What's in a name?
Perhaps to the bystander, the pursuit of making and selling pots may seem blissful in its uncomplicated and straightforward nature. I mean, the potter must spend their days with hands in clay, at the wheel perhaps, or foraging for clay - I’m picturing a cinematic panning across the studio with ambient music, beautiful, aesthetically pleasing clay splatters and glaze spills and unloading the kiln with huge smiles on our faces. We get up at 10am and work into the twilight hours (in a romantic way). Well, actually, it’s not far wrong - except for the last bit - we’re very 9-5 with a few weekends chucked in. But most of this is kind of true! But for one thing - the art of deciding on names for the pieces we make is so complex and for me, one of the hardest things to get right.
Stack of ‘cups’, formerly called ‘tea bowls’
A couple of our pieces are named after a well established form - a ramen bowl and a tea bowl - both of these forms being Eastern typologies. Our own ramen bowl had in fact initially been designed as a ramen bowl for a friend (hence the name) - lots of research took place into the origins of ramen and we designed our take on a very heavily used form. Our ramen bowl went through various iterations and during this process we realised it probably wasn’t as large in size as many other ramen bowls on the market - the intended use became for all sorts of foods, such as broths, soups, stews, ramen etc. But we decided to stick with the name, because it had been so popular, but also because it had been inspired by the pursuit of eating ramen.
As designers and makers working with clay, it’s hard not to be influenced by Eastern traditions - we do of course take as inspiration ceramics from all over the world from various eras, but we are also fascinated by food cultures, in this case how ramen has come to be a globally appreciated food, appropriated and adapted from country to country. But I was worried about the naming of our bowl being worthy of cultural appropriation because of the many iterations we’ve made - plus there are just so many other foods you can enjoy in it - so we decided to change the name to ‘Enclosed Bowl’. I hope this will be as enticing for people.
The Tea Bowl was one of our earliest designs - again, a take on a well versed pottery typology, but we tweaked it, refined our versions, worked to design something of our own. It’s name has become increasingly problematic to me, mainly because I know that it is so popular with the coffee drinkers - the perfect flat white cup! It is one of my favourite pieces we make but it isn’t the most popular and I am wondering if it is because of its name. We’ve simplified it - it’s now just called ‘Cup’.
I told you, being a potter is a pursuit of great complexity!