Moving forward/response to first assessment.
Seeing all the work together offered points of reference that could be expanded upon moving forward. Need to reengage with the narrative, anecdotal and formal: pinpoint exactly what they are and what sorry I want to tell? Make: explore the potential of working towards more predetermined designs and collaging with objects (working from casts) as well as surface. Further experiments with porcelain for more spontaneous builds.
Initial plan
Pottery stamp. I want to stamp my work moving forward as a motivation to focus a little more on ‘finish’.
Finish glazing slab pots and plates: serve as test tiles and help inform development.
Go through work up to date and review what could be useful moving forward to inform this project.
Further engage with the research; the difference between formal and anecdotal/everyday application.
Designs to work towards; could be interconnecting or separate. A full tea set or dinner set, also the potential to develop the figurative element.
Construct from designs.
Cast a selection of everyday objects/forms so they can be incorporated into structures.
Explore the potential of working with porcelain/text/image. Potential to include the cast collages and responding more immediately.
Continue to develop drawing, printmaking, and text.
Design for makers stamp. I've always signed my work Kim Judson Stuttard or KJS so just produced a simple design that incorporated this, with the J and C interacting as a nod to a silhouette of a vessel.
Initial Contextual Research
Marek Cecula
Marek Cecula: Porcelain Carpet and Fragmented Teapot. Design background obviously informs his minimal aesthetic. Interesting how he redefines domestic objects through deconstruction and reappropriation. They are both strong sculptural pieces by very much anchored in everyday objects, the carpet draper from the wall almost defies the ridged material from which it’s constructed.
Charlotte Hodes
Contextually I’m interested in this work, with the artist intentions to address both the representation of women and the domestic sphere and employ “alternative” fine art practices that counter the hierarchical systems that elevate certain materials above others.
“The work is also a celebration of domestic sphere and how this can be used as a space for re-enactment. It aims to reveal my preoccupation, as a fine artist, with the decorative arts and use of the value of hand craft process. It is my first 'wall' installation of ceramics which serves as an equivalent to a painting on canvas. It is significant as an exemplar of the way that boundaries of craft practice are increasingly porous, drawing from other disciplines including fine art practice.” (Hodes, 2017)
Aesthetically, I really like how the surface merges from one plate to another, the qualities of collage that are captured, the undulation and rhythm employed in the positioning of the plates and how the boundaries are defined as the pattern ends but the form continues.
Hodes, C. (2017) Remember Me: Charlotte Hodes Papercuts & Ceramics. Available at: https://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/id/eprint/11021/(Accessed: 11 June 2024)
Hylton Nel
The Plate is What I Have to Say, an exhibition title that perfectly sums up this work. An artistic endeavour that records the artists response to the changing world in the form of a visual and literary diary immortalised on ceramics. It is satirical, funny, conversational, approachable and rich. I love the immediacy, the humour and the humanity of this work in its elevation of the everyday to commemorative worthy event.
Ole Lislerud
Gestural, immediate mark making that is perfectly translated into ceramics. Recuring theme is language, writing and symbolism to explore identity both within an historical and contemporary context. Several of these examples are installed at the Supreme Court in Oslo, they incorporate:
“The Norwegian Constitution, the Penal Code as well as the old Viking Laws, are inscribed on the tile surface of the walls. The fundamentals of the social democratic society are etched into the arch an archaic reverse handwriting.” (Lislerud, 1994)
Stephen Dixon
Renowned for his political satire articulated through the combinations of layered printed image and text. His story telling and surface treatments are obviously an inspiration, but I also have an affinity with the fluidity and spontaneity of his slab building methods. There is an apparent freshness and simplicity, that perfectly houses his visual testimonies.
Michael Geertsen
The deconstructed and reconstructed forms. You can recognise elements from traditional ceramics, but they are altered through a process that seems focused on a sense of balance and rhythm. Of his work Geertsen states it is a reminder of “the beauty in disharmony and how old things can lead to new, if we change our perspective.” (Geertsen, 2013). This resonates for me as a collaging process, but instead of paper, 3D forms are dissected and reconfigured.
