The Place Setting Project.

The place setting brief was given to us at the start of semester four, Before we could begin working with a partner we had to consider the following points:

What is a plate?

What is a cup?

What is an Implement?

Having resolved the basic  ideas behind the project we moved forward.



Having chosen Maeve randomly, I began to research her personality to find out more about her. I began with a questionnaire to find out her tastes and likes, along with her dislikes, as these were as important.

Some of the results were that:

She danced (Rockabilly), liked strong women and friendly men, clean lined design, textural rather than plain surfaces, vintage clothes,( as though living in the wrong era, 1940's and 50's), floral patterns and imagery and has a bubbly joyful outlook on life.

My initial sketches were based on the idea of the dance. Using templates I began exploring the notion of overlapping slabs to build up circular forms. Taking this further I cut angles into them to construct plates and goblets that rose from the centre at angles creating vertical and angular walls.

 I also explored the possibilities of having the various elements of the project joined together either by slotting the pieces into one another or hung from a central piece (the platter).

 From these sketches I took some of the ideas forward and produced several maquettes of some of the more promising designs that I had come up with.

 These allowed me to see some of the ideas I had had in three dimensions, I tend to see things this way even when drawing them and this sometimes means that my sketches look very rough, though I am trying to capture the whole thing in two dimensions.

It turned out that I had been trying to force my will upon the clay during the mock-up stage and this was resulting a very tame set of pieces that lacked the feeling of movement that I needed to portray in the work.

Some of this was overcome in the first run of plate forms, I had constructed a stand with a plate base over which I draped the clay slab, I was very happy with the result and added floral sprigs to them.I left one of them clear using a rutile based glaze to give a sepia appearance. The other though, I painted stain on though this didn't really cover the surface well and I think I need to either apply several layers in the future or use the slip trailer to create pools into which I can pour the glaze. I will be experimenting further with surface decoration over Summer.

I found that working on the implement was somewhat easier, as the cake fork and spoon ideas lent themselves easily to the clay allowing for twisting and rolling, in reference to the idea of dance. These pieces I also left with a clean glaze as the shape is busy enough without overly complicating the pieces.

The cup proved to be a little more difficult to decide on as I was unsure as to what I wanted to achieve. Was it an item to drink from or a bowl? I explored both avenues and eventually decided on one final bowl shape and a couple of cups, with very different decoration and form., The bowl was of a similar design to the first plate form and bore the same decoration, the first cup was based on the goblet shape and was coiled, in deferance to the idea of dance. The other though, was a simple cast form with the dance aspect being resolved in the twisted handle.

 I revisited the idea of the plate then, as I felt that there was something still rigid about the results I had achieved. Only when I had overcome this problem was I able to get the freer forms that better reflected the ideal that I sought, throwing and altering, sometimes ripping the top off the cylinders, deliberately throwing pieces off centre and throwing others without bases to allow for a more expressive shape, one that was impractical but conjoured the idea of a dance..

 Becoming freer with the throwing made it a lot more fun to do. It took a while for me to let go and just allow the forms to take shape. The first platter is a loose assortment of thrown forms, not joined together as it is intended that the user decides in what order they are to be.

The second plate shown is more practical and orderly. To counter this I decorated it using a "Jackson Pollock" technique using thin slip. I flicked paintbrushes and slip trailing in circles to break up the surface and make it appear less formal.

 This final piece is based on the floral form. It is the one I am happiest with as it fulfils the idea of freedom in dance and also has a personality to it that I would like to be able give to my future works.