Before I create a piece of tableware I usually have a clear idea of its future function. So, if I want a nice soup bowl for the pumpkin soup I am considering the best possible colour and shape for the bowl. At the same time I am trying not to forget the functionality. The tableware should be user friendly and yet have the artistic value.
Several years
ago, I have decided to make sushi plates. I knew that I wanted them to be blue,
small, square and with some kind of fish-skin pattern. The biggest challenge
was to achieve the fish scales look. I have even been pressing some real big
fishes on the slabs of clay to get the pattern, but the result wasn’t satisfactory. And
finally, those poor beings should be treated respectfully before they end up on
the plate after all. Since I wasn’t in the mood to carve every single of those
fish scales by hand I have decided to use different fishnet stockings.
Here you
can see two of my favourites.
 |
| Sushi plate, slab built stoneware, 18 cm in length. |
 |
| Sushi plate, slab built stoneware, 21 cm in length. |
This
particular pattern may not look like fish scales but at least it gives the sense
of the sea. Fish, sea, blue, fisherman, fishnet... it is the same semantic
field, right? I can even recognize some kind of sea monster with its tentacles
on the first plate. The second one looks like the sparkle of light in the ocean
abyss. Can it get fishier than this? Here you can have a look at the closest I
got to the fish or some will say snake scales look.
I have
mentioned earlier that this glaze has its own ways. These two plates were
glazed with the same glaze and they were situated on the same place in the kiln.
Isn’t it amazing that they have turned out so differently?
