Natalie Moon @nataliemoondesigns-blog - Tumblr Blog

Scholten & Baijings

“Sixteen designers including Scholten & Baijings, Stefan Diez and Tomas Alonso have created tableware with craftsmen from Arita, Japan, for a new brand supporting the town's 400-year-old porcelain industry.”

This is a really interesting brand as throughout my ceramics practice I have always took inspiration from Japanese design. The simplicity and effortless appearance of these vessels often explore the themes of nature and Japanese history.

Wabi Sabi Ceramics

In traditional Japanese aesthetics, Wabi-sabi (侘寂) is a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete."

I have always been intrigued by Japanese design, my work from past projects even in my foundation year was heavily influenced by this. The simplicity and textures they use to create such beautifully themed ceramics. Often based on their surrounding nature and spirituality, their ceramics clearly capture this.

#wabi-sabi #ceramics #japanese

Design Academy Eindhoven graduate Nicolette Bodewes has created a tactile toolkit designed to be used in psychotherapy sessions.

Social/User-Centered Design

Nicolette Bodewes has created objects to use in psychotherapy sessions to help engage clients and represent emotions, feelings and thoughts through the use of objects.

"After years and years of just having normal talk therapy, I started to have psychomotor therapy and creative therapy, which were about all about visualising."

I am intrigued in creating design for a specific purpose/audience. It is a heavily researched process to help create a product for a specific audience. This could be linked with my favored material, ceramics. Creating a range to socially help whilst still exploring the relaxing qualities of Japanese design.

#product design

Simplicity

Australian design company ‘Porcelain Bear’ push the boundaries of materials whilst maintaining a simplistic appearance. They create porcelain furniture and lighting in a playful and interactive way, focusing on shape to represent acrobatics, divides and balance.

#porcelainbear

Sixteen designers have created tableware with craftsmen from the porcelain town of Arita, Japan, for a new brand that aims to support the area industry

This is a really interesting brand as throughout my ceramics practice I have always took inspiration from Japanese design. The simplicity and effortless appearance of these vessels often explore the themes of nature and Japanese history.

#slideshows

Sara Moorhouse

Exploring seasonal changes in the landscape, Moorhouse uses colour to express transition in these decorative vases. I am intrigued by the use of pattern and colour to link these seasons. It’s a traditional theme transformed into a modern vessel.

Jill Shaddock

Former MMU Three-Dimensional Student, Shaddock uses a multi-layered slip technique to create her work. I was drawn to her subtle colour palette and intersecting design. She creates work with both function and aesthetics in mind. Her inspiration is based on her travels and global culture.

Final Set up

Final set up for my three dimensional design teacher to see our work.

Montagna Mia - Our Animation.

We wanted to show the journey of Ann Swynnertons painting “Montagna Mia” (My Mountain) in an experimental, immersive, and playful format, by using our combined skills of ceramics, illustration and animation. We decided to represent the timeline up to when Ann painted Montagna Mia by 6 ceramic mountains alongside paper cuts, which we then projected onto to portray each event/theme. The projections were a mixture of illustrations, film, photography and textures.

Our collective pieces were based on a variety of research from Manchester Art Gallery, Special Collections, and The Pankhurst Centre. Our outcomes consist of an animation, live projected set, a ceramic pot, and book. All linking and showing our concept in different forms. Overall with the aim to celebrate a small snippet of the progression and development of Manchester’s womens movement.

#manchesterartgallery #unitx #montagnamia

Montagna Mia Vessel

The ceramic vessel I decided to make during the final few weeks of this project as Maisy was editing the animation, this way my response to the animation and acted as a summary. I aimed to keep the earthy mountain structure to link with the painting, but create it in a more contemporary style. The shape is also meant to represent the women’s form, a sculptural piece to symbolise the struggle both Ann Swynnerton and the Suffragettes had to get their voices heard. The fight for life drawing classes and her daring expressive techniques of drawing fully nude women, something that was frowned upon in the 18th Century.

I was really happy with the result of this vase in consideration to the limited amount of time I had. I made the actual vase in 10 hours and then went onto firing it three times for the glaze and ceramic transfers. There is a small visible crack due to the short time it had to dry, rather than having the usual week to dry it instead had 3 days. I knew this was a risk but as the Easter Holidays prevented me from going into the workshops I had to try and fit it around the remaining time.

Narrative Encounters Exhibition - Manchester Art Gallery.

