New Wave Clay: Ceramic Design, Art and Architecture

By Tom Morris

Throughout the twentieth century, ceramics were widely divided into two sectors. Studio pottery, which was a reaction to the mass-produced wares of the industrial revolution, and fine art by contemporary artists, who just used clay in their practise but rejected many of their traditional codes of practice. The unprecedented increase in ceramic popularity over the last five years has helped create a new type of potter: a ceramic designer: a part-artisan, a part-designer, a bridge between ceramic craft, collectable design and fine art.

These ceramists include product designers who use clay as a means of creative expression and classically trained potters who create design-led pieces and interior decorators, illustrators, and graphic designers. Its collective output includes furniture, decorative objects, murals and vessels: not art, not craft, but design. The book aims to show the diversity of this creative production field and how history, artisanship, technology and design are all intersecting today, creating a new type of designer—and a new type of ceramic designer. The book is divided into four thematic chapters. It is accompanied by written contributions from designers, decorators and collectors on the subject.