Meadware is a project by Bristol based artist and ceramic researcher Phil Root. Commissioned to produce functional works for use in TACO!’s new Cygnet Square space, Phil utilised locally foraged materials to create a site responsive and circular approach to ceramic production. Over a 12month period Phil developed new glazes and forms that come from, and are inspired by, Thamesmead as a place. 

Drawing from Thamesmead’s natural history as a marshland as well as it’s brutalist architecture, Meadware balances the ancient and modernist by making use of locally foraged shoreline materials from the Thames riverbank, including mud, plant ash, sea shell, and more modern materials such as road surfacing granite.

The Meadware Standard glaze was developed using a Nuka glazing technique- a traditional japanese ash glazing that traditionally used burnt rice kernal husks. Phil’s Meadware Standard glaze incorporates all the foraged material and embody in its both form and its application, the flowing alluvial banks of the River Thames. 

Each individual Carafe Vase is unique with its own variation in form and glaze pattern, is artist initialed on the bottom, and holds 450ml of fluid.

The Meadware Standard Glaze recipe 

Road Surfacing Granite Dust    30%
Nepheline Syenite                     20%
Shoreline Grass Ash                 30%
Calcined Sea Shell                    10%
Thames River Mud                    10%