Trepō

An exploration of pottery, modern graphic design, & traditional animation techniques

This ceramic series implements a 19th-century optical illusion of animation, also known as a zoetrope, onto a series of shallow vessels. Zoetope, derived from the Greek zōḗ life + tropḗ turn and trepō I Turn, I transform, I convert, inspired the name of the series and truly speaks to the primary drivers behind not only this series of work, but also the Turn Studio brand. Leveraging new technologies while nodding to the past, to a 19th century children’s toy, a sense of playfulness and wonder surrounds this body of work.

^ watch the process ^

The Process

The vessels, hand thrown on a pottery a wheel, serve as a canvas for abstracted frames of simple animations. Precisely designed in a digital space, the patterns are carefully transferred from computer to the one-of-a-kind curves of each platter, then carved or painted. The playful patterns hide behind their stillness, waiting to be spun at just the right speed, and viewed at just the right frame rate, to reveal their true magical selves. With each calculated rotation, each frame of the animation takes the place of its previous frame, a flip-book who’s every page is seen at once.