Ceramics are one of those genres that connote handcraft and personalized care in the fabrication process. Even the molding process for ceramics is a one-to-one relationship, in which one mold is forced to produce the same object. However, Jurrijn Huffenreuter, offers a potential revolution through a modular plaster molding system. Blocks: Open Craft uses a base mold and a series of modular plaster blocks that can be assembled to form the negative of the desired clay form. After slip is poured in and dried, the outcome is an original piece without the hassles of mold customization, only modular reorganization. However, given the limitations in geometric form of any modular grouping, one wonders if Blocks is only substituting one mold for another – that instead of a ceramic piece borne from a single mold, all productions are resultant from and characterized by the same system.