Adrian Saxe
Saxe uses a platform anchored in the traditions of ceramics and informed by a Rococo aesthetic, his work is playful, humorous and obviously beautifully made. The work appears to involve a merging together of disparate parts, exaggerated with the application of contrary surfaces, as the gold opulently decorative form is juxtaposed with a brutal grey jagged slab. This again is a sort of collaging process or using a myriad of reference points to give meaning in our post-modern world.
Paul Scott
Renowned for his adaptation of traditional blue and white pottery to stage a contemporary narrative, Scott relates to my practice in several ways (many explored in my previous essay submission). I appreciate his utilisation of historical artefacts as both metaphor and canvas to overlay his social and political commentary, his use of the everyday domestic object, elevated to ‘art’ outcome and the subtle aesthetic that binds all his work. These examples included are here due to their adherence to collaging principles.
Narratives: potential stories to tell connected to the overarching theme of tableware, dining, and table manners:
Systems Etiquette and Rituals:
Could involve historical examples as well as contemporary behaviours that have been maintained: instructions, mapping, rules, piece that physically guides the user, overtly elaborate delivery systems.
Personal Experiences and Anecdotes:
Family life, reminisce, sentimentality, abuse, pressure cooker, controlled conduct, tension for some celebration for others: text and illustration to accompany individual stories, look through and pinpoint common factors and explore these. Family structures: how have these changed?
Class Difference:
Formal and informal, opulent, and functional, accessible, and exclusive, dichotomy: potential to explore visually the notion and energy of opposites.
Domesticity:
Aspirational consumption, gadgets: Valium (mother’s little helpers), house proud, ostentatious, intrinsic link between individual and objects they possess/can afford to consume. Ecological issues, disposability. Changing role of women within the domestic sphere.
Assessment feedback/guidance moving forward:
Body of Work
Making work with a clear objective rather than the clay collage approach and hone and refine making skills.
Learning Agreement & Reflective Journal
Learning Agreement: avoid repetition, include some quotes or examples of other artists/ makers to give context to the work.
Sketchbook: needs more supporting annotation/evaluation: potential to use a notebook that runs alongside for capturing this information.
Blog: would benefit from deeper reflection on contextual sources in relation to own practice.
Narrative Development: What story to tell?
Systems Etiquette and Rituals: Could involve historical examples as well as contemporary behaviours that have been maintained: instructions, mapping, rules, piece that physically guides the user, overtly elaborate delivery systems.
Visual information systems such as flow charts and scientific diagrams. These relate to the human need to organise and categorise, to both understand our environment and our place within it. These offer potential visual system to explore the etiquette and rituals of formal dining. Maps: interlink, position, direct and connect. Scientific equipment has similar connotations to formal tableware in that ever piece has a specific function, also the clinical aspect offers a metaphor for a cleansing process relating to notions of ‘control’ and ‘civilising’. The dance instructional sheets again give structure and guidance to what is a base, primitive human response. Overview: mapping behaviour so it complies with ‘norms’ of particular social groups, this both restricts and protects. You belong but only as you comply.
Personal Experiences and Anecdotes: Family life, reminisce, sentimentality, abuse, pressure cooker, controlled conduct, tension for some celebration for others: text and illustration to accompany individual stories, look through and pinpoint common factors and explore these. Family structures: how have these changed?
As part of expanding the research, I reengaged with feedback I had gathered at the end of the previous unit as I was never thoroughly explored. This has offered some quirky examples as well as common threads that appear throughout. I utilised a naive illustrative way of visually capturing the stories, as many are childhood recollections. Very few people offered examples of rituals they have in place as adults. Maybe this relates to a general loosening of rules around dining or maybe people didn’t want to discuss the particulars of present-day behaviours. Although some made it very clear that ‘table manners’ are still an important issue for them, they just didn’t offer details.
