Getting My Hands Dirty

Perched on my stool in the Ceramics studio, I listened intently to the instructor, jotting little notes here and there, as he spoke, bits of design ideas started floating into my head. The first project for this class was to design and make tableware for specific food we want to present to the class. The final unveiling of the tableware creations will include the food displayed on the tableware. We went round the class, each naming their favourite food from perhaps their own culture. When it came to my turn, I don't know why, but I said rice porridge with sweet potato pieces. I mean in my 5 months here, I have cooked rice porridge and sweet potato but never together in the same dish. It was a food from my childhood I suppose, and I was imagining in my mind's eye, how that would look aesthetically, white grains with a dash of orange in a complementary blue-glazed bowl. And then it led me to think I could open up a few cans of pickled radish, fried dace with black beans and boiled groundnuts and display them on side dishes. (I don't even have to really cook!)

But there was a catch. The instructor who had trained in Japan many years ago, did not want any Japanese influence although he acknowledged that the Japs were the best in food presentation. My little bubble with Jap Zen style tableware burst. I start rearranging my thoughts. He wanted something modern, something catchy. Something for today's market.

He demonstrated making a simple bowl, using a folding technique inspired by origami. The bowl was rugged yet significant for the Japanese restaurant he designed it for, the edges were inspired by the rocky coastal landscape the area was famous for, and the instructor was observing the restaurant owner's wife folding paper napkins, origami-style and he basically translated that into folding of the clay. I was suitably impressed at how simple and yet beautiful the technique was. And even more so, when I heard that the restaurant owner filled the bowl up with crushed ice, dropped a few drops of blue food colouring into the ice so that it spread out and made it resemble the ocean, enveloped by the rocky cliffs, and then laid sashimi pieces on top of the ice. Even not having the benefit of seeing that, I could imagine that it was a great and dramatic sashimi presentation.

Although I have to leave the Japanese-style tableware behind, the origami method is something which I will explore. I already have the beginnings of the design incorporating childhood paper folding designs, and a theme relating to the simple, hearty comfort food of rice porridge and dace and have made some thumbnail sketches in the library.

I think I am going to like getting my hands dirty with the clay.