{"id":811,"date":"2017-12-05T14:10:09","date_gmt":"2017-12-05T14:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bethanlloydworthington.com\/?p=811"},"modified":"2018-01-15T17:47:46","modified_gmt":"2018-01-15T17:47:46","slug":"the-image-of-wherever-it-is-placed-bethan-lloyd-worthington-commissioned-by-designer-ian-mcintyre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bethanlloydworthington.com\/?p=811","title":{"rendered":"The Image of Wherever it is Placed | Bethan Lloyd Worthington Commissioned by designer Ian McIntyre"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

Text commissioned by the designer Ian McIntyre<\/a> for the launch of his limited edition re-engineered Brown Betty teapot.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Bethan<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Image of Wherever it is Placed<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you close your eyes and see a teapot, odds-on it\u2019s this one. A constant among dust motes. Disappearing in cupboards. Playing nicely with others; on velvet tablecloths and cotton ones and wipe-clean melamine. <\/span><\/p>\n

The globe shape reflects back its setting, and we can see our own daft face in it. The light bouncing back off the Rockingham glaze contains the image of wherever it is placed, at whatever time. See it. See what\u2019s reflected by it. Now see in this crystal ball the multitudes. Swishing about in its tannin squall are generations of unknown designers. They are – or they intermingle with – factory workers, craftspeople, businesspeople, harvesters, secret-keepers, shippers, scientists, sales teams and sailors. They are Chinese, Dutch, Indian, Stokie.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\u2018Portrait

Lee Miller, \u2018Portrait of Leslie Hurry in a teapot, including Lee Miller and unknown man, Vale Lodge, Vale of Health, Hampstead, London, England, 1943<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

The evolution of this teapot began in red beds of Etruria Marl clay and it didn\u2019t stop with any one person. No single factory has a clear claim on its origin or its legacy. Brown Betty doesn\u2019t really belong to anyone, so its sweet nature includes everyone. <\/span><\/p>\n

The design crept and leapt through increments of making, elevated by each factory\u2019s innovations. Good ideas – like how to stop the lid falling off or how to keep your knuckles from burning – have become part of the object. We know about the perils of numerous cooks, we respect the unassailable sanctity of a single vision, but the clearest articulation of the typology of \u2018teapot\u2019 has come from a wide net, through a proto-modernist filter of pragmatism. <\/span><\/p>\n

Try playing Peepo!\u00b9<\/span>\u00a0with historical accounts. Spy the Dutch Elers brothers in 1693, sifting red clay in Bradwell Woods. Making Yixing-a-like teapots for London and the wealthy. In 1750 glimpse the travelling Dr Richard Pocock riding into the \u201cuneven, most beautiful, well-improved country\u201d\u00b2<\/span> of the Potteries towns, noting the dry red China ware of Shelton. Somewhere here a gloss was added to this dry red body; the brown sugar-shell of glaze sealed part of the teapot\u2019s shifting, emergent identity. In the 1920s, half a million were born each week. Every single one of them was in essence Brown Betty, but they weren\u2019t all quite the same. They were all just BB enough. <\/span><\/p>\n

In this extended family saga, one cousin has the sheen of Lee Miller\u2019s attention, another doesn\u2019t make it out of town. One child has eternal tea with tigers\u00b3<\/span> while some imperfect wasteling\u00b9\u00b9<\/span> is chipped then kept then dashed; sherds forming a beach beneath the streets. Ground down amidst the clay again. One staid relation lives cheaply and usefully at home for generations, while some striped cad is bought back from the States\u00b9\u00b2<\/span> decades later, its particularities raining down the big money. <\/span><\/p>\n

But this last is an anomaly in an unassuming dynasty whose motto is \u2018Cheap – but good\u2019.\u00b9\u00b3<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Bethan

Brown Betty images \u00a9Vitsoe<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/div>

References<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b9 Brown Betty appears in the illustrations for the popular book for babies, Peepo!\u00a0Ahlberg, Janet & Allan (1981) Peepo!. Puffin <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b2 Pococke, Richard (1888) The Travels Through England of Dr. Richard Pococke. Printed for the Camden Society <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b3 Brown Betty appears in the illustrations for the children\u2019s book, The Tiger Who Came For Tea Kerr, Judith (1968) The Tiger Who Came For Tea. Harper Collins <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b9\u00b9 Pococke <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b9\u00b2 Or for that matter Nairobi, or Antwerp, or Tel Aviv, or Montreal\u2026 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b9\u00b3 Sadler\u2019s advertising slogan, 1952<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The Image of Wherever it is Placed If you close your eyes and see a teapot, odds-on it\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":813,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bethanlloydworthington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bethanlloydworthington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bethanlloydworthington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bethanlloydworthington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bethanlloydworthington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=811"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/bethanlloydworthington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":843,"href":"https:\/\/bethanlloydworthington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811\/revisions\/843"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bethanlloydworthington.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bethanlloydworthington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bethanlloydworthington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bethanlloydworthington.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}