Class Difference: Formal and informal, opulent, and functional, accessible, and exclusive, dichotomy: potential to explore visually the notion and energy of opposites.
Focussed on the notion of opposites to see what this generated through the exploration of both text and form. The text, looking at words I associate with both categories of formal and informal and allocating their opposite. This threw up some interesting contrasts and offered a grounding to visually explore the notions and energy of opposites. These drawing have the potential to be adapted to both surface pattern and sculptural form. This way of generating ideas was spontaneous in its playing with word association as an anchor to further generate visuals and could prove to be a useful tool if ever I get stuck.
Domesticity: Aspirational consumption, gadgets: Valium (mother’s little helpers), house proud, ostentatious, intrinsic link between individual and objects they possess/can afford to consume. Ecological issues, disposability. Changing role of women within the domestic sphere.
To generate ideas and research around the theme of domesticity, I opted for a different strategy. Turning my attention to collage and found images (both digital and hand rendered) to explore the narrative of women and the ‘home’.
Many of these images came from 60’s books on etiquette that covered subjects from how to get in and out of a car, to when to laugh in public and everything in between. This related to my selected theme as it involves restricting and guiding behaviours in accordance with notions of social acceptability. I also used some images from advertising, with its relationship to ‘aspirational living’ and reflection of a period in time when women’s ‘successes’ were tied up with domesticity and all its associations.
With these I intend to explore the potential of over glaze transfers on pre-existing tableware. These compositions from the collages have been designed to be place in the centre of small rimmed white plates. As well as producing design that fit directly onto the plates, I want to experiment with collages preexisting transfers. This will have to involve them not overlapping as this will interfere with the firing process.
A3 sheet sent to fotoceramics to produce over glaze transfers. I intend to use these across several pieces.
Pre fired colour. Kept the composition relatively simple, utilising the internal space on the plate to house the circular image. This process offers a lot of potential to work with preexisting pieces and adapt with different narrative.
Post fired, the colour has been maintained and the finish is nice and flat.
As part of this body of work I have opted to complete pieces that I hadn't managed to finish prior to the previous assessment. With these examples it involved spaying a thin layer of glaze and firing to stoneware. I kept the glaze thin as I didn’t want to risk it going milky and am happy with the slight sheen as opposed to a full gloss. The ideas instigated with these I intend to develop as in collaging, but moving forward it will be more focused on form.
With these samples I experimented with some post bisque firing decorative techniques such as adding colour to sections of previously done mono prints and loosely painting with underglaze. The others have been finished with oxides to enhance the surface textures and glazed. There is a lot of potential that I could expand upon moving forward in this selection. I particularly like the embossed text that has been layers with mono printing and the single colour drawing/painting which has some of the construction line still apparent.
Less successful samples, the underglaze isn’t dense enough and the other surfaces are to clumsy.
Slight interlude. Been exploring our new 3D ceramic printer at work. Very early days, but has potential.
First steps in exploring and developing making techniques. I worked within the general premise of the predefined design but wanted to also utilise the available moulds and expand upon the previous collaging process but in a more structured manner. These designs explore the deconstruction and reconstruction of traditional table ware. A tryptic was produced as it offers a vehicle to engage with interconnecting surface qualities, another tradition within formal tableware. The cola/baby pieces are more spontaneous and involved an immediate response to the materials, but still carries a narrative weight due to the iconography juxtaposed.
Selection of test tiles. Produced to test surface treatments and glazes on forms that resemble the eventual outcomes, as opposed to a flat tile that lacks the structural complexity.
For the surface treatment I wanted to experiment with layering, colour and pattern that interconnected the form. One of my main inspirations for this is the work of Betty Woodman. I love her gestural mark making, exuberant use of colour and how the surface exist almost independently of the form. Her surfaces sweep across the form never hindered by the change of direction or curvature. I also relate to her use of deconstructed versions of traditional ceramic vessels as a canvas.
