Ripple Tableware: Movement Frozen in Porcelain
Idle Afternoons...
When we started Haand, I had much more free time. I lived next to a creek that fed in to the Haw River, and when I had nothing to do, or some time to kill, it was nice to sit in the shade and watch the water. Occasionally, a leaf would hit the surface of a quiet pool, or minnow would break the surface. I would watch the ripples in the afternoon light as they moved out from the central point of impact. They spread until they hit the edges of the pool — the rocks, the logs, the shore. If you continue to watch, and the pool is still enough, the waves move back towards the center, changed from their contact and no longer perfectly circular. The waves write the story of the space they travelled within through the language of the morphing ripples.
Movement Frozen in Porcelain
The peace I felt watching the water inspired me. The Ripple Dinnerware Collection is an attempt to freeze and recreate this phenomena through porcelain. The slightly skewed almost-circularity of these plates has the relaxed, unforced feel of water moving in a pool.
To make these forms, I took measured amounts of plaster, mixed them up, and poured the liquid onto a piece of marble. I manipulated the plaster blobs while they were still soft, changing the form slightly to make them reflect the outline of the piece that I made before.
Scientific diagram of the physics of water drops