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James & Tilla Waters
Ceramics
J&T Waters logo
James & Tilla Waters Ceramics

bottles

James and I are enjoying making bottles and I’ve been trying to put my finger on what it is about them that appeals. I think it could be that they were originally functional rather than decorative.

Historically, the material and form of the bottle would have communicated the contents as clearly as a label:  a blue glass “not to be taken” bottle; a chunky stoneware ginger beer bottle or a curvaceous green glass wine bottle. The contents were broadly signalled with the label adding details such as name and place. They were not intended to be decorative but had integrity, which we now find beautiful. Perhaps there’s a human parallel: authenticity and honesty being valued personal qualities today?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finding beauty in the common-place is something artists have always done, but bottles have never looked the same since having become the subject matter of still life painter, Giorgio Morandi (1890 – 1964). I feel the of influence of his aesthetic every time I arrange a group of upright vessels or even when my gaze dwells on a group of pots and pans on the draining board. And a google Morandi search results in as many homages and imitations as genuine paintings…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

which isn’t at all surprising considering how beautiful they are!

Morandi’s skill in painting vessels has provided a context for pots to be presented as Art. Here are some fine examples:

Akiko Hirai

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kirsten Coelho

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gwyn Hanssen Piggott, Cluster with purple beakers 2011

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edmund de Waal “Another Day” 2006

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here, an individual pot is a team-player and its physicality is less important than the shape / colour / tone / texture that it brings to the overall composition. The composition is static; the background and viewpoint prescribed. They are pots with three dimensions but translate incredibly well into 2D and have a Morandi-scented beauty.

Bottles seem to have been taken on a journey from utility to beauty. Like most pots, it is in their nature to form groups (the same cannot be said of teapots) and often the whole adds up to more than the sum of the parts.

Selecting and arranging pots into groups is fun (and we all do it whether it’s for a gallery; mantelpiece or a mealtime) but my final bottle stands alone, tall and proud: not remotely functional but charismatic and very beautiful.

Joanna Constantinidis bottle form c1970

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


  1. I bought a bottle at Earth and Fire, by Stefan Bang http://www.ceramike.com/gallery.asp?potter=Stefan%20Bang. Stefan hit on the very good wheeze of, for a perfectly reasonable fee, filling it with homemade fruit liqueur and allowing you to taste the different liqueurs first. He built up quite a queue and persuaded me to buy a second. I think it’s the only salt glaze pot I actually like and has the robust charm of your first example.
    How did Harveys of Bristol manage to sell their sherry in a blue bottle? Had the poison association disappeared by then?

  2. where is your bottle?

  3. I was recently put on to Morandi by my tutor at college – such beautiful paintings…

    Brigid xx

  4. Useful and beautiful as in most Italian modern design. Love the Constantinidis

  5. Inspirational collection thanks Tilla.
    Xx

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