Compose styles
Rather than blending styles toward a middle, this gives them roles. The first one carries the structure, the next comes in as the accent, and anything after that shows up in a single detail. Where they fight each other, it says so before you start.
How to divide the work
- Composition
- Follow Mingei: Favor forms that line up together and avoid one piece standing out
- Type
- Set in Mingei's manner (Minimal marking, wording that states the use rather than the maker), and let Studio Pottery's lettering (Keep any lettering small and thin, naming only the piece and the potter, and never decorative) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Mingei's material (Local materials and standing glazes, the same form made many times); bring in exactly one thing from Studio Pottery (High fired stoneware, porcelain and raku. Ash, celadon and tenmoku glazes and running copper reds, laid thick enough to let the coarse body show through).
- Colour
- Build on #dfcc9d, #a66b3b, #3e271d and admit one accent from #3A2418, #93A98F, #D8CBB0.
Where they fight
These are already listed as related entries, so the join should come easily.
Caution
- Mingei The moment individual authorship is asserted the premise of anonymity collapses, and what remains is expensive craft merely performing plainness.
- Studio Pottery Copying only the marks of the hand and adding wobble leaves out the high firing and the behaviour of the glaze, and produces a mass made object that merely looks uneven.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from Mingei (style, 1926–) and their accent from Studio Pottery (style, 1920s–). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Mingei exists for: setting the form and the reachable price of everyday wares meant for daily use, or retail and presentation that make the maker and the region the subject. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Mingei - Anonymous craftsmanship - Form following use - The steadiness born of repetition - Local materials and hand habits Composition: Favor forms that line up together and avoid one piece standing out. Type and lettering: Minimal marking, wording that states the use rather than the maker. ## Accent comes from Studio Pottery, used sparingly - Throwing rings, or the seams of coils and slabs, left visible instead of smoothed away - High temperature glazes: ash, celadon and tenmoku, returning again and again to brown black and grey green - Streaked copper red and purple glazes that ran in the kiln and stayed as unplanned marks on the wall - Incised lines inlaid with coloured slip under a white glaze, with a different glaze at rim and foot alone Let one material quality come from it: High fired stoneware, porcelain and raku. Ash, celadon and tenmoku glazes and running copper reds, laid thick enough to let the coarse body show through. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #dfcc9d, carry the structure in #a66b3b and #3e271d, and let a single accent come from #93A98F. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: calm, intimacy, trust, rebellion. ## What goes wrong - Mingei: The moment individual authorship is asserted the premise of anonymity collapses, and what remains is expensive craft merely performing plainness. - Studio Pottery: Copying only the marks of the hand and adding wobble leaves out the high firing and the behaviour of the glaze, and produces a mass made object that merely looks uneven. ## Across the four Keep the roles fixed in all four. Vary the framing, the scale and the arrangement so the set shows what this pairing can do rather than four versions of one picture. ## Constraints - Do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work. - Do not reproduce the composition of an existing work. - Produce original compositions in the general period languages described above.
Related entries
- Mingei 1926– / Style / Craft Movements
Yanagi Sōetsu and his circle found 'the beauty of use' in the everyday wares of unnamed craftsmen. By making anonymity, repetition and utility the measure of healthy form, the movement became the bedrock of Japanese design thought.
- Studio Pottery 1920s– / Style / Ceramic Styles
Ceramics made by individual artist potters in their own workshops, where one person carries a pot from forming through glazing to firing. It emerged in the early twentieth century as part of a wider revival of crafts and is deliberately non industrial. The Leach Pottery, opened at St Ives in Cornwall in 1920, became its best known centre.
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