Initial samples one exploring the surface existing independently of the form using bright underglaze colour, the second experimenting with wax as a resist for sgraffito. Not too happy with the wax, the line isn’t defined enough.
All glazed with the recipe included (thanks to Thora). It’s a stoneware glaze that caused the pattern to run a little. For what I require this isn’t good as I need something that is a little more stable.
Three interacting forms. I like the idea and aesthetic of these, in that they loosely resemble teapots/jugs, they interplay as forms and offer the opportunity to explore interconnecting surface qualities. The clay has been tricky to hand build with (probably best suited for throwing) which has resulted in several cracks. With these pieces I'll attempt to rectify this in the decoration process. Moving forward I'll use a clay with a bit more grog.
When designing the surface decoration I was inspired by a mixture of things. Firstly, the research I’d gathered initially exploring traditional tableware, secondly the bold forms and patterns used in the Bauhaus theatrical costumes and thirdly the interconnected gestural mark employed by Woodman.
Initial designs exploring ways of incorporating image and text as well as interconnecting/visually relating the forms.
The theme I finally opted for was based on the personal anecdotes that people had sent me through social media. I like this idea of oral history and personal traditions being capture in a medium which offers such longevity, commemorating the everyday. Also, it gave me the opportunity to further explore the gestural, naive illustration style that I had employed in my sketchbook when visually investigating this theme. I added preexisting transfers as backgrounds, as they resembled wallpaper, further anchoring the work in the domestic sphere. The first layer explored things you shouldn’t have on a table as an interconnecting illustration. The second, inspired more by traditional ceramic decoration, gave each piece its own story but still maintained a visual connection with the bold black mark making. The third, brought the two sides together, with the black marks being used to frame the original illustration.
The final stage of the firing process was lustres and overglaze transfers. The transfers as well as being further text elements included these circle motifs that are taken from traditional ceramics tiles. A nod to the traditional elements that underpins these forms. The lustre selected was a copper, cheaper than gold but still shiny and metallic and will hopefully work well with the black. At this stage in the decoration one of the pieces unfortunately broke, maybe a product of a fragility brought about by repeat firing or potentially using a stoneware clay at earthenware.
Further development from deconstruction/reconstruction sketches. With these I wanted to move away a little from proportions that are recognisably tableware. There’s also potential in the inter-connective qualities of the final pieces, as a physical representation of the movement and rythms of the serving rituals.
For the surface I wanted to experiment with different ways of applying text. For this I explored what my cutting machine could offer, keeping it accessible and a bit low tech. Initially this involved a vinyl sheet that was used directly on the form as a stencil and secondly a vinyl sheet of alphabet that was screen printed to use as transfers.
The text taken from the anecdotal recollections I'd gathered on social media:
Don’t use your folk like a shovel.
Don’t stab your food.
Clear your plate.
There are starving children who would be grateful for that broccoli.
Always leave something on the plate for the saints.
Lick food to claim it and mark your territory.
Don’t lick your plate.
No pop until you have eaten all your tea.
No pudding until you’ve eaten all your meat.
No humming Abba.
No radio or TV when eating.
Just serve blancmange to minimise the sound of chewing.
Tuck in the elbows and keep them off the table.
Eat with sheets of paper under your armpits.
Direct stencil application using black underglaze. With this I added separate sentences on each form as well ones that go across both pieces, further interconnecting them. The underglaze has bled a little, which I don’t mind as it reminds me of glitches, an aesthetic I’ve always found appealing.
Interconnecting sentences with stencils.
Low tech screen printing, vinyl applied directly to screen, ink is black iron oxide mixed with System 3 printing medium, paper is a relatively cheap rice paper. Results will be used as a transfer (hopefully) hence the text is the wrong way round.
Further text added using the screen-printed transfers. Next, I intend to fire this design on, then potentially experiment with glaze and these transfers over the glaze and maybe more over glaze transfers. My main focus is exploring ways of layering text and how this can interact with different directional surfaces.
