I thought this article and the thinking behind it so significant by Joanna, that I suggested that it should be published in this way on the internet to bring the article and work that came out of writing of the piece to a wider audience. DB
The Way We Live Now

Not long ago when selling a teapot, I mentioned that I take care that my teapots should pour really well. The buyer replied, 'I'm not going to use it. I use a teabag in a mug.'
This prompted a number of reflections. First, on the divide between those who view pots as uncertain adjuncts to sculpture, or 'honorary artworks', and those who measure a pot's worth primarily in terms of its success in performing a function.
Neither extreme is entirely satisfactory. Teapots become display objects in cabinets but in retreat from the changing, tactile, three dimensional relationship in use. In our culture the teapot is often regarded as the archetypal functional pot while in reality it is fast becoming a vessel for display and reduced to a symbol for function. Similarly, jugs become vases while the milk stays in a carton.

Milk jugs, to see examples for sale click here

At the same time it is not uncommon to come across galleries that advertise their allegiance to 'non-utilitarian' work yet include potters whose work is clearly of the functional teapot, vase and bowl variety. Can it be that some potters make functional vessels that allude so strongly to bygone ritual or tradition that they somehow transcend function? Or is it rather that confusion abounds, as Philip Rawson has it, 'about the whole nature of humanity's pottery which is unequivocally utilitarian whilst also being expressive'? What, in studio ceramics, is happening at the utilitarian end of the aesthetic-functionalist spectrum? While not trying to promote a functionalist programme, I've been prompted by my client's comments to tug on the functionalist end of that continuum to see just how elastic it is.
One might argue that modern life precludes lengthy ritual, thereby replacing the tea-set with an electric kettle, a mug, a teaspoon, a soggy teabag and any convenient surface. Yet why should we be content with either one or the other? Is there not room for some thoughtful design which could accommodate both aesthetics and function?
One result, for me, is 'The Busy Person's Teabag Dunking Kit'. A slightly frustrated response, certainly, to teapots for display only, but one which prompted a further
exploration of design within my chosen medium of thrown and altered porcelain. Why not take the

same approach to certain standard items of tableware and see where this led in terms of the way we live now?
There is, for example, something irritatingly inconvenient about most butter dishes. They are bulky, contain more butter than you need and the greasy lid needs putting down somewhere else on a cluttered surface. Silversmith Bernadette Ripley and I conducted some initially tongue-in-cheek market research, but the feedback suggested that our own reservations were well justified. Our final product is a porcelain base, large enough for half a standard pat, with a hinged lid, and knife that stays with the butter dish.
A foray into any supermarket quickly establishes that quint-essentially disposable packaging has been well thought through. Cardboard dimple trays separate and preserve fruit for as long as possible. Reproduced in porcelain they can perform the same function in the home more successfully than a bowl and with no less aesthetic appeal.
Buyers often reveal that one reason jugs can only do service as vases is because they do not 'fit' compartments in fridges. The limited edition Joannapaks are echoes in porcelain of standardised milk packaging. They meet the criteria of fitting both fridge door tray and the user's hand with the added advantage of solidity so that it does not squirt milk where it's not wanted. The prototype Joannapak was mischievously given as gift and experiment. Sure enough, it serves not as a milk jug but as a vase. The owner has chosen to emphasise the aesthetic over the functional, just as others I know do the reverse in using their valuable Meissen plates for daily meals followed by placing in the dishwasher alongside the inexpensive tableware. I find neither preference in any way problematic. I simply note that careful attention to either function or aesthetics will neither prescribe nor proscribe, and that is one of the fascinating aspects of ceramics.

Lidded serving dishes? To view items for sale click here.

A similar echo of contemporary use is to be found in the 'Stay-at-home' dishes, which are designed around the elementary functionalist criteria of takeaway containers: size, shape and stackability. However, transferring these requirements to
porcelain can produce surprisingly satisfying pieces with visitors to the studio being drawn to the early versions.
Broadening the canvas, the globalisation of world cuisine has

dramatically changed the range of foods we eat and therefore the need for a design response. Multi-use pieces seem like a good idea. The 'Egg-Shi' plates are designed to house either an egg cup, or a miniature sauce bowl, for sushi, say, or a dip. Re-designing the combination seems fundamental to something as prosaic as having enough room on the plate for the toast.

'The Busy Person's Teabag Dunking Kit' shown here with a Derek Emms Mug. To view Dunking Kit and other items by Joanna click here

Responding to a Paul Vincent article with the ironic title 'In Praise of the £100 Colander', the pasta server is a perforated serving dish, with a drip tray, so that one can drain and serve immediately. On a purely functional level - if this is of primary importance - it means saving time and having to wash up fewer items. On an aesthetic level it is far more than a colander.
Although this may sound like a fetishization of function, this is not my purpose. Quite simply if one starts at the functionalist end of the spectrum the logical development is design for new circumstances and lifestyles. Beyond that, the aim is - to quote Rawson again - 'to awaken those important and intensely valuable regions of feeling and sensuous order, which pure visual-abstract work ignores, or even affronts'.
However, could it be that intrinsically functional objects have nothing to say about the world beyond function? Historically, saying anything of social importance on or with a pot has usually involved decoration on to the surface. Is there anything a 'jumped-up celadon potter' can do to compete? Simply putting it in those terms is challenge enough.
The most commonplace object, probably the defining functional
item in our contemporary culture, is the mug. It is often used as a canvas for images that portray events, important or trivial - a collection of commemorative mugs charts history - but what about form alone? When arranged in different ways they can become comments on society, commerce and politics. Thus 'No Time for a Break?', 'Pyramid Selling' and 'Shoulder to Shoulder'. The third of these demonstrates that we can, as we so like to do these days, have a comforting choice of beverages while eating our satirical cake.
Admittedly, this is not quite form alone, since it is allied to language and configuration, but it does demonstrate that even a demotic mug can ask worthwhile questions on imperial issues.
Pots by Joanna Howells