That question came from Mary. A few others arrived the same week. People asking how to get Ascend. How to get on a list. There was no list.
Until now, Ascend has only ever been given. Privately. One at a time. To the people who have lived with our work the longest.
The figure is not for sale. Each takes eighty-eight dollars to cast and finish. We carry the cost ourselves.
Manuela made Ascend for her own mother. The woman who raised her alone, on coffee in the morning and lights left on and dinners kept warm. Of all the weeks in the year, this is the one where the piece belongs in someone else’s box.
From Friday May 9 to Monday May 11, the first 200 orders over $100 each include a free Ascend, placed by hand into the box. No discount code. No extra step at checkout.
Phone subscribers (below) get the shop link at 9am NY. Email follows at 9pm — 12 hours later. The 200 free Ascend gifts may be gone before email goes out.
Manuela has called her childhood chaotic. The pieces she makes now are her quiet answer to that.
Strict forms. Few details. Every line resolved before it begins. Minimalism for her is not a style. It is a way of setting the room straight when the room used to feel loud.
Ascend was made this way. A small girl, a single red heart, a slow reach upward. Nothing extra. The piece does not demand attention. It rewards it.
Mantel
Vanity
Reading nook
Bedside
Manuela trained as an architect. The schools that shaped her were Rationalist and Modernist. Two traditions that taught her to value clear geometry, function over decoration, and the discipline of leaving things out.
When she works, she begins by hand. A sketch on paper to test instinct. Then she opens software to study proportion, weight, the way a shadow will fall at noon and at four. Only then does she pick up tape and rulers. That last step is the longest. She measures, marks, and re-measures, the obsessive arithmetic that turns an instinct into an object you can hold.
This is the discipline that lets her translate. A graffiti is flat. It lives in two dimensions on a public wall. To bring that same idea into a small private home, she has to think in mass and in shadow.
Banksy painted Girl with Balloon onto walls. Flat. Public. Anonymous. Ascend is the same yearning rendered in three dimensions, in matte resin, sized for a hand.
Banksy's Girl with Balloon is best understood through semiotics, the study of signs founded in the early twentieth century by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure and developed in parallel by the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce. Their core idea is simple. Every sign has a visible form, the signifier, and a hidden meaning, the signified. A red heart is the signifier. Love, longing, and the human heart itself are the signified. Read this way, Girl with Balloon is not only a painting. It is a visual text built from three signs that work together.
First, the girl. Banksy paints her as a black stencil with no facial detail. Saussure would call this a deliberate erasure. By stripping away individual features, Banksy turns the child into what the psychologist Carl Jung called an archetype, a universal figure that stands for all of us. She is not one girl. She is every child reaching for something they may not get to keep. Her outstretched arm carries a double meaning at once, caught between the act of holding on and the moment of letting go.
Second, the red heart balloon. It is the only spot of vivid color in the whole composition, which makes it the visual anchor of the piece. In semiotic terms it is the dominant signifier. What it stands for, the signified, is love, the pure dream, and the longing for a future not yet arrived. Banksy chose a balloon, the most fragile object he could find, suspended in air and one breath away from bursting. The fragility is the point. Human longing is precarious in a harsh world, yet the balloon still rises. The message is that one is never permitted to surrender hope.
Third, the invisible wind. Banksy never draws the wind, yet you read it everywhere, in the angle of the balloon, in the lifted hair of the girl, in the distance opening between her hand and the heart. Peirce would call this an indexical sign, a meaning that is pointed to rather than shown. The wind stands for the relentless current of time, for the unseen social pressures, for the larger forces that sweep away the small dreams of those at the edge of society.
Ascend reads each of these signs in three dimensions. The girl is still anonymous. The reach still holds. The balloon does not leave. The wind moves only through the cast shadow on the surface where Ascend rests.
This is a community gift, not for sale.
Ascend is given by hand to anyone whose order this Mother's Day weekend passes a hundred dollars. The pieces below are how she travels.
A Study in Hope and Gravity
There are objects we acquire to fill a room, and there are objects we invite into our homes to anchor our minds. At The Soft Minimal, we believe that true luxury is not found in accumulation, but in the quiet resonance of the things we choose to keep.
Ascend is not a product in our catalog. It is a shared artifact, a physical manifestation of our philosophy, created exclusively to be gifted to those who understand the language of quiet spaces.
In the autumn of 2002, an anonymous artist known as Banksy left a simple image on a cold brick wall in London. It was a girl reaching for a red balloon. The message was essential and raw, whispering that there is always hope.
Years later, the moment this image was auctioned at Sotheby's, a hidden mechanism shredded the canvas. It was a poetic rebellion, a statement that true art cannot be contained or commodified. Out of deep reverence for this philosophy, we resolved that Ascend would never carry a retail price. We took this symbol of defiance and translated it into a three-dimensional form for the home, preserving its soul while shifting its context from the street to the sanctuary.
Ascend is a poem written in solid form. It speaks of the delicate balance between holding on and letting go.
The Red Balloon: Rising above the monochromatic figure, the heart is a visual pulse. It represents the lightness of our ideals and the fragility of our dreams. It suggests that the things we cherish most are often the most delicate.
The Upward Reach: The figure of the girl, caught in a permanent state of reaching, embodies the human spirit. Her posture is an architectural study of resilience. She is the quiet strength required to continually reach for something better, even when the world feels heavy.
The Space Between: The few millimeters of empty air between the hand and the string hold the true weight of the sculpture. In this void lies a profound question. Has she just released the balloon, or is she trying to catch it? This intentional ambiguity invites endless contemplation. It reminds us that meaning is found in the reaching itself.
