In 2002 the Ceramics Diploma students at Northern Beaches TAFE undertook an innovative project to produce a range of porcelain dinnerware. What eventuated was a challenging experience that aimed to combine design, craft , manufacture and included financial viability. This article discusses some of the philosophical successes and failures of this mixed marriage.

In practical terms, the project aims were to meet industrial syllabus/module requirements and make use of semi industrial processes such as jigger jolley, flop moulding and slipcasting. (see further articles about processes and techniques).

Philosophically, however, this project was very different to ceramics training normally provided in Tafe NSW, and also at variance with traditional perceptions of craft practice and ethic.

Most often ceramics students develop practical skills while making their own work. The fundamental aim of both teacher and student is to produce works of technical and aesthetic excellence that display creativity and emphasise the skill of the maker and their individuality, often, but not always, with historical reference.

The Dinnerware project differed by directing students to develop a coordinated range as a group, partly discarding the notion of creation for self expression, with a primary purpose of making to suit the needs of a particular client; i.e., the ‘Pittwater (college) Restaurant’.The strict functional and aesthetic needs of a restaurant became defining factors of the work. Concerns centred on weight, size, strength, cleaning, colour and purpose, which all attempted to steer the project towards becoming a design exercise.

However, the project aim was to encompass much more than this and quickly the challenge became how to meld craft philosophy with design and manufacture to find a satisfying and creative solution.

Ceramics students and staff were immediately absorbed by aesthetic and technical quality (craft training), contemporary dining functionality, cross cultural influence and culinary preference.

Students were encouraged, after meeting with the restaurant and cookery staff, to come up with designs and solutions, which were presented to the group for analysis and final choice. Developing processes and skills to achieve required numbers (much larger than normal craft production) also forced creative achievement.

Technical help with Jigger Jolley was sought and provided by Malcolm Greenwood.

The challenge of dealing with the group dynamic on a day to day basis, while overcoming technical hurdles and making aesthetic breakthroughs, no matter how small, became colossal achievements with immense satisfaction attached. Students and staff developed highly focussed skills and the high level of involvement meant failures were keenly felt. Any sense of detachment to the work quickly disappeared and was replaced with a need to engage and overcome obstacles.

This depth of involvement and attention to process from design to finishing was a major breakthrough in increasing student knowledge and skill, and might well in the end be the main achievement of the project.

The production range of tableware

Achieving total democracy, however, was not possible, and much give and take was required. (In a real small design pottery, designs would need to be developed using a strictly coordinated approach). While this proved to be a difficult aspect of the project, along with the technicalities, it was also the most stimulating and challenging, as constantly new ways of dealing with problems based around the individual had to be found.

In the ceramic commercial environment, competition is tough. Pricing against Asian imports impossible. Yet most ceramic craft objects are seen as too expensive by the largest proportion of the buying public, often unable to discern the difference between a craft object and a manufactured one. The project sought to enlighten students to these facts and sought a synthesis by seeking both a methodology, a product and a market lying somewhere between these two extremes. Creatively, the Asian cuisine range offered the best potential to combine semi industrial making techniques to speed production and to use more exciting glazes. Restaurant staff seemed more willing to accept colours and surfaces like copper red, chun and matt black when linked to a cultural source such as Japanese Sushi presentation.

While the fashionable restaurant world seemed to offer potential to fill a gap and find a middle ground, making tableware that is financially viable to a market dominated by pure white is not an easy task.

Achieving this in the small studio was technically fraught with problems. After discovering this, students took to vacuuming the kiln and firing all whiteware in the one kiln together with no other work but white. Pots were covered with plastic and kept clean by handling with white cotton gloves. Laboratory conditions in the training environment seemed at odds with the craft experience.

The production team.

There was difficulty getting students to abandon ownership of designs to the communal ideal, as they wished to remain involved with the production of the piece they had designed. This highlighted the continuing need of ceramics /craft students to maintain individuality and identification with their work which goes beyond mere production of a product.

Eventually the solution was to form smaller groups to produce items which included the original designer. While a considerable proportion of the work was repetitious, generally the group overcame this through working together and sought ways to enliven each event. For the most part groups formed naturally around particular pieces in the range. Each member contributed something to the mouldmaking, production glazing and firing of the piece.

The overall closeness of the group working to achieve a combined outcome closely simulated a small manufacturing studio environment. This was a success in the project, which aimed to offer a real life situation and a viable financial possibility for making pottery.

As a part of their assignment, students had to price all work strictly on costs of materials, labour and firing. The rigidity of this regime was found by many to be a heavy reality. (It may be that some ceramics students are trying to escape these commercial realities).

The final products of this project are now in the hands of the restaurant staff. How it is used, will in the end be up to the creativity of the commercial cookery staff and students. It’s hoped that the experience of dining in the college restaurant as well as the potential training possibilities in that department, as well as our own, will be broadened by the ceramics group energy that is burned into the fabric of This depth of involvement and attention to process from design to finishing was a major breakthrough in increasing student knowledge and skill, and might well in the end be the main achievement of the project.