Palai

Home and decor
Written By Ben Lange

Feels like home, from coast to coast

CANDLESSCULPTED VESSELSHOME

A lit candle in a sculpted vessel shaped like a ring of snow-capped peaks, burning on a timber mantel with a fireplace to one side

Palai, said pah-lai, is Yuliia and her family. They came to Canada in 2023, away from the war in Ukraine, and settled in Nanaimo, where their son Theodore was born. She describes the work as their way of saying thank you to the place that took them in.

The vessels are sculpted by hand in gypsum and poured with soy wax. Mountains under snow, a breaking wave picked out in gold, a humpback with a small iceberg for a lid. Wooden wicks throughout. She makes jewellery trays as well.

When the candle is finished the vessel is not. Wipe it out and it becomes a planter or a box for small things, which is rather the point of making them this way.

At a glance

MAKES
Hand-sculpted gypsum vessels poured with soy wax, in mountain, wave and whale forms, plus jewellery trays
GOOD TO KNOW
Once the candle is finished the vessel wipes clean and becomes a planter or a keepsake box
BEYOND THE MARKET
Her shop at palai.shop
BASED IN
Nanaimo, BC
A candle in a white humpback whale vessel with a wooden wick, its lid sculpted as a small iceberg and set down beside it A round candle vessel carved with snowy peaks above a band of deep blue, standing on a concrete ledge A candle vessel sculpted as a breaking wave in white with gold leaf along the crest, set in pale sand The whale candle on a desk in daylight, water and mountains through the window behind it

Find Palai at the market

November 27 and 28 at Wellington Hall, Nanaimo. Friday 11AM–8PM, Saturday 10AM–6PM. No Sunday this year.

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Visit her shop

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Ben Lange https://benlange.ca
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