Ceramic Jouneys

I have some work in an exhibition called "Ceramic Journeys" at Fusions in Brisbane. This is an exhibition celebrating the past and present students of Southbank Tafe.

After completing a Bachelor of Visual Art at QUT (the "university for the real world!") I was feeling shell- shocked and uninspired. The only thing I loved doing was decorating Clairy Lawerence's beautiful pots for her gallery Amfora. It was Clairy's mother Kitty when teaching me to wedge clay who said "Why don't you just enroll at Southbank Tafe?"

Southbank Tafe was a revelation, finally here was a place with a collegial atmosphere, practical people talking in an inspired way about pots, glazes, clay and colour. I truly fell in love with this place about three weeks in. At the end of the day a group of potters were opening the wood kiln, someone had bought along HOMEMADE CAKE!!! What a place! We all unpacked crusty wood fired pots and ate cake.
This is what making things should really be about, there was a sense of shared purpose and community that was missing in the quasi-intellectual halls of the BAVA.

Many teachers at Southbank inspired and encouraged me. Scott Avery with his emphasis on drawing and the discipline of the two-dimensional, Ray Cavill flattening huge lumps of clay and turning them into gorgeous platters (he taught me how to cone- wedge), and Ronelle Clark who curated "Ceramic Journeys" and showed me how to make teapots. The tools and encouragement these people gave have enabled me to be where I am today.
Thank you.