I made “A Meal on the River” because I wanted to make my family something they could use in our daily life and one of my hobbies is cooking. While I already had a form in my mind, the hardest part of coming up with the design was the theme. The theme had to work with the functionality of the piece and look aesthetically pleasing to me. My inspiration was the river because I liked the aesthetics of water, its many shades of blue, the wavy/curvy patterns it has and how diverse it can look. I wanted the bowls to represent river rocks with white water rapids running around them.
My platter is one slab that I cut into an ovular shape and spread pieces of clay on one side to create texture and represent the sand along a river bed. I chose to glaze my platter with a combination of textured turquoise and tourmaline glazes to reflect the murky water of a river. For my bowls, what once was an accident became an intentional feature of my design. When I was trimming one of my bowls, it flew off the wheel and caused a chunk of it to get ripped out. I decided that I liked that feature and started adding these little slots in my bowls so they could be used as utensil holders. I glazed my bowls with palladium and saturation metallic on the outside because I wanted my bowls to be grey in order to represent rocks and because I loved the shiny look it had once it was out of the kiln. For the inside I chose to paint it a blue rutile with palladium around the sides because the interior would look like water on a shiny day.
The main things I would want my viewers to take away from my show would be an appreciation of the world’s beauty and that you should spend more time with your loved ones. I believe that you should spend time appreciating the world around you because the world can be beautiful if you look for it. While I don’t go to the river often, nor do I go to any other large bodies of water, it is a part of my daily life and I would truly miss not seeing these wonders. On the car rides to school I spend a lot of time looking out the car’s window so I can see the river when we cross. I truly believe that without the James river my life, it would be duller and less beautiful. It makes me happy when I can look out the window and feel like I’m seeing a painting when I look at the river. To me, the biggest meaning and take away from my show is that you should spend more time with those who you love. I created this whole collection for my family with the intent to make them happy, because I love them and I love getting to eat food with them every night. Spending time with loved ones makes life bearable and a whole lot better in my opinion. In general, this whole collection is a dedication to loving the world and people around you, because they make life more bearable and fun. I can’t wait to be eating food from my set while we talk about our days.