Recently we’ve been part of WOC, a pratical ceramic workshop divided in three modules. The first one just finished and here’s a little sneak peak of what we’ve done. As part of the first module we had the chance to explore wheel pottery, first undestand how it works and then propose an idea to be presented at the end of the module. With the Master João Lourenço in the pratical classes and Monica Braga dos Santos as the theorical teacher it was quite a brief but satisfying journey. What I’m sure is that I had to make at least a thousand cups just to feel more confortable in the wheel, but I had to learn faster.

To open the workshop the first class was given by Isabel Maria Granja Fernandes, a researcher of the Portuguese ceramic history that gave the class a great insight about how the ceramic has been involving during the last centuries until now.

Forgetting for a moment the indisputable enhancement of our livelihood from the medieval days to the current ones the truth is that a professional potter has lost a lot of it’s impact on our society. Since the industrial revolution and the discovery of other materials that are more resiliant, long lasting and easier to mass produce the artisanal potter as an industry has been almost wiped out. The same way we dont need to produce yellow pages we dont need potters to sustain the fabric of the industrial supply, but rather to create objects with identity, that differentiate and that can fill more than just societies utilitarian needs of our day-to-day lifes.

From the premise of taking the most of the potter wheel, I had to remind myself of my handicaps, I’m not an artisan, I’m not a maker, I’m a creator of ideas, and it’s not with 8 classes that I will turn into a master of this technique. So in a way I had to simplify the form and make my handicap my uniqueness.

Almost has a reponse to the overwhelming speed that technology has been replacing the handlabor I tried to came up with something that technology couldn’t replicate by inspiring myself on technology itself. As softwares use plugins to turn themselfs better and more complete, I wanted to use the human body of a potter as the main software and any tampering elements as the plugin. In this case I used alchool as the tampering element and wanted to feel how it would impact the final object itself. More than a simple object, Plugin-A (from Plugin > Alchool) is a set of three pieces that turn into a visual representation of three stages of a human base experience that won’t ever be the same. By using a different base object ( I started with something simple that I could properly do) , by being different potters to do it, or by using different tampering elements all results will be different and unique in a way a machine couldn’t undestand… for now.

With some help from Master João Lourenço, I manage to do the Plugin-A series with no harm done and no DUI either. I felt that if I had to make it as perfect as I wanted maybe I could avoid such a crafty way in the 0.8 level and 1.2 but I let myself go with it and just had as much fun as possible. Each piece is accompanied with a polaroid taken from the breathalyzer counting the level of Alcool before starting the piece set in a clay base. The glazing part was merely a technicality since I don’t see anyone using them as an utilitarian object, but in anycase they are suit up for the job.