the process translates from the hand so well and It’s an infinitely recyclable material’. 

The object has an unconventional beginning. Carvolth’s process starts with a piece of recycled polystyrene, typically discarded, which he works into the form that the candle holder will eventually take. He buries this transmogrified waste in a sand mould, before pouring in a molten recycled aluminium mixture. The polystyrene is vaporized, the liquid aluminium taking its place before solidifying into the holder’s final form. 

 Andrew pouring the liquid aluminium into moulds (Image credit: Andrew Carvolth)

Think of aluminium and you likely see polished consumer electronics or drink cans. This idiosyncratic object is far from that—its rough-hewn texture draws attention to its making and its singularity as a bespoke object. It’s not a commodity on a production line of thousands. 

The last detail to draw a distinction from a machined outcome is Carvolth’s initials, carved out of the bottom of the holder, a literal maker’s mark. 

AP Souvenir's formation
AP Souvenir's formation (Image credit: Andrew Carvolth)


About Souvenir 

Souvenir is a collection of meaningful, functional and affordable objects by Australian designers and craftspeople.

Commissioned by Friends & Associates and hosted by specialist architecture and design bookstore Bookshop by Uro, each artefact encapsulates the current fascinations and preoccupations of its designer in a compact, collectible form.

Click here to see the full collection.
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