Wedgwood Museum Teapot

Currently working on teapots for the Wedgwood Museum shop, inspired by the collection there. They were looking for pieces based on travel, so I'm going for my favourite eastern theme showing the origin of the tea we drink, and then showing it's journey across continents and through history by layering cyber imagery and modern print with traditional Japanese brush painting. Isn't it funny that tea should travel all the way from China and Japan to just to end up in a mug in front of our computers?

I started out with a nice earthy terracotta like the traditional teapots of Japan (the clays they use are very often mined from the local area by the potters themselves. Modern day potters will often combine local clay with bought clay to improve the plasticity). Since I wanted this teapot to act as a canvas, it's been kept simple with nice sweeping curves tapering to a wide shoulder to give the teapot a light appearance and plenty of surface area (as well as capacity!). The joins were done roughly and textured to imitate the worn out seams of the Wedgwood design books.

Then I started on the imagery. I wanted to layer the contemporary and modern with the old and traditional, with elements of East and West contrasting with one another to express the movement from one time and place to another. I started out with impressing patterns into the side imitating a computer circuit board.

Then came the next layer. This time it was Japanese style brush painting with porcelain slip. Since the two clay bodies don't "fit" one another when fired, I expect a certain amount of cracking and flaking that will add to the aged effect. I did a painting of a kuro ageha like the ones I had seen in Tokyo when I was there, and then used my slip trailer to define and pick out the veining on the wings. I now had two layers of imagery that were nicely blending into one another.

                                      

Finally, I added contemporary pixelated screen print as the final layer and finished with stamping a serial type number and inscribed label across the base of the painting as a final reference to the contemporary Western industrialisation of life as well as the layout in Wedgwood's design books.

I'm really happy with this so far, and want to play a lot more with textures and layered imagery, so I've got another couple of teapots part made waiting to become new canvases. I'll hopefully be using more roughed up surfaces to paint over as well.

When the teapot is dry, I'd ideally like to use some glaze on the inside and dribbling down the outside, but then use wood firing to create smoky burnt effects up the outside. However, since I intend to fire this to 1260 degrees for the glaze, that then provides the problem of getting the pot to absorb the carbon from the smoke when it is already heavily vitrified. Perhaps I'll be able to try out a semi wood firing in a gas kiln to achieve this, or wrap straw around the pot before firing as they do with Bizen ware? We shall see. I am also yet to see whether the terracotta will warp at such high temperatures, since it is usually fired at earthenware temperatures. It's pretty incredible for having such a wide firing range in the first place.