Paper short abstract:

This paper will examine how the materiality of ceramic decorating pigments has an overwhelming influence on ceramic manufacturing practice & practitioners' perceptions & praxis. It will also consider the effect digital ceramic print technologies are now having on practitioners' approaches to colour.

Paper long abstract:

The production of brightly decorated bone china tableware has been a consistent creative endeavor in England over the past two and a half centuries, with the resulting objects universally recognized as a distinctive element of British high-status material culture. During that time the artistic styles and decorating processes have changed, but the decorative imagery and application techniques have always been restricted by the material properties of bone china and the mineral pigments used to decorate the wares. In order to demonstrate how the materiality of these minerals influences current manufacturing practice, this paper will present some of the findings from the recent AHRC-funded project: Extending the Potential of the Digitally Printed Ceramic Surface (AH/M004333/1). Primarily a technical and aesthetic exploration of the commercial applicability of digital laser printing technology to ceramic decoration, the project also included an ethnographic examination of subjects' responses to the introduction of the new technology in commercial manufacturing contexts. The paper will explain how the materiality of the decorating pigments and bone china body affects subjects' perceptions and praxis, and to an extent underpins their professional identities, as they contribute to the production of these artworks. It will then reflect on why the new technology of digital laser printing is beginning to alter subjects' perceptions of colour in relation to designing and creating decorated ceramics and unpack how this has been achieved in part through material technological developments that offer new design freedoms, but also by 'black boxing' the materiality of the ceramic pigments.