In ceramics this year, we were tasked to create a surrealist teapot that would be displayed as a tea party at the end of the course. As part of the course, we visited The Art Gallery of Western Australia to see their Alice in Wonderland exhibition. We also visited Fleur Schell’s workshop where she showed us her art and how to handle porcelain clay. After that, we started planning our teapots and looking for inspiration and eventually started creating our teapots with clay.

My Teapot-Making Process⤵️

I started with a cylindric shape and added eyes and lips with the plan to give it a long spout posing as the nose. I found making the eyes was the hardest part and they ended up being uneven but I decided that it was okay because it added to the surrealist feeling.

After making the face I realised that it looked like a chicken so I planned on making the lid of the teapot to look like a rooster comb but I changed my mind a quarter through realising it would be too difficult to go through the kiln, so I changed it to look like a garden eel poking out of the water.

I’ve always wanted my teapot to be functional and I realised that adding a spout would make the chances of it turning out as a functional pot very slim, so I decided to turn my teapot into a jug instead to ensure functionality.

As the last step, I gave the jug two chicken feet to add to the weird feeling of the jug. The lid had been dropped and fixed numerous times resulting in its slanted look.