Inspired by the rough, natural landscape and the glacial activity around the Lake District, the Slate Series was created after spending time inside a slate mine within the Honister Pass, Lake District. Each piece of slate was carefully chosen and used to help illustrate the mixture of land, ice and water. This series explores the potential of an everyday material that we automatically engage with to create personal, thought provoking and educational experiences. By exploring slates possibilities and presenting the material in a number of unfamiliar ways our expectations are challenged. The realisation that things can be so much more or different to what we initially expect is so important as we become automatised by repetition. Our habitual nature makes perceptions stale and automatic. The Slate Series is elegant, unusual, thought provoking and challenges our expectations of a material we see may see as mundane on a regular basis. |
The material helped to dictate the form of the objects accompanied by glass, resin and steel. A recognisable form of slate has been used as the surface for the Fluid side table. Larger pieces of slate with similar shapes to that of a floor tile were used when creating the Cleave table.. The Dynamite table references the landscape and history behind slate mining with its feature of a shot hole - hammered in to blast the slate away from the rock face. The slate was a small part of a large slate clog that was found within a pile deemed as waste. A cut was made to hold the tempered glass table top, creating a visual interesting piece of design/art.