Our exhibition set on Thursday 11th May at Manchester Art Gallery, mine and Maisy Lewin-Sanderson’s collaboration for Unit X.

Stills from our final editing of the animation, we are happy with the success we had after weeks of filming. We tried many different techniques and styles to create scenes that remain interesting but also factual and education. By overlaying videos we had showed both the contrast and similarities to past and present.

I decided to narrate the video as we felt visually having text alongside the videos was distracting from the importance of the film. So instead I narrated the timeline of events in a brief script to highlight the important sections of Ann Swynnerton’s career.

Montagna Mia Book

We made this book to summarize our project and the timeline of Ann Swynnerton’s life. We took photography during our animation that we felt captured the narrative effectively so decided a book to highlight this would work well in our project.

We wanted to show the journey of Ann Swynnertons painting “Montagna Mia” (My Mountain) in an experimental, immersive, and playful format, by using our combined skills of ceramics, illustration and animation. We decided to represent the timeline up to when Ann painted Montagna Mia by 6 ceramic mountains alongside paper cuts, which we then projected onto to portray each event/theme. The projections were a mixture of illustrations, film, photography and textures.

Our collective pieces were based on a variety of research from Manchester Art Gallery, Special Collections, and The Pankhurst Centre. Our outcomes consist of an animation, live projected set, a ceramic pot, and book. All linking and showing our concept in different forms. Overall with the aim to celebrate a small snippet of the progression and development of Manchester’s womens movement.

Stoneware 1280 Bisc - Ceramic Transfers

It came out of the kiln on Monday with only two small cracks, which was expected from the rapid rate it had to dry. The glaze was successful, I went with ‘Cornish Stone’ as it’s a subtle earthy colour and I have used it for a previous project with ceramic transfers. I contacted a company in Stoke to print my ceramic transfers as they use a type of flux that allows transfers to stick to matte glaze, also it is a much better quality than those printer at University. We used the timeline from our animation to wrap round the vase and follow the shape round. This now needs to go into a slow fire at 850 degrees to melt the transfers.

Inspiration

https://uk.pinterest.com/nataliemx3/unit-x-narrative-encounters/#

Mountains Symbolism

Mountain 1: This represents the starting point for Swynnerton’s Art career, where she began Manchester School of Art in 1871. At the time the School of Art was in the basement of the Royal Manchester Institution, now known as the Manchester Art Gallery. Throughout Swynnerton’s degree, she was recognised as a successful painter, winning a gold prize and scholarship for her painting.

Mountain 2: Whilst studying at Manchester School of Art, Swynnerton had to fight to be able to attend life drawing classes, as teachers were reluctant to let females join to ‘protect their modesty’. From 1874, she took art lessons in Rome along with her friend and fellow artist, Susan Isabel Dacre. The women then studied in Paris at the Julian Academy. In 1879, they formed Manchester Society of Women Painters, which offered art education and exhibitions for female artists.

Mountain 3: Swynnerton was an active feminist and suffragette, in 1889 she signed the national union of women’s suffrage. Both her and Susan Dacre were part of a feminist community in Manchester. Alongside their movement in the Manchester Women’s Art scene. In 1903 Emmeline Pankhurst called a meeting at 62 Nelson Street in Manchester to form the Women’s Social and Political Union.

Mountain 4: In 1913, three suffragettes attacked thirteen paintings in the Manchester Art Gallery in protest to the harsh three-year sentencing of Emeliene Pankhurst. They attacked the most popular and expensive paintings to get maximum publicity. After the incident, tied to the hammers was the Suffragette purple, white and green ribbon and a card bearing the words “Parliament for the dishonourable men, imprisonment for the honourable women.”

Mountain 5: In 1922, Swynnerton was the first woman to be elected an associate of the Royal Academy since the 18th Century. She was one of the most daring female painters, often shocking audiences with her nude painted figures.

Mountain 6: A year later, Swynnerton painted ‘Montagna Mia’ to highlight her progress through the years. The painting is said to represent her being in control of her surrounding and at the peak of her career. In 1928, all women in the UK got the right to vote and in 1934, Ann Swynnerton’s painting ‘Montagna Mia’ was put into the Manchester Art Gallery.

Animation Stills

Stills from our filming so far, we have shot around 300 scenes now and are onto editing them together. We tried to create a variety of shots with the projector to keep the audience engaged and interested. When we have narrowed down the scenes, Maisy will begin editing and merging together to create our final animation.

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