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.

Cyber teapots

The results of playing in solidworks - the first (and made in a hurry - I was about to be thrown out) pictures of my new cyber teapots.

Having got past the problem of creating a sieve over the spout (for leaf tea lovers) and cutting off excess extrusions, I've been playing with the handle ergonomics and form. Next I'm going to try and pierce out the flared foot ring at the bottom of the teapot, as I have never tried a wrap feature tool before - I want to know how it would work to wrap a series of patterned cut outs at the base. Then of course I need a lid.

The pot on the left has a smoothly arching handle (arch created using the spline sketch tool and the mirror entity tool to get it symmetrical) with a slightly sickle moon like profile to create a dip in the upper side for the thumb to rest in (and because I wondered what a cross section different to oval would look like). This was turned solid using the swept boss tool (basically it tells the cross section to make a solid extrusion that follows the path of a line you draw for it).

While using this I noticed a twist option on the swept boss. I got curious, so I tried a twisted handle next. This was a bit more complicated, as I discovered it would only work on a line with no joins in it. It had to be drawn in one go, and splines are not the most easily manipulated lines, so it probably isn't too symmetrical (and it certainly isn't round at the top!). However, once you get past that, it's quite easy, you set the swept boss to twist along the path and control the amount of twist by telling it an angle to twist by. I engineered this one so that it has a levelled out section at the top for holding the handle by. I really like this effect as it's visually quite striking, so I'm going to experiment with it some more on my next handles.

If all goes well, I hope to be able to design a teapot for the Wedgwood Museum shop using this software and then create a mould using 3D printing so I can batch produce them! The Wedgwood Museum is a huge collection of ceramics spanning the entire career of the Wedgwood ceramics company from the 18th century to the present day, based in Stoke on Trent: http://www.wedgwoodmuseum.org.uk/home








Wedgwood is one of the most famous names in British pottery, with Josiah, the founder, having been a great innovator and scientist, developing new materials and techniques to create their signature blue jasper ware with white relief moulding (so, my use of software to create Wedgwood inspired teapots seems somewhat fitting). However, when the company went into administration, and after a long (and continuing) court battle, the museum has been found liable for paying the debts of the Wedgwood company pension fund: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/interiorsandshopping/antiques/9001313/Wedgwood-family-call-on-Attorney-General-to-save-their-museum.html
This is a huge shame, as this museum is unique in that it shows the creative and technical progression of a single maker/company through history, and as a result there are things you can learn from viewing this collection that you can't from most museum ceramic displays. Most museum displays show a range of ceramics from a range of makers, sometimes from one time period, or sometimes over history. These can show you ideas and techniques from the different times, but it's harder to see the progression as every maker   specialises in their own techniques and styles.

So, the Wedgwood museum is asking artists to create pieces to sell in the shop to help raise money to prevent the collection being sold off, and this is how I got involved. Anyone interested in supporting the museum should visit their website above.