Crockery Systems

Teapot
Stoneware
180 x 120 x 105mm
2007

 

Cup (#1)
Porcelain
97 x 85 x 67mm
2007

 

Cup (#2)
Porcelain
105 x 82 x 63mm
2007

 

These were made 2006-2007.

Special moulding system made from modified Lego bricks. The assembly process for each unique single-use mould was very time-consuming, and I was spending all of my spare time alone. Most of the time was taken in assembling the mould parts, so I developed the backpack as a mobile system, with space to store a few mould parts, so that I could take it to work at other people’s houses.

It took a long time to develop an effective way to make these forms in clay. The major difficulty is the requirement of modelling both the inside and outside surfaces. And as any ceramicist will know, traditional moulding methods such as slip moulding cannot be used to mould inner surfaces due to the shrinkage of the clay.

 

Crockery Systems – version 4 (backpack)
The first properly workable system.
The mould pieces are made from modified lego bricks all cut down to fit a grid size of half the width of a standard one unit lego brick.
I built the backpack with the intention of taking it to work at other people’s houses – I wanted to find a way of bringing social possibilities in to my rather lonely life.

 

Crockery Systems – version 2 (Lego Modelling Machine)

Experiment aborted at early testing stage due to obvious impracticality.

At this stage, I was attempting to work by a process of gradually scraping material away from a block of wet clay.

The scraping tool is capable of moving in ten different directions, including diagonal. In order to facilitate this I believe I invented some fairly novel Lego Technic mechanisms.