Baby’s got the Wedgwood Blues draws on the heyday of Stoke-on-Trent’s iconic Wedgwood pottery, as well as its more recent demise, in an attempt to visualise a future potential for one of Britain’s last industrial heritage brands.
The three ceramic forms are taken from Wedgwood’s vast body of vases and urns, which were inspired by the classical roman pots being excavated from all over Europe in the mid-1700’s, most notably the Portland vase that Josiah Wedgwood saw on display in London in 1786, later producing his own version in his trademark Jasperware.
The flocked surface of the sculptures draws on Wedgwood’s lust for experimentation with surface colour and texture, and has been painstakingly matched to Wedgwood’s classic blues used on the Jasperware collections, which in turn endeavoured to emulate the tones and forms utilised on the roman artefacts he was so inspired by.
Each piece is hand-produced by the artist in her studio and finished in an industrial flocking factory, the fabrication of the edition itself miming the pottery’s evolution from craft, to industry, to art. The edition size also echoes that of Wedgwood’s Portland vase, which was also produced in a limited edition of 30.
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