In the Soft Minimal tradition, an object must engage the senses. It must feel as grounded as it looks.
Ascend is cast from premium structural resin, giving it a reassuring physical weight that contrasts with its visual lightness. We deliberately chose a matte finish to absorb the ambient light of your room, allowing the sculpture to cast soft, elongated shadows that shift as the day passes. Available in Jet Black for a striking architectural presence or Pure White for an ethereal calm, it acts as a quiet focal point in any room.
Because hope belongs to everyone, Ascend is not for sale.
Bringing this sculpture from a concept into a tactile reality requires exactly $48 in raw materials, mold crafting, and artisanal labor. We choose to absorb this cost entirely. We do not value the artwork at this number. We simply view it as the physical cost of sharing a meaningful idea.
Ascend is our quiet welcome to you as you step into the world of The Soft Minimal. However, to preserve its significance, it remains a temporary offering. At a certain point in time, the molds will be retired, and the piece will belong only to those who were here to receive it.
How to invite Ascend into your home: We offer this single, limited piece as a companion for your journey with us.
Let this sculpture sit on your desk or your bedside table. Let it be a daily, silent reminder that no matter how heavy the world feels, the human spirit is designed to rise.
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A small figure cast in white resin. A stone base. The right hand holds a heart.
In 2002, Banksy stencilled a girl on a wall in London. A girl reaches for a balloon shaped like a heart. The balloon is leaving her. He called the work “Girl with Balloon.” It travelled. People framed prints of it under the words “follow your heart” - which is the opposite of what was being said. In 2018, at a Sotheby’s auction, the painting shredded itself the moment it sold. The heart is leaving. That is the point.
The image stayed with me long before I had a studio of my own.
When I started this studio, the first piece I made was a quiet response to it. Not a redrawing. Not a “version.” Out of respect for what is his, I did not change his composition. The same small figure. The same posture. The same red heart. I only made it tangible - cast in resin, set on stone, finished by hand - and added one small thought of my own.
In mine, the heart does not leave.
That is the only line I crossed. The hand stays closed. The heart stays in the palm. The figure rises with it, rather than after it. I called the piece Ascend.
It is the only object in this studio I will not sell.
The composition is not mine to put a price on. The cultural weight of that image belongs to Banksy. What I made is a gesture, and gestures are kept by the hand that made them. To put it behind a price would unmake it.
Each Ascend takes eighty-eight dollars in materials and hours - the resin, the stone, the small red, the finishing. I carry that cost myself. It is part of what the piece is.
A few times a year, quietly, I send Ascend to the people who have lived with our work the longest. Not by lottery. Not by spend. By time. The collectors who came back for a second piece, then a third. The ones who let our objects do their slow work in their rooms.
This is how a small studio says thank you. Not with a discount code. Not with a loyalty tier. With the one piece it does not sell.
This Mother’s Day weekend, I am widening that small circle for one moment. The first 200 orders over $100 will each receive an Ascend, placed by hand into the box. After that, the piece returns to its quiet life - reserved for the long-term collectors of The Soft Minimal, on a few occasions a year.
If one finds you, it is because I trust the room you will keep it in.
Manuela
My father was never in my life. My mother raised me on her own, in a small apartment that always smelled like coffee in the morning. That is why I love her the way I do.
Some children grow up with two parents and learn to choose between them. I had one. She was enough.
Mother’s Day, for me, has never been about flowers or cards. It has been about the small things she did when no one was watching. The lights left on. The food kept warm. The space she made for me when I was learning to design, and failing, and unsure.
It is also the week of the year that reminds me why I made Ascend in the first place. The piece is in the section above this one - the small figure with the heart that does not leave. I will not retell its story here. I will only say that I made it for the people who stay when staying is hard.
This Mother’s Day weekend, we are giving Ascend to the first 200 orders over $100. Not as a thank you, not as a marketing gesture. Just a small object you did not have to ask for, placed quietly into your box.
If you do choose something, I will pack it myself.
Manuela
Mix any two or more pieces from the shop. Each bundle earns 5%, 8%, or 12% off - we pick the number when you reach the cart. Cross $100 and a free Ascend joins your order, placed by hand into your box.
The pair that arrives most often in our shipments. One reaches up. One stays grounded. Across the room, they speak without speaking.
Placed on the same table, they begin to share gravity. Two figures and an inch of light between them.
The arrangement that customers reach for when building a small set for someone they love. Watch, lift, carry.
Place an order over $100 between Saturday May 9 and Monday May 11. We place Ascend in your box by hand. It is small. Do not skip past it when you unbox.
No. The piece is a tribute to Banksy’s girl with a balloon. Selling it would not be right. Each costs eighty-eight dollars to make. We cover that. The qualifying threshold is the only way it travels.
No. Mother’s Day falls Sunday May 10. We are not promising delivery by then. This is a Mother’s Day weekend gesture, not a Mother’s Day delivery. Standard shipping applies.
Add a small piece to cross the threshold. Or leave it. The gift waits for next time.
Yes. Anywhere we ship, the gift travels. International orders take longer than US - usually a week more, sometimes two.
There is. We rotate between the two. Whichever is closest to the studio door on the day we pack your order travels with it.
The Cherub at the threshold. The Echo reverberating quietly behind her.
Elevate raises her balloon at the morning. The Echo holds the silence afterward. A pair for a high room, a tall window.
For the shelf or windowsill that needs a small grouping. A figure walking. A small symbol. A vegetal stillness.
Any single sculpture over $100 qualifies. Choose your size or color, add to cart. We place Ascend in your box by hand.
The figure that watches.
Lifted by morning.
Glass that holds the light.
Quiet that returns.
