After seeing the handle in the charity shop which fit perfectly in my hand I wanted to research more into abstract ergonomics. I wanted to see how pieces could fit in a person’s hand while looking like they might not. I saw work similar to the handle on the lid in the shop, where the is a curved T handle. I threw a new collection of cylinders and for each one I designed a different “ergonomic” handle or way of holding the mug. I wanted to try out different designs and see how they fit differently and see how people responded to them differently.
Creating a piece and holding it immediately after crafting it gives an immediate answer on how ergonomic it is. You can tell if it’s comfortable, how the weight feels, and how sturdy the handle is. I found the T handle on one piece felt very weak due to the heavy untrimmed cylinder. The pieces that felt the most comfortable were the ones with the clump of clay on the side. They fit perfectly in my hand and gave a strong sturdy grip.
While designing I researched different designs and ceramic pieces which used ergenomics in the work. There is a huge range of resources showing this, robert deane did a project on his blog years ago showing handles which were made our of clumps of grabbed clay. Emma Lacey’s work came up alot and since I had a masterclass with her on tuesday i spoke to her about how ergenomics had come into her work. She gave me some brilliant points, encouraging me to look outside ceramics and look at how people gravitate towards the easiest grip with most actions in life. A brilliant example of this is with rock climbing, there are all these different “rock” grips to grab but some are more comfortable then others.
Robert Deane’s work resembled this rock look, and i loved this connection so spent the second half of the week looking further at this design idea.
While balancing this project I carried on finishing pieces from unit one and looking at glazing with Anna. My test tiles with glazes on came out the kiln and i was pleased with the results, i had never made glazes before and since they were semi sucessful i think it was a win! I defietly love the idea that i know have a whole new medium which i can bring into my work, but glaze doesnt have the same draw to me that clay does. Clay has a instant cause and effect qualitity which glaze obviously doesnt, i can grab clay, throw it, press it ect. and each technique can completely change the body whereas with glaze its much more secretive about what its going to be like which i dont always enjoy.
As I finished this weeks work i realised i wanted to focus on a couple specific handles rather then balancing them all. I think the rock handle had an interactive quality that i was after and presented itself well. Looking at next week I want to look at how i can quickly add the handles to the mugs and exagerate the idea of fingers on clay and leaving a “makers mark”