Thirty-six year old Dutch designer Dik Scheepers says he rejects perfection in his Pieces of Pi design project. The ceramic vessels exult in their imperfections while also highlighting the line between finished product and production. The forms are gray, basic and look like wire-frame designs taken from an old computer drafting program.
Scheepers states on his web site:
“I do not think it is necessary to make the perfect mold. I accept the mistakes, which are normally not wanted.These mistakes become a characteristic of the product and tell a lot about it’s processing. They make the product even more beautiful.”
Scheepers is on firm ground in that regard. In this issue we feature a bone china mug by Reiko Kaneko which includes a thread of gold stretching down from the lip of the mug. That thread is a reference to the Japanese practice of gluing broken china back together and showing off the repair by gilding it with gold, turning a defect into an enhancement. The difference with Scheeper’s vessels is that the imperfections aren’t added post-production the way they are with the ceramics the mug references.
What Scheepers has done instead is give us an object that shares its entire production history with the user. Scheepers told Design Milk he’s been intrigued by that idea recently. He has company in that regard as well; in this issue we feature a series of vessels by Jacob van der Beugel which retain a seam from their molds as a prominent aesthetic feature.
Scheepers graduated in 2010 with a degree in product design from the Maastricht Academy of Fine Arts and Design. He’s been a ceramics instructor at that school since 2011.
Bill Rodgers is a Contributing Editor for CFile.
Above image: Pieces of Pi by Dik Scheepers.
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Pieces of Pi by Dik Scheepers.
Thanks for this post, refreshing and delightfuf stuff.
I will approach this discussion a little differently. Two issues are in play with Scheeper’s cast work from my perspective. The first involves the history of casting. The Greeks used press molds and the British invented mass produced slip cast ware in the 18th Cen. From the Greeks until just the last several years a plaster mold was a guarantee. It could only “print” what was in it’s cavity and it could do this faithfully until it was no longer usable. That was the beauty of a mold and the vehicle for mass produced ceramics in an ever more crowded and industrialized world. I am actually not certain who started it but it was only a few years ago and I was not surprized that someone created a mold & casting system, like Sheeper’s that allows for interchangeable mold section parts that are not strapped together. This allows for every cast to be unique. To me that is a HUGE deal relative to the backdrop of the history of slip casting…it is the antichrist, one unique casting after another from the same mold parts if you like! As with 3D printing in ceramics, it is however in it’s infancy and still primitive in a way, it needs more time.
The second issue has to do with the immeasurable excess of well designed and essentially anonymous dinnerware made world wide. I think a good designer is going to push against that and attempt to add to the discussion not just the pile. So should “good” culinary ware cut one during use? No.
But Scheeper’s work is running up against an enormous history of good taste and well executed design and then a deeper history of casting that appeared to be at a innovative standstill by and larger for a couple of hundred years. Good for him.
Am I in love with the work? Not yet but I think this is exciting as an idea because it challenges a technical history and it challenges conventional tableware wisdom at the same time. As with 3D printing in ceramics it is still infantile but sooner or later someone will come along and make the field stop and pay attention, that is the way it hopefully works.
Hi everyone. Great discussion here! Jonathan, thanks for your analysis. Just wanted to post the link to the article you mentioned that also shows the moldmaking process coming out in the final product, in case the other folks on this thread didn’t get there already.
Benjamin Hubert’s Seam for Bitossi Ceramiche:
http://cfileonline.wpengine.com/design-benjamin-huberts-seam-bitossi-ceramiche/
I appreciate showing process but not at the expense of cutting my hands to use a utilitarian object….. ultimately the molds are more interesting looking than the pots. There seems more opportunity to work on the vessels….Obviously my bias is toward ceramics and not process art. It is nice process.
I totaly agree. But in the Netherlands it became a big issue. A lot of people using this idea.
It was done in the ceramic world, but the designer Hella Jongerius made it into one of her statements. After that in the design world it become a thing! Also jewelry makers are casting porcelain elements. They hang around you neck and can hurt you, because the material becomes very sharp after firing.
As a ceramic designer, mold and model-maker, I am of course always interested seeing slip cast work and how ceramic artists are using this technology. I understand seam marks, leaving them/removing them from a piece. In trying to understand Schemer’s design concerns as they relate to this body of work, I find a major disconnect. His molds are much more intriguing then the work. The molds are extremely well designed, and in fact, have more visual interest than his pieces. His castings from these molds, especially the tableware pieces, are ambiguous, and are really a distinct contradiction to what useable tableware needs to incorporate. If work is designed to be used, should have the characteristics that make the work comfortable to hold, a delight on one’s lips during the morning’s coffee, the list is long. So I find quite a disconnect between the effort and the results of his beautifully designed molds and then how he chooses to finish and present the work made from such well executed plaster-work. I think that the design element of the unfinished seam does not have a proper place in tableware design. It is just an unfinished seam, sharp, unrealized, and in fact, becomes almost caricatural.
Yes we know that these are vessels, and even though he presents them as a body of “useable” work, I think too much effort is expended in leaving obvious seam marks and the dialog that follows. Shceepers has a very good sense of form and he appears to have some skill as a mold maker. No matter how he emphasizes about the seams, imperfect molds or the marks of the process, it does nothing to further embellish or dignify the usability of the work. It is quite clear to me that it is merely another way to put meaning into work that could really stand very well on its own with a bit more effort, perhaps with a clean-up sponge. Or, taking a bit more time with the mold and model making process placing as much emphasis towards the mold interior as he puts into their exterior. While it might appear as interesting work, I would be interested to see how his efforts mature over time. I would just offer another C-File inclusion, “Benjamin Hubert’s Seam for Bitossi Ceramiche” in this same email as an example of the use of seams in slip cast ceramic ware that actually work with the form, embellish it, and become a strong design attribute.