Assignment One: The Meal

I was inspired by Peter Biddulph use of an iron and cobolt tenmoku glaze and his unique slightly triangular shapes. I love the way the glazes make this beautiful black color that is very clean and classic. I was also inspired by Eva Kwong for her use of carved slip glazing. I found her plates so interesting and would really like to experiment with something similar in my pieces. Lastly, I was inspired by Deborah Schwartzkopf and her triangular plates and odd shaped bowls.

My meal is a sushi dinner, consisting of a ginger salad, a sushi roll, mochi ice cream, and sake. I intend to make salad bowls, dinner plates, soy sauce trays, a dessert tray/bowl, sake cups with a sake jar a tray for the sake set and probably a rice bowl. I want the dinner set to kind of be a modern but still inspired by traditional Japanese dining sets. I am still in the process of figuring out exactly what I am going to do for certain aspects of the project, but I think I have some good ideas, I can't wait to discuss them to see what advice I can get from others.

Peter Biddulph

 Eva Kwong

 Deborah Schwartzkopf

Here are some of my horrible sketches...

When researching this assignment I looked a lot at Hayne Bayless' work. I really love the non-circular shapes of a lot of his work. I like the corners while still being able to not be perfect geometric shapes.






  

For my designs I think I would like to have square shaped dinnerware with a similar bowl to those pictured above, for my tumblers I was thinking it would look nice if I transitioned to a square at the bottom and the lip at the top would be a circle, also possibly thinking about a pyramid shape. The only problem with that would be making sure it didn't turn out too bottom heavy, it might be difficult to drink out of if the bottom ends up too large.

Sketches- I am pretty set on utilizing slump forming to create my place settings. I have not yet sketched a design for each price but have general ideas, that will have a cohesive element present in each price of the place setting.- this is a follow up post to my earlier post where I did not include photos of my sketches.

Assignment 1- The Meal

For this assignment I was inspired by Courtney Murphy's work. I love the imperfect shapes of her pieces, as well as the simplicity in color scheme and organic designs.

I intend for my dinner plates to be a sort of oval/ bean shape, salad plates to be rounded triangles, and small dessert plates to be rounded squares. I like how Courtney's bowl (above) has sort of a cylindrical shape rather than a typical rounded bowl, so I'd like to do something similar with the shape of mine, and an elongated, slimmer version of that for the tumblers. The serving plates, I'm thinking should each be similar to the dinner, salad and dessert plates, and possibly with handles. I'd like to keep all of these dishes the natural white color of the clay, with a clear glaze. I will do design work in light colored slips and underglazes, including the insides of the bowls and tumblers, and outer rims of the other dishes. Probably a peach color for that. Overall, I want my pieces to be simple enough not to distract from the food, yet interesting enough to draw some attention and add an extra element to the meal. 

Assignment One- The Meal

For this assignment I looked at the work of Linda Arbuckle and was inspired by her use of rounded rectangles in her serving trays and plates. I also enjoyed the use of natural organic shapes and iconology.

For my work on this assignment I included both of these elements and gave it my own style. I used an oak leaf as a motif and will also paint accent streaks in underglaze. I will use white slip over the pieces and use an imprint of an oak leaf which I will then go in and add underglaze to create a more vibrant piece. 

The Meal

When I began thinking about this project I wanted to keep in mind functionality, as well as sculptural components, since I am more of a sculptor than a potter. I also have a great deal of interest in the human body. My way of incorporating function, sculpture and a message into this project is to center my pieces around the senses that you use when you are eating. For instance, making a salad bowl with teeth to portray the crunch of romaine, or a popcorn bowl with a hand inside to demonstrate the tactile quality of popcorn. I was inspired by Rimas VisGirda's head teapots and Eva Kwong's surface treatments. 

Eva Kwong

Rimas VisGirda

Assignment 1 - The Meal

After researching for a bit I found artist, Victoria Christen. Her set of dishes stood out because of their unusual organic shape and semi bright underglaze. I think that the shape of the dishes pushes the boundary of expected shapes for plates and bowls. Then I found, Elaine Buss, I really enjoy her tumblers made using a red clay with white slip and underglaze.

For the meal, I was thinking of making a Mexican feast including chips and salsa/guacamole, tortilla soup, enchiladas, chiros and margaritas. Overall, I am interested in making place settings that have a unique shape either rounded rectangles or just completely organic shapes.