Adrien Miller (Miller, 2021)

Adrien Miller is an artist, sculptor, potter and painter from Seattle. She creates ceramic dishes that have human figures and forms, such as faces on them in relief. The artists adds thick layers of different coloured glazes to her work which run into each other and around the shapes in each of her vessels when heated in the kiln. The mix of colours used in each piece gives the vessels an energetic and uplifting feel, reflecting the artists own personality.

Miller’s work is inspirational to my own as some of my design ideas link directly to the person each place setting is for, looking at identity and connection between two people. One form of connection between people are relationships, whether this is a maternal/paternal relationship, romantic relationship or an ordinary friendship. The way this artist uses colour inspires me to explore how to use colour to emphasis personality and energy of a character in abstract forms.

Polly Johnson (Johnson, 2021)

Polly Johnson creates porcelain objects that have primitive marks, words and sometimes illustrations carved into them. To create these artworks Johnson covers the porcelain in a coloured slip and uses a process called graffito to create her markings, this is where she uses various tools to scratch through the surface to expose the colour of the base clay. Each artwork is filled with words and markings until there is no blank spaces left of the vessel, they portray visual and verbal narratives of sound bites, folklore and imaginary ruminations. This artwork is interesting as if gives the viewer a lot of information on a such a small surface without looking cluttered. The marking and words flow into each other to create beautiful patterns and illustrations, adding unique textures and qualities to each piece.

It would be interesting to see how I can use the processes that Johnson uses in her work in my own designs. With the processes mentioned above could make simple vessel forms and add the detail and reinvent markings onto my work that link to my theme. This would allow me to simply, yet effectively transform simple vessels into that of which tell as story.

Glen Martin Taylor (Taylor, 2021)

Glen Martin Taylor combines ceramics with various metal forms, from cutlery to barb wire. The concept of combining different material with ceramicware is something that I could potentially use in my own work, as some of my designs (like those linked to The Trouble and family trees) involve moulding wire around/through ceramic to add new dimensions and possibilities.

3D Printed stacking ceramics (Gray, 2015)

The vessel forms seen above were designed by Elise Luttik and Hester Stolkand ceramically and were made with ceramic 3D-printing. “These vertically stacking objects take a lesson from urban skyscrapers, saving space by building up instead of sideways.” (Gray, 2015). Despite their simple shapes the designers chose to use bright coloured glazes to make them more appealing to the modern day user. Each component is a different shape and different size, they can be taken apart to be used separately or stacked together to take up less space. The concept of creating ceramicware that is stackable is very interesting to me as each section of the vessel could be an artwork in itself, and yet still be able to create something new when merged together, giving the user a new view and perspective of the vessel.

Bibliography

Gray, C., 2015. 3D-Printed Stacking Ceramics. [online] TrendHunter.com. Available at: <https://www.trendhunter.com/trends/stacking-objects> [Accessed 19 April 2021]. – (Gray, 2015)

Johnson, P., 2021. Polly Johnson ceramic artist. [online] POLLY JOHNSON. Available at: <https://pollyjohnson.studio/> [Accessed 10 April 2021]. – (Johnson, 2021)

Miller, A., 2021. adrienmillerart. [online] Instagram.com. Available at: <https://www.instagram.com/adrienmillerart/> [Accessed 10 April 2021]. – (Miller, 2021)

Taylor, G., 2021. Glen Martin Taylor. [online] Glen Martin Taylor. Available at: <http://glenmartintaylor.com/?fbclid=IwAR2I3xCVrar-9npUPe6EVHEeohRaGMzBWF7IxeAq5POoEJtyfSREUPQxU94> [Accessed 19 April 2021]. – (Taylor, 2021)