Barbara Tipton

Calgary, Canada

Much of the work I exhibit is sculptural, intended mainly for the wall. However, it almost always references the vessel and my pervading interest in domestic ware. I have made pots and taught wheelthrowing for years, though I rarely exhibit it. And, much as I’ve wanted to, I have never made sets of dinnerware – only individual pieces.

Being invited to participate in DinnerWorks, provided a wonderful opportunity for me to try new things I’d hoped to do one day. The work is porcelain; slightly squared dinner plates and bowls. My desire was for the work to be light and usable, yet partially altered. Rather than cups, the verticality of iced tea/water tumblers seems more suitable to offset the horizontals of the plates and bowls.

For some time now I’ve been drawing leaves and plant parts on my own utilitarian work, and as a gardener with more desire than time or skill, I’ve always loved the illustrations from early herbals. Most of the illustrations on the central decals originated from Richard G. Hatton’s Handbook of Plant and Floral Ornament, which primarily contains reproductions of 16th-century woodcuts. This Dover book, last published in 1999, is a reprint of an earlier 1909 work. Authors of the original herbals often borrowed wood blocks from previous publications or copied the images with only slight alteration. My own illustrations have been redrawn and “hand” colored electronically – fitting, I hope, this particular lineage of botanical illustration.