Further interconnecting sentences with the transfers.
Glazed and final firing with transfers added. Experimented with the text following the contours of the form and intersecting. Text used as decoration as well as narrative content.
Developed from the interconnecting forms, I wanted to expand the use of moulds in the construction process. This initially involved bottles that we drink from or that contain products used around the home. This connects with the theme in that it’s a take on contemporary serving vessels and the rituals of domesticity. These builds returned to a more intuitive way of working. I worked loosely within the notion of certain forms of tableware but without pre-defined proportions or envisaged outcomes.
I wanted to explore a different clay as the white clay used in the three forms wasn’t good for hand building so I turned to a clay with more grog. The grey is good as it offers a level of plasticity that allows it to be rolled thin and used to produce delicate slab work as well as offering the stability and strength of a grogged clay.
I opted to keep the surface comparatively simple with this outcome. In keeping with the ethos of the unit I wanted to continue to experiment with different ways of working. With this piece my focus was the sculptural language, and I didn’t want the surface to distract from that. I like the figurative quality of this piece, it speaks of Victorian women and their restrictive corsetry. Constructed out of press moulds from disposable plastics bottles offering an interesting contradiction to this representation. From the traditional, formal and restricted to the disposable, contemporary and convenient.
This black clay is more grogged so offers different properties again. Its strength is certainly a positive and the rich colour once it’s high fired works well with certain surface treatments. Again, this build was quite intuitive, the parameters I gave myself; to build something that kind of resembles a teapot. I like the contradiction of one side being simple, hiding the complexity of its reverse. This piece also offers a complex form to experiment with surface interaction which could offer some interesting results.
Test tiles, again using form that resemble outcome to test. Used slip and white titanium glaze with home made black text transfers on top and white text transfers direct onto clay.
Like both results. The slip has maintained its colour, and the gentle crazing adds to the texture and could be interesting when fragmenting an image. The glaze, even though it is not white, offers a subtle surface and has retained the lettering, all be it in a very delicate way.
Earthen ware clear glaze. Experimenting with part glazing and adding wash over glaze.
High fired porcelain, structurally much stronger and intensifies the colour. I really like the layering and simplicity of these pieces. The juxtaposition of the drunken gin lady and fancy tableware is still at the core of what I’m exploring I think.
Opted to glaze these two pieces with a similar finish to bring a visual coherence to them as a pair. Selected to add the pick body stain to clear and white earthenware glaze and experiment with pouring and layering, the underglaze transfers on top of the glaze to see if they retain their pattern or blend with the glaze as it matures. This is completely new to me as a glazing technique and I had a go, purely in the name of experimentation.
The above added to some test pieces. Clear with the pink body stain has potential in that the underglaze marks are still visible. The white on the other hand is too solid and intrusive on the background. The bottom three on grey clay, worked well in enhancing the slightly raised text.
Happy with the final surface quality, I really like the subtly of the white text transfers on top of the white glaze.
Slip on black clay with gestural illustrations based on previous research gathered on traditional tableware. Pallet kept minimal to support the spontaneous gestural mark making, the orange offered construction lines the black outlined the object.
Again, black clay, a restricted pallet and gestural illustrations. This time the illustrations refer to research gathered on scientific equipment and containers and similarities between its rigid function and that of traditional tableware.
The stuff that has caught my eye during this project. I find it useful to retrospectively look at these visual collections, as I can see how I have been inspired both subtly and overtly. It also helps me ground my ideas and consider potential starting points moving forward. The overarching theme is obviously colour, drawing and pattern (both in mark making and form).
Evaluation: The pieces I liked working on the least, I liked the results the most. Maybe because they signify conquering some adversity (until that bit fell off at the end) or maybe because they brough some predefined idea to fruition. Moving forward I’m still not certain what direction I want to take my work, but I know I want to continue incorporating form and surface and I know constantly reengaging with my research will be essential.
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