I'm pretty excited to present our movie!
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Who has the most beautiful tools in all the world? Chris Weaver!
Who has the most beautiful tools in all the world?
New Zealand potter Chris Weaver! These tools are made from driftwood collected on the beach outside Chris's studio.
The West Coast of New Zealand is a wild , rugged landscape and Chris says this has forced him to be resourceful and develop his own ways of making.
This series of teapots were inspired by Chris's Grandmother's old metal pressing irons. Although they were inspired by a woman and a prosaic domestic task these pots capture the true grit and determination needed to wield pressing irons and other household tools back in the days before electrical power. They simultaneously encompass femininity of the tough, single minded, Protestant work-ethic variety and the promise of a cup of tea, relaxing, and recharging during a hard days work.
New Zealand potter Chris Weaver! These tools are made from driftwood collected on the beach outside Chris's studio.
The West Coast of New Zealand is a wild , rugged landscape and Chris says this has forced him to be resourceful and develop his own ways of making.
This series of teapots were inspired by Chris's Grandmother's old metal pressing irons. Although they were inspired by a woman and a prosaic domestic task these pots capture the true grit and determination needed to wield pressing irons and other household tools back in the days before electrical power. They simultaneously encompass femininity of the tough, single minded, Protestant work-ethic variety and the promise of a cup of tea, relaxing, and recharging during a hard days work.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
...the final countdown
The Swamp Cartography collaboration is entering a white hot, nerve-wracking, exciting phase as the travelling exhibition begins on the 26th of February at the Gympie Regional Gallery.
Exhibition design has never been my strong point and mostly I just opt for white plinths deluding myself that they somehow appear "Classic". We had a very fruitful visit last weekend from Australian ceramicist and teacher Janet de Boos (this doesn't really describe her fabulousness as a supporter and encourager and inspirer of literally hundreds of students, artists and teachers over the past decades) who gently but insistently prodded us into the uncomfortable process of examining our assumptions. This is a process that is totally absent from the everyday studio practice. Compared to my own very gentle examining of my aesthetic motivations Janet's was positively brutal! It was worth enduring the discomfort as Janet's questions forced me to think carefully about every aspect of the exhibition space, how to make it dynamic and how to pare down the ideas until every aspect of the space is resolved so the exhibition becomes an experience drawing the audience into the beauty and isolation of the wallum. This process is so valuable it is worth enduring the discomfort and the exhibition will be a cracker with not a white plinth in sight!
The exhibition commences in Gympie and will trundle on it's way over the next two years encompassing a film launch in Brisbane at the Botanical Gardens in September, an exhibition at the Museum of Brisbane in October , Noosa and Canberra, and Melbourne in 2012....with more to come.
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