Fit for Service

For this project, my young students looked at the rich history of artisans who create work designed to be used in daily life. We specifically looked at vessels and serving pieces made by contemporary Korean artists Jin Eui Kim, Sang Ho Shin, and Jihoon Ha, who all have work on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Students naturally fell into a discussion about whether utilitarian pieces are fit for display at a museum, and what it means to be an artist who makes things for practical purposes.

Exploring Service Ware
Students further explored how these pieces might be used through a drawing exercise. I printed artworks by these artists onto card stock and gave each student a copy for consideration. They used pencil and drew right onto the printouts, illustrating what they would use their piece for. Some students imagined using the platters for sharing food to celebrate special occasions like birthdays. Others saw them as trays for comfort food, holding mugs of hot chocolate or tea.

Students were excited to learn they would use clay to make their own service ware. Their pieces would be designed to elevate, serve food or drinks on, and to make an occasion special. With our ideas of making utilitarian, hardworking pieces in mind, I demonstrated ways to make a flat slab for a surface area and methods of attaching pieces to make sturdy legs or pedestals.

Moving to Clay
Ideas quickly emerged. Pieces were designed for specific occasions and purposes—from tea parties to sick days. I gave each student a softball-sized piece of clay and separated a chunk out to become the serving surface. Students used rolling pins to create a flat plate–shaped piece, using tools to cut it to size.

Student Stories
“This is for special occasions! Maybe it’s for cupcakes or cookies. I love all cats.”
—Will, creator of Paw Plate

“I never thought it would turn out like this. The bowl has an octopus tentacle. The fox is eating the octopus tentacles.”
—Chloe, about her untitled piece

“On school days, waffles are my favorite breakfast. You would put syrup in the bowl, and there’s a hand holding the bowl and the syrup comes down the fountain to the waffle plate.”
—Simon, creator of Waffle Plate

“It’s supposed to be a snake, around caviar.”
—Marc, creator of Do You Want to Eat Before You Go for a Swim?

Because the example pieces we looked at from Jihoon Ha were elevated, I encouraged students to raise their platter up on either a number of feet or a single pedestal. These were carefully designed, decorated, and carved into wonderful pillars, animal feet, or perfectly round spheres. Students attached pieces as needed with the slip and score method, then left them to dry.

The pieces went for a round in the kiln, then students applied glaze in the liberal style of all six- and seven-year-olds, and the pieces went back in the kiln. The final round of kiln magic transformed the pieces into the utilitarian service ware we had imagined. Students were thrilled to create artwork that would be treasured and used both in celebrations and in daily life.