Ryan Fletcher: Tableware as Art
Ryan Fletcher is developing a niche, creating custom tableware for chefs and aficionados. He is a Jacksonville native that is taking his craft all over the world.
I fell in love with clay as a means of artistic expression 13 years ago as a sophomore at Bartram Trail High School. There I met Bob Kirk, a professional potter and dedicated teacher who showed me how a career as a ceramic artist could look. He taught the necessity of craft and the importance of function in object making. This gave me a huge advantage as I began conceptualizing my role in art-making during undergraduate school at the Kansas City Art Institute.
About four years ago, I began collaborating with chefs, designing custom dinnerware. My exhibition style manifests in the form of private dinners in restaurants. Held during off hours, these dinners are a type of “test kitchen.” Guests are invited, a special menu is created by the chef, and a coursed meal is served using my dinnerware. I call it “the restaurant as art gallery.”
I want to provide chefs with unique tableware that is custom suited to specific foods or types of food. The reason for creating a custom plate is the same reason a chef spends extra time on the appearance or presentation of the food itself. It elevates the status and importance of what has been created. The plate is a vehicle for the food, and a direct connection between the chef and the diner. It has the ability to manipulate the entire dining experience.
Collaborating within a specific set of boundaries, I can create something new more easily. Chefs offer inspiration for the dinnerware and the plates then inspire new types of food, or at least new ways of presenting them. The food completes the dinnerware, fulfilling its purpose for existing.
The dinner projects are an experiment for the larger purpose of having my designs produced by a factory in order to offer them at lower prices to the consumer. Within each body of work is a set of smaller investigations testing which designs work the best and if not, determining the reasons why. I collect variables at every level from chefs, servers, dishwashers, and patrons. Because of this, my designs are constantly evolving.
My next dinner will be in September in Minneapolis, MN where I will be on a fellowship from the McKnight Foundation working for three months at the Northern Clay Center creating a new body of work in collaboration with a yet to be determined chef in the Twin Cities area.
Arash: I think I can suppose that many people do not look at their tableware as something that “fulfills its purpose.” It seems you are saying that that lack of awareness of what tableware can be holds true for chefs, as well. Is that your experience?
Ryan: It’s just that this is such a new thing – creating custom dinnerware – that there’s not even a reference for it. There is one restaurant I know of in Chicago called Alinea that had a designer make all their tableware and serving apparatus (check out the “rocking bacon hanger”). It’s one of those super high-end, ultra-modern, molecular gastronomy joints. Alinea was one of the main restaurants I researched for my first food project along with the former El Buli in Spain.
I believe there are chefs out there that are saying to themselves right now, “I wish there were someone who could design a custom plate for this thing I make.” It’s just not that apparent that this is even an option yet.
Arash: Tell me about some of the “ah-ha” moments chefs have had as you have worked with them to create custom tableware?
Ryan: I can’t really speak for the chefs. :)
Arash: Whatever… ;)
Arash: What are some of the “ah-ha” moments you have had while working with chefs. Are there moments, for instance that as a chef describes, say, hollandaise sauce, that you conclude, “oh, duh, the lip of the plate needs to slope an additional ten degrees downwards!”
Ryan: Those types of moments happen every time a new chef finishes plating a course on my ware. Chefs complete my project. Pieces are totally transformed every time a new chef uses them. My first “ah-ha” moment happened when I realized that good chefs have total control over the food they make. They don’t require dishes with large rims or high walls to contain their sauces. They can makes sauces that are perfectly stable and stay put on any surface. This gave me entirely more freedom with my designs.
Arash: I’d love an example of how you and a chef worked out a strategy for a specific course?
Ryan: I don’t usually get involved with the food. I collaborate with chefs on the design of the plate and hopefully it’s diverse enough to function with lots of different types of food. I hope the dinnerware inspires the chef to create new types of food and flavor combinations they wouldn’t have previously made.
One of my first events was with a chef from Spain that specialized in Spanish Tapas. We created a proposal together to “cater” a gallery exhibition called “The Dining Room Project.” Its premise was artwork relating to the idea of food, community, or the dinner table. Our proposal was to provide free hors d’oeuvres for the night of the opening.
The chef created three beautiful and delicious appetizer courses: Hojaldre de Lingua: Beef Tongue in a puff pastry with ratatouille, Ensalada tibia de Estomago a picadillo of celery carrot and onion with beef stomach, and Corizon al la Catalonya beef heart seared and simmered in a Mediterranean tomato sauce. Everything was served on my dinnerware, and was completely gone within the second hour of the opening. And yes, they knew what they were eating. The menu was clearly posted. I felt like we proved something that night about the importance of presentation in food service.
Arash: When you think about sauces or chicken or beef or a dessert what is going through your mind?
Ryan: I usually let the chefs think about that part. The last food item that I actually considered was when a chef asked me to make a dish for what he called “edible dirt.” I’d never heard those two words together. I instantly started fantasizing about the plate because the concept was so original.
Arash: What are your thoughts about tableware design that you think heightens a meal?
Ryan: The most important thing to me is to help the chef create a unique experience for the guest. A well-designed piece of tableware will change the way the guest sees and interacts with the food. I try to create a moment when the diner has to stop and rethink how they will react to what they have been given. These moments of mystery are what the guest will remember along with everything else.
Arash: I’m imagining a time when diners will tap on their plates to discern the material of the tableware, “such a shame, this is a clay composite, you can tell by the muffled chime. My duck a l'orange (too 1980s?) is ruined!” Are you imagining a time when we’ll pay more attention to our tableware on a more discerning level versus a simple “like it” or “don’t like it” attitude.
Ryan: I’m not sure yet. I think it’s going to take more designers tackling this type of idea to accomplish that level of desire and awareness. I welcome it. “A rising tide raises all ships,” as they say.
Arash: I love that you’re thinking about how to take the tailored components of your designs to create something different, unique and useful on a more massive scale. What are some things you would change about tableware immediately if you were in charge of factories and tableware designers? In other words, what drives you crazy about a lot of the tableware you see and experience?
Ryan: I would like to see more of a trend toward small efficient ceramic production with the ability to customize. If all the production remains in large factories we will always be stuck with generic forms.
I do, however, realize the importance and necessity of these generic forms because I understand how factories work. I’ve worked in factories in Eastern Europe and spoken extensively with factory employees about manufacturing difficulties. The problem with customization is the cost of creating a new form. In the production of porcelain around 50-60% of everything that comes out of the kiln must be thrown away for warping and surface defects. Factories usually require a 5,000 -10,000 piece minimum order to cover their costs.
These difficulties translate directly into my studio. My clients will never need that many pieces, which means I have to make every piece myself. Last year I manufactured around 800 pieces of porcelain by hand in my studio. I wish there were another way, but ceramic manufacturing is always extremely labor intensive and very costly for that reason.
Arash: What are some trends in tableware that you are relieved to see making headway?
Ryan: There are some really nice forms coming out of European factories these days. I am really glad about that. People are getting excited about food with all the new trends revolving around health and eating local. People are becoming more willing to spend more money on a unique experience at a restaurant. These are all good things for someone like me.
Connect with Ryan Fletcher:
website: ryanfletcherdesign.com
email: ryan@ryanfletcherdesign.com
instagram: @r_t_fletcher