My first attempt at constructing a plate out of porcelain dust has failed, unsurprisingly.

I threw a sort of press-mold to use for this project a few days ago. The form of the mold is of the space that exists between the bottom of a plate and the surface it rests on. I used one of my grandparents’ plates to create the form. The idea I have is that I would compress the powdered porcelain I’ve made onto this press-mold. Ideally, I’d not have to fire the mold, so it could be recycled once I’m finished with it.

Creating this mold was much harder to do than I’d anticipated. Throwing a ring of clay the exact form of the bottom side of a plate is tricky. Of course, pressing the plate itself onto the ring of wet clay to get this form creates a suction … meaning that it’s nearly impossible to remove the plate without ruining the mold. It took a lot of fussing, and the result wasn’t great, but I figured it would serve well enough to tell me if this approach to making the dust plate would work.

I sliced this in half while it was wet, and then left it to dry. When I checked on it yesterday, I was disappointed to see that it was drying in such a way that the two halves no longer aligned seamlessly… this was problem A I’ve encountered thus far.

Today, I excitedly went into the studio to test it out. I figured that I could fire the mold if necessary to press the dust down firmly enough, but before doing so, I should play around with the it on the mold to see how they get along. They didn’t get along well, or to be more accurate, they got along too well. The porcelain dust stuck onto the mold (not much of a surprise) to the extent that it was 100% impossible to move the mold out from under it. Problem B.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyITRQJk714

My next step is going to be building a plaster mold of my model plate. I’m not sure how I’ll get a mold that can come apart into at least two different pieces, but I’m ready to learn. Maybe things will work better if I have a complete mold with pieces that align properly, and one that I can add something to in order to make it slippery. Wetting the porcelain dust is another trick I have up my sleeve. I hope I get other ideas, as I’m quite sure that neither of these will solve the problem.

I really don’t know at this point if I’ll be able to achieve creating a dust plate at all this term (or ever). I’m not going to give up, but after thinking about this project for a few weeks, now, after handling it physically, I realize how difficult it is going to be. If it weren’t for the success I had with the Saskatchewan Glacier cups, I probably wouldn’t be taking this risk. I can still hear the ceramics technician telling me that what I wanted to do with those porcelain snowflakes was impossible. Well, if I did the impossible once, maybe I’ll find a way to do it again. Or maybe not.