Segments - Ceramics 2 All On A Plate

What are plates for?? 

A whole lot more than a surface to help us on days when the kitchen floor is not so clean that you can eat your dinner off it. 

The Museum kindly lent us two English Delft plates in shades of mainly blue and yellow and a lovely Chinese porcelain plate with gold fish. A bit like these.

Poems we were inspired by:

A Stick Insect's Funeral Poem

Carol Ann Duffy - co-written with Ella Duffy

Goodbye, Courgette

insect pet........

This poem referred back to our previous session that featured insects on ceramics and I have Sam to thank for introducing it to us.

It's amazing how poignant the death of even a scratchy pet can be ...

The poem below linked in with the Chinese plate and the Carol Ann Duffy theme

that seems to have emerged. 

We all loved this one:

A Goldfish

Carol Ann Duffy

I bought, on a whim, a goldfish for a good girl.

It swam in an antique bowl in the kitchen there,

creative among the lentils and the marmalade.....

This symbol means abundance of gold, making the Goldfish a popular symbol in the Chinese culture. One of the most popular New Year's images is a child holding a large goldfish and a lotus flower which brings both wealth and harmony

The goldfish (jinyu 金鱼) is a symbol for wealth because its first character (jin 金) means "gold" and its second character (yu) sounds like jade (yu 玉).
Goldfish also symbolise abundant wealth because the first character (jin) means gold and the second character (yu) has the same pronunciation as the word for "abundance" or "surplus" (yu 余).

Plate proverbs:

All state, and nothing on the plate.French Proverb

When there is little bread at table put plenty on your plate.Italian Proverb
No one knows what the dinner was after the plates have been washed.Danish Proverb
Better a dove on the plate than a woodgrouse in the mating place.Russian proverb
Your friend will swallow your mistakes, your enemy will present them on a plate.Arab Proverb 

I think I like the fourth one best and we challenged the group to write a short story using one of these as the title. There are plenty more out there..

 It’s All in a Name  - Yvette

Perhaps the most difficult thing was watching these poor creatures swimming aimlessly in polythene bags.

Lights created the orange glow, even though the translucent scales were becoming dull in such an artificial environment.

All the children were allowed to do was look, wondering which one they could call their own.  After all they pleaded to their mother it wouldn’t take up much space.

Together the children were worthy of ‘union’ status and several ping pong balls later, not to mention more cash than an aquarium of fish, they proudly held their bags of fish aloft.

Everyone gathered around the newly acquired bowl ~ freedom of sorts for the little creatures.  Through the alphabet the naming process commenced but by the time they had reached ‘S’ the names came slower.  Smurf seemed a good name and then in triumph a little voice announced SMINE ~ and so it came to pass that Smurf and Smine mouthed OMG every time they circled.

Next time - December 3rd. Ceramics in the Kitchen - we have some splendid patent domestic cookery aids.

On the subject of beautiful design Sonia produced this inspired by William Morris: