Inspiration - Dinner Plates

My key problems in my own ceramics practice are really 1) I don’t want to make anything that could be purchased in a mass produced setting 2) that being said, I also think a modicum of standardization is required, whereby a set of dinner plates for a full service needs to look like a set that goes together and 3) I never want to put out anything that isn’t the absolute best that I can do, and something that is notoriously and specifically ‘me’.

In short, I get in my own way a whole damn lot. I also know that I consume a lot of content, more than the average person, because of my freelancing work with small businesses and because I’m currently working towards a portfolio of my own for urban planning/interior design. Lots of things in motion - but the problem is, I need to be aware of what’s in my subconscious (paradoxical, I know). Because something that I think is an absolutely brilliant individual idea - to me - might actually be a rip off of someone else’s work that I’ve seen and catalogued into the recesses of my brain. And that’d be awful.

So I’m starting to put ideas down on internet paper - as a way of cataloguing but also describing my own artistic process. And, because I have a few spare throwing bats lying around I’m hoping to make some plates for my home. Here are some pieces from potters I follow, and aspects I either admire or would prefer slightly altered.

Bearing in mind! This is for dinner plates in serving sets. Not serving ware, not Asian side dish plates, not trinket platters, and not plates-but-also-bowls. Entrée plates and bread/dessert plates, only.

Thrown

I’ve admired Émilie Brichard (from malo atelier) and her work for as long as i can remember - I genuinely think at even the beginning of my love affair with ceramics. her work is quietly sculptural and gorgeous, and her glazes pool in a way that gives her forms the most incredible visual interest. she creates dinnerware for restaurants, and it’s quite obvious that her work is meant to be the canvas for incredible food creations.

In a similarly sculptural vein are Lee ki won and jung seung eum from doyedang ceramics, who not only do dinnerware but also incense holders, moon jars, teaware - the works. comparatively a little more playful and also steeped in their traditional history, much of their plate work also has a bit more of an incline in its form. not enough to be a bowl, or a not-a-bowl-not-a-plate.

agata of aku ceramics is a lady who makes me happy that i am currently suffering a little in the financials department (yes, someone who worked in finance suffering financially, i know). but it’s good in that had i been still making the money i did, most of it would go to her work. these are borderline bowls - but the inspiration here is the gentle urve on the inside of the rim, and the more softly flared lip.

on the opposite end of the spectrum, anna louise makes these plates that have a very sharp interior edge, that looks like it’s almost folded over. i imagine these to be plated with some sort of crudo or liquidy-sauced starter, where the contents of the dish wouldn’t move noticeably when being served to the table.

christian palino’s work can be found in several restaurants (which, can i say, goals?) and may have been one of the forerunners of these donut shaped bubbly looking plates. very much for amuse bouches, and while i love the look of these, i also don’t think they’re great for people who have limited space for collecting dinnerware.

Hand Built

These handbuilt fruit plates look like they’d be a joy to eat off of - especially plated with fruits, dips, or salads. this is what i think of when i think “perfectly imperfect”, where the handmade effect is so beautifully captured in each detail on Yasmin Falahat’s bowls and plates.

In a similarly handbuilt vein, imagine hosting a dinner party with these cat plates from hachinoco, who makes all sorts of ceramics in this cat motif! absolutely, impossibly obsessed. they’re perfectly stackable as well, it seems. and why stop at just cats? what about dogs? squirrels?

this, which is thrown with the flower indentations molded by hand after, would probably be quite difficult to make as a set. from keiichiro honda, who seems to do very traditionalist feeling one-offs, and has quite a few pieces of kintsugi displayed on his instagram page as well.

similarly - i can’t tell if the were previously handbuild or wheel thrown, but the detailing on the flange is defintely done after with a carving tool, and i’m absolutely fascinated with how tactile they look, specially with hilda carr’s hands in the shot.

Finishing

this, to me, is very reminiscent of the porcelain/blue detailing on antique chinese dinnerware, but instead s hyper-detailed and geometric. This is from ayla mullen, who also makes very stunning pitchers.

similar vein - from shingo arakawa, based out of japan, who makes individual plates. I think for a set, it may make sense to use a paper relief system to print out the designs, but somethng about a slightly mismatched set also really speaks to me, where there are small, hidden variations on each plate.

as you’ll see in the following artists, i absolutely adore sgraffito, which is a specific surface detailing technique. this? as a set? in your home? dead. i would keep all my dinners to four people maximum for forever, or howver many there were in this set of plates. heather elvidge makes the stuff of heirlooms.

cathy perletta’s work was what initially introduced sgraffito to me - and i’m absolutely enamoured with this type of detail. you could scroll her instagram page endlessly and just be agog at all the different themes she’s done, how intricate and beautifully made everything seems to be (the plates themselvs look like they are incredibly made, even exclusive of the decorating).

lastly… as gen z would say… it’s giving mom will kill you if you use her display plates. it’s giving artisanal masterpiece. it’s giving no way these are handmade. these are screaming to be displayed somewhere - the way monica geller from friends babied her set of fine china. Yantra Keramika has loads of process videos on her page, and genuinely, whatever she charges for them? probably not enough.