budding & blossoming

Last year with the assistance of an Australia Council New Works Grant I began documenting a local magnolia garden.

The process of documenting a garden through the seasons is profoundly moving. The leaves yellowing and falling leaving twisted branches, growing tiny, furry buds and finally one day, bursts of magnificent, extravagant blossom. It made me laugh out loud. This is what nature is for, the blossoms are meant to be suprizing and delightful to attract the pollinators. Watching the slow growth and blossoming of the magnolia’s, knowing that the small shrubs will one day grow to be tall trees, branches twining overhead to create a dappled wood expresses the powerful cycles of life and death that move through the world.



“The Magnolia Project” follows the ancient magnolia tree through the seasons expressing the power and fragility of the blossoms through a series porcelain vessels. The solo exhibition is opening on March the 8th at Salmon Galleries in Sydney.

I'd love to see any ceramicists or readers of "Strange Fragments" who live in Sydney there.



Photos by collector modernist scholar and culture vulture Chris Osbourne.