Narrative Project Research Report

Narrative and Ritual Fissure Glasses

Ralph Shuttleworth

BRIEF To design and create a family of at least 3 objects, one of which must be cast. The objects should relate to a narrative or ritual chosen by you, which is solitary and individual in nature.

The artefacts should be eminently appropriate to their function within your ritual, and should be connected conceptually and possibly physically (e.g. tessellating or one object may be instrumental in the production of the other)

IDEATION My initial ideas surrounded the primal ritual of eating with family and friends. I looked at how communal eating has changed through time, and where it is today.

My personal experiences have primarily revolved around my family dining table, which has seen all manor of topics discussed, news shared and events celebrated.

While sat at the table, the sharing of food and conversation is paramount, including both the mundane and the transformative.

As the family unit grows and develops past a ‘family home’ the idea of sharing a meal becomes less practical.

I therefore looked to this to develop my concepts.

EXPLORATION OF IDEAS After exploring peripheries around eating and drinking, including a water jug, cutlery, wine decanter etc, I settled on drinking glasses/ tumblers as they are a prominent piece on a dining table, and are both personal, and connected to the group by their shared design and purpose.

CONCEPTS The sharing and pouring of drinks around a table is very ritualistic and intimate, while also being almost mundane.

This is why I chose to celebrate and personalise the experience while maintaining the emphasis of it being a close-knit group activity.

This therefore informed my concept development, so my design became a ‘family’ of cups which are connected to each other but clearly individual or personalised.

CONCEPTS As all families do, as the children grow up, the family separates and spreads geographically, meaning having a collective dining experience becomes rare, however more ceremonial in nature. This created the idea of having pieces each family member would take with them to their home, which would be reminiscent of home, and the connection to their family. Ideally, the cups would, on the occasions of collective dining, fit together or become a whole in some way.

This led me to look closer at my specific dining table and what my family may have as a shared experience which seems unnoteworthy. I explored the objects found on the table, such as salt and pepper, a water jug, mismatched cutlery, and the table itself.

THE TABLE The wooden table originally featured slots, presumably to account for expansion and contraction, which would collect crumbs and dirt so were filled with wood filler to create a smooth surface. After many years of use, these sections of filler have started to come loose and fall out in long rough textured sections, leaving a crack in the table again.

I loved this for its unique form and wabi-sabi type connection to the history of my family, and the wearing down of the table by thousands of mealtimes. This therefore seemed a perfect concept to include in my cups to emphasise the lifelong history everyone has with their family, and to provide that connection when all the cups are at ‘home’.

DEVELOPMENT When designing my pieces to fit with the narrative I have developed, I wanted to use a very normal and commonplace design, which would oppose the personalisation and high end production methods.

After considering the different cup designs I regularly use, I settled on the IKEA POKAL glasses as they are somewhat iconic and everyday, while having enough interest to create a stimulating form.

Given my pieces would be for each member of my family, I can tailor each material to reflect the personality. For this reason, one will be in wood, to reflect my own woodturning passion, one will be in aluminium, for my brothers love of technology and simplicity, and the third will be bronze to compliment my mothers collection of bronze sculpture.

CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT For the cups to have a base away from.home, I designed a small plinth/ coaster for each cup to rest on. The plinths have a slot like that of my dining table, so the cups sit flush.

To maintain the theme of connection and the family unit, casting the concrete as a single piece then breaking it into the 3 separate plinths would mean it's jagged edges would be a reminder of the other parts, and when placed together would form the complete plinth.

I designed a few concepts for the plinths, changing the shape and the placement of the slots, but concluded that the language of the concrete element should be one of unyielding stability. So a simple cuboid form would be best. The placement of the slot would incur many difficulties if not placed in a single line, as I wanted the cups to sit in a line on the concrete, so multiple moulds would be required to move the protruding piece.

MANUFACTURING THE CONCRETE. The concrete piece was cast into a reusable MDF mould which could simply be unscrewed when the concrete had set. The set concrete was placed in a water bath for several days to increase the strength.

I used a simple concrete mix using fine aggregate, however this could be made using more interesting aggregate as the splits expose the internal structure, so this could be exploited.

CASTING EXPERIMENTATION To fulfil the casting part of the brief, I experimented with ‘cold cast’ metals which use a silicone mould and metal powder suspended in resin to create cast components. As I have little metal casting experience, I created a wooden piece featuring wood grain and bark as a simple test to evaluate the level of detail which I could achieve with the silicone casting. These photos show clearly the fine details which I managed to replicate in the aluminium casting. I was therefore confident of the crisp casting of my drinking cups, and getting repeatable results.

MOULD MAKING In order to create a mould for my glass, I created a short specification for the mould to ensure it would be suitable. I concluded that it must be a multiple use mould, which can withstand temperatures up to 250 degrees, as this will allow me to use fast setting resin which produces heat during curing, it also allows for the possibility of pewter casting, which has a melting point of 230 degrees.

I also want a mould which can be used for clear and slow setting resin therefore need both the inside and outside of the glass moulded in a single piece.

Given these parameters, I chose to use an addition cure silicone to make my mould as it is strong, heat resistant and doesn't react with the water clear casting resins.

THE MOULD My mould is a 2 part mould, consisting of the main cup body section, and a cap piece which is pushed onto the resin after the pour to form the base and protruding section.

The mould worked well for casting and only had a small amount of clean up necessary, primarily where the mould was parted to take out the glass when cast. This did result in some discoloured sections where I sanded the join lines. To avoid this would involve a new single use mould made using a soluable or meltable master, and breaking the mould away once cast.

MANUFACTURE The casting of the cups was a steep learning curve, as the first casting had numerous bubbles and a large void, the second didn’t cure properly at the rim, however the third was successful with no bubbles. I did attempt a clear casting however this didn’t cast very well, and would have required too much clean up and buffing work to make it viable.

MANUFACTURE Manufacturing the wooden cup was done primarily on a woodturning lathe. A straight grained sycamore block was selected for its closed grain, tastelessness and antibacterial properties.

It was then turned into the cup shape on a lathe and the inside sanded. A belt sander could then be used to create the 9 facets after being marked out on the cup.

The metal cast cups were rubbed with wire wool to remove the resin surface, then buffed with 2 abrasive compounds to give them the desired shine.

FINAL CONCEPT The final cups are as I wanted, the cast metal pieces are of the right weight and surface finish. The base protrusion fits well into both the concrete and the table.

The cups sit at an angle when on a flat surface, maintaining its usefulness but being a reminder that its away from home.

Fissure Glasses

EVALUATION To develop this further, I would experiment with other casting materials, especially lead free pewter, as it may be able to be cast in the existing mould, and could be polished and used daily.

I would be interested to see what other forms of plinth would look like with the cups, and given more time and money , I would create individual moulds so the slots within the plinths could be more organic or reflect the table cracks more.

I am pleased with the narrative, and how that narrative is portrayed by the pieces, however this could be made clearer by possibly accenting the cracks with gold or highlighting them in some way.