Summary

Unique pieces for the unique individuals. Enjoy a piece of art in your everyday life, something you can touch and use, that expresses yourself. That is not mass manufactured, provides ergonomic hold with different texture, satisfy your sensation in visual, touch and taste. Enhance the experience of drinking tea, like the Japanese tea ceremony.

The purpose of my collections are to bring joy to people through the appreciation of the beauty in ceramic, and carry the passion from one to another in our daily life.

The stamp you see on the pieces is the last word of my Mandarin name, pronounced “show”, meaning Jade like stone. I stamp this on my pieces in hope that it will be as what the word represents.

Organisation

Isabella Wang

Team

Isabella Wang - Ceramic Artist

Pottery has always been a hobby since I was little, introduced by my mother, whom is also passionate of this form of art. It has been a learning process throughout life, from hand building when I was still too young to master a wheel, to learning how to throw as a teenager and to the more in depth glazing and firing in adulthood.

As a product designer I prefer to create functional pieces, at the same time is an aesthetically pleasing display. My pieces are deeply influenced by my life experiences, where I traveled, and the things that have touched my heart. I adopt Asian style as it is my heritage, and Western style as my current influence of living in Melbourne, and from that I create my own style.

Inspiration/Method

We drink from a cup everyday; it is an intimate experience, something you hold with your hand and touches your lips. With product designer background, I follow the design methodology and attempt to increase user experience; the idea is that functional pieces should be an aesthetic display itself; an expression of individual, satisfying visually, also through ergonomic and touch as well. The base of the pieces has different texture, to enhance the experience of contact.

There are tight and loosely thrown ceramics. Our daily life is full of stress, the tight base symbolize as it gets smaller at the bottom so is our stress; then transform to the loosely thrown body where the form fits your hand and touches you lips. The thought is when you hold the cup, you find the groove that fits with your hand and drink something that would relax you, hence the title “Let loose”. It is a reference to loosely thrown pots and loose tea.

Inspired by my heritage’s huge tea drinking culture, I have chosen to make pieces for that tradition. All pieces from the collection are designed with the same principle in mind, an extension of the cups.

Design Challenge

One of the challenges I faced was the alteration on the pieces after throwing; to perform it within the limit of acceptance of Australian consumers’ perception of a round shaped cup; at the same time pushing the boundary to an individual display piece and ergonomic forms, leaving the finger marks and dents. There is a fine line where the imperfections become flawed, and each of us has a different perception.

The main challenge is to reach the end user, who has the understanding that this is not slipcast or mass manufactured product and appreciate this form of art and values the handmade imperfection and individualism quality. As I see the each pieces as an individual, slightly different in sizes, color and shape to suit the individual who will own it.

From a process perspective, as the glazes I created are temperamental, slight variation of thickness and firing temperature would make or break the piece. I desire a single glaze that could provide variations, but to achieve the similar results each time to meet consumer expectation is a challenge.

I think the design challenges are as in life, individuals looking for acceptances and meeting other’s expectation.