Studio Vlock

My pieces are designed to inspire storytelling and to act as a magnet for communal gatherings.

05/14/2026

Slow Luxury is not a price point. It is a pace.

It begins long before the steel is cut: in a sketchbook, in a landscape, in the patient act of really looking at a place before deciding what it needs.

For years I’ve been exploring this through functional fine art: a Fireball rooted in the ecology of an island, a screen that tells the story of a desert landscape, a gate that marks arrival with intention. Each piece conceived as part of a place, rather than simply placed within it.

It doesn’t announce itself. It orients. It doesn’t compete with the architecture or landscape. It deepens them.

When an object carries the story of a place, it becomes part of how guests experience it, and part of what they take with them long after they leave.

Slow luxury, for me, lives in these quiet details.

05/07/2026

A patio heater is one of the most utilitarian objects in outdoor design. Functional. Forgettable. Invisible.

The Fire Cylinder begin there, and end somewhere else entirely.

A dining terrace. A pool deck. A garden lounge. Wherever guests gather outdoors, it creates a vertical presence that defines the space and animates it with light and shadow.

By day, a quiet graphic form. By night, fire within brings the imagery to life.

A patio heater becomes a Fire Cylinder. This is what repurposing looks like when it’s treated with the same care as sculpture.

05/01/2026

This November, South Caicos becomes our studio.

I’ll be leading The Art of Connection — an intimate sketching and photography retreat at Salterra Resort & Spa in Turks and Caicos, together with photographer Rocco Ceselin.

Four days. Open skies. Salt flats. Flamingo habitats. Crystalline seascapes.

We begin at dusk around the Fireball I designed for Salterra, a sculpture born from sketchbook studies of this same landscape. It feels like the right place to start.

No prior experience needed. Only curiosity and a willingness to slow down.

10–12 participants. Spots are limited. November 11–14, 2026 — Salterra Resort & Spa, South Caicos.

For reservations: [email protected] | +1 (649) 333-5368

04/21/2026

Fire screens can do more than guard a fire. They can hold a landscape.

These two Fire Screens tell stories rooted in the coastal world: one beneath the surface, one above it.

‘Turtle Play’ captures the underwater world of Bermuda - sea turtles weaving through seagrass beds, with seahorses, sand dollars, and jellyfish sharing the same luminous water garden. Commissioned as a pair of companion screens, each panel frames a different moment below the surface.

‘Blue Heron Bliss’ brings the quiet of the shoreline indoors. Blue herons move through reeds and water, animating a fieldstone fireplace in a great room that looks over gardens and the Falmouth Oyster Pond, a room at the heart of family life, celebrations, and slow evenings by the fire.

Two screens. Two coastlines. The same belief, that a hearth can hold more than fire. Even when the flames are out, the story remains.

04/15/2026

Maritime Magic at Treehouse Lodge.

This Fireball was conceived as a small ocean world – part real, part imagined. Wide‑eyed fish, seabirds, curling waves, anchors, horseshoe crabs and a giant octopus all surface in the cut steel as the firelight moves.

The Atlantic Horseshoe Crab is a special feature of this Fireball. These incredibly strange marine animals — often called ‘living fossils’ — are vital to the research in Woods Hole where they have been studied for decades at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL).

At Treehouse Lodge in Woods Hole, this maritime sphere feels as if it has washed ashore and settled into the garden, becoming the place where guests gather for s’mores, stories and long evenings by the fire.

As functional fine art, it folds the maritime culture and creatures of Woods Hole into the guest experience – supporting the unique character of this retro‑chic motor lodge.

“It simply transformed the garden space.” – Beth C**t, owner, Treehouse Lodge

04/10/2026

Small screens, quiet stories.

These table screens are designed as multi-functional pieces, for indoor or outdoor settings, with candlelight or firelight turning the cut metal into moving shadow.
Blue Heron Bliss traces the stillness of water and the patient presence of the heron, while Horse Play celebrates a client’s love of all things equine through a field of playful, layered silhouettes.

Placed on a table, in front of a fire, wherever your heart desires, they invite a slower way of looking. And of gathering.
Which one would you place in your favourite room?

04/02/2026

There is something ancient about gathering around fire.
It slows us down. It draws us closer. It turns a space into a place, and strangers into people who share a moment.

These are not staged scenes. This is what happens when a Fireball is lit: people stop, sit, talk, and stay longer than they planned.

In a world that moves fast, fire still knows how to make time stand still.

04/01/2026

The Ruin Venue, Joshua Tree.

When Pioneertown neighbors gathered under desert stars for the inaugural lighting of the Desert Dreams Fireball, the landscape itself told the story: sculpted rock, cactus flowers, hummingbirds, soaring eagles, jack rabbits under an endless sky.

Both venue and Fireball have been repurposed and reimagined. Together they became something more: a place for food, wine, dancing, and even impromptu a ca****la under the stars.

This is what fire does. It doesn’t just illuminate a space. It calls people to it.

When fire becomes the night’s memory.

03/27/2026

Harvest Moon at Auberge du Soleil

For a time, my Harvest Moon Fireball lived among the olive trees at Auberge du Soleil in Napa Valley, a place where quiet luxury, landscape, and architecture are already in perfect conversation.

Conceived as functional fine art, the Fireball, repurposed from a vintage steel mooring buoy, became a natural focal point for evening gatherings and quiet moments after the spa. Its imagery echoes the geometry of the vineyards, but also the hidden life that animates the valley: butterflies, bees, field mice, ladybugs, a watchful owl under a starry sky.

I love when a piece can hold both: the elegance of a setting and the small, secret stories of the landscape.

03/24/2026

Salterra Resort + Spa: a Fireball shaped by the story of a place.

South Caicos is more than a destination. It carries a story of resilience: indigenous culture, fragile ecology, and a deep connection between land, sea, and community.

The design began with close attention to the island’s identity and the importance of sharing that visual narrative with Salterra’s guests.
Every element featured, from native Taíno references, the salt industry, local flora, fauna and marine life was chosen with intention.

More than a gathering point, this Fireball invites guests into a deeper relationship with the place itself.

Art with purpose.
Place with meaning.

03/20/2026

The fireplace has long anchored a room. While the fire within draws us together, it is rarely seen for what it also is: a blank canvas for creative expression.

‘Maritime Magic’ Fire Screen was designed for a home overlooking Long Island Sound, where the interior and the shoreline beyond share the same story.

The cut steel imagery carries the same playful narrative as the companion Fireball outside: coastal life, movement, the language of the sea. Indoors, it becomes the focal point of the great room, present whether the fire is lit or not.

This is what a Fire Screen can do: transform a functional element into signature artwork. Something that holds the room.

Address

Santa Barbara, CA
93101–93103, 93105–93111, 93116–93118, 93120–93121, 93130, 93140, 93150,

Website

http://www.studiovlock.com/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Studio Vlock posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Want your business to be the top-listed Interior Service in Santa Barbara?