Above: The mug and saucer from the Children's tableware set showing the different motifs on each side of the hand-painted mug which match the bodies of swans on the saucer.
Above: My drawing/dining table where I began to draw the game of consequences using motifs while considering the 3 dimensional end product.
Sophie, co-Director at Villa Bologna with her husband Rowley loves that 'the illustrations feel playful and full of movement, and Forivor’s whimsical artwork works beautifully with the handmade character of our pottery. Every piece feels personal, as though it belongs to a child’s own little world at the table'. I agree with Sophie whole heartedly, l think that's such a perfect way of imagining children taking a moment to get lost in their thoughts.
Above: Refining the different illustrations before scanning and sending to Villa Bologna Pottery to be interpreted by the artists in their studio
When Sophie introduced me to the bowl, plate, cup and saucer as a blank canvas my thoughts almost immediately turned to the Victorian Parlour game of consequences. Its always something I've loved playing with people and I imagined children finding a nice visual game over their breakfast or dinner.
The origins of consequences are rooted in a literary rather than visual game; folded paper allowed players to create original stories together with prompts. Unable to see what the person had previously written, the game results in an unexpected but somehow coherent story. It is more common now to take it in turns to draw a head, body and legs. The surrealists loved the game (known as exquisite corpse) as it allowed them to pull apart reality through the act of randomness which became a doorway to the subconscious for them.
Above: Cadavre Exquis (1926-27), Yves Tanguy, Joan Miro, Max Morise, Man Ray. Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Villa Bologna's outlook on working with artists is that 'Collaboration for us is always about finding a meeting point between the artist’s designs and the handmade quality of Villa Bologna Pottery. We never try to reproduce artwork mechanically. Our designs are never printed or transferred and no stencils are used. Instead, we reinterpret the designs through our own process of hand-painting ceramics'.
It's lovely to see the contrast and meeting point of our work which is most apparent in the photo below showing my illustrations on the gift box and the hands of the painters on the ceramics. For me it perfectly shows all the parts of our worlds that crossover while giving our practices room of their own.
The collaboration is a natural meeting of our two approaches united by a deep love of craft, illustration, and the unexpected.
