Applying Studio Ceramic Practice to Constructions of Meaning in the Banal Object: Utilizing Collections as a Creative Tool

Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Kate Wilson  

A physical creative response to "collections" through objectification of material culture theory can provide an alternative analysis to human object relationships, opening up new interpretations through ceramic studio practice. This paper examines how the culturally, deeply-embedded ceramic mug, reflective of individual and collective identity, can become a vehicle for emotional engagement and a material expression of the human condition. Using The Shepton Collection as a creative tool, comprised of 412 drink related vessels and representing over 200 years of mass produced pottery in the UK, the collection evidences the banal ceramic mug as an indicator of a locally cultivated preference and, more broadly, human/object relationships. The subsequent relational and comparative creative studio practice interrogates the social function of the banal ceramic mug in terms of celebration, commemoration, and remembrance in a contemporary context. Applying a theoretical multi-disciplinary approach to the practice, new meanings are explored using the mug form as a familiar construct, questioning the concept of function and value in post-structuralist terms. The meeting point between theory and practice is the handling and cataloguing of The Shepton Collection. Potentially incongruous, the vernacular of the industrially produced, appropriated by the studio practitioner in a "hand made" context, facilitates the examination of material objects through the application of a tripartite approach of cataloguing, theoretical analysis and practice, evidencing individual and collective cultural identity, ultimately expressed via new constructions of meaning, in this particular case, related to the ceramic mug.