Ingenuity.......Australian craft in and out of the studio

There are many potters who have an ingenious do-it -yourself streak. They work in studios they have cobbled together out of a few bent nails and some wood salvaged from the local tip, they make their own machinery from washing machine engines they found by the side of the road and brew their own evil beer from secret forest ingredients. I am not one of those potters.

But I admire ingenuity and building skills. I love getting glimpses into other people's work places to see the solutions they have come up with and the more whimsical the materials they use the more delightful and funny it is. This reminds me a show that these sort of potters would love. The Bush Mechanics followed the exploits of a group of aboriginal guys from the Warlpiri tribe as they made their way around the Outback in a series of old bombs. As the cars slowly disintegrated these guys would replace parts with anything they could scavenge- I remember one episode when the wheels fell off and were replaced by bits of wood acting more or less as skis attached to the rear axle!



The flip side to the Ingenious Potter of course is the Smug Luddite Potter who stands up at conferences and speaks in an insufferably superior tone about the intellectual and artistic moral turpitude of potters who "buy clay in bags". You might also hear this boring type raving on about how the "public" is woefully ignorant of ceramic technique and needs to be "educated" so they can see the immense cultural and spiritual value of the Smug Potter's own work!

11.20 pm Weather Report & Firewheel Tree

I can confidently report that it was raining lightly at 11.20 last night. I was up very late (for a mother of two pirates) firing the kiln. Today I'm unpacking, cleaning and pricing for the Finders Keepers Market.

I'll be exhibiting these pots I've been working on for a while. The Firewheel tree stenocarpus sinuatus is a Queensland rainforest tree flowering through summer. I wanted this design to recall old 1940's Australiana and fabric designs.

day to day

In the new studio I think of being alone.....


The hours I used to spend alone, I don't know why but I felt really busy.

The building of the cheeserie/bathroom continues I can't wait until we are back in boring quiet rythms ,nothing new happening, getting, having tea, breakfast, the kids jumping on the trampoline, going to daycare and school and.......blissfully alone in the studio. Quiet grey walls looking out into the yard, a view broken only by the chickens wandering back and forth.

And pots appearing in that amazing process where apart from a pleasant muscle ache letting you know it was all hard work you'd swear they just arrived smelling of wet earth on the potting board, cool to touch and waiting.



COMPETITION!!!!!!!!
This wonderful animal has been wrongly named Madame Pompadour. Anyone who replies to this post with the title "I want a transvestite rooster" can win this useful prize!

ANU Summer School

I have been away for a week at the ANU Summer School. This year the visiting artists were Ann Linnemann from Denmark and Trudy Golley from Canada. It was great to see the ANU ceramics department, visit the library, and bask in the dry Canberra heat! (actually that was my least my favourite part)

Ann runs her own gallery in Copenhagen. Half the space is dedicated to tableware and the other half to ceramic art and exhibitions. It is always lovely to see a master throw....









The other tutor was the fabulous Canadian artist Trudy Golley. Trudy and her husband, jeweller Paul Leathers have a collaborative practice spanning over a decade. Trudy's complex slab built forms engage with formal issues, challenging use of space and channeling light through the forms to activate the space around them. Both Trudy and her sculptural pieces are really dynamic and exciting, she continues her tour of Australia in Perth with a residency at SODA and an exhibition in Perth.

Home Beautiful Product of the Year Award

Some of the Magnolia pots have been chosen as one of three finalists for the Home Beautiful Product of the Year Award. This is a strange place for the handmade, amidst the factory manufactured "Designer" works, but I am always advocating that art can and should be part of life, that the handmade, individual can have a voice and a presence amidst the mass-produced.



Only when artists are willing to enter the surging river of consumer goods and navigate these tumbling rapids will "ordinary" people be exposed to the joy, individualism, warmth and tactility of the handmade..........

I wrote this in an essay about this very subject...
"The value that these pots bring into our lives has changed from being pure necessity, when the town potter was as essential as the baker or the farrier to handmade pots performing a spiritual function. The presence of handmade domestic ware has become a symbol of the link between artist and community, the importance of a skill that takes time to learn, a calm, individual voice amid the mass-produced. In this world of fast food, and corporate control of “good taste “ in everything from clothing to home wares the handmade pot represents an investment in individualism, an aesthetic that values patience and celebrates humanity in objects."

The exhibition of the these awards is showing at Bondi Junction Westfield Shopping Centre in Sydney!

pippin drysdale

Pippin Drysdale is one of Australia's leading ceramicists and the subject of a book "Lines of Sight" by Ted Snell. It is fascinating to read about Pippin's life and follow the long path through figurative, and iconic, and abstract imagery that she has taken over the years. I feel that the "Tanami Desert Traces" and the work that has stemmed from this series of the last few years is an example of an artist working at the pinnacle of their expressive power. These magnificent works capture the vast mystery and stillness of the Australian desert.





Reading Snell's monograph gives a map of a long creative process with tiny variations through the years occasionally leaping forward into something surprising and powerful. I find it very heartening to read about the sustained effort, thinking and imagination that seem at certain points to gather together create a work that transcends all that has gone before.



Pippin Drysdale has a great website with two very detailed slideshows. The first is of the amazing Warrick Palmateer throwing and the second of Pippin decorating.

Magnolias in Maleny

We have been away for a week........more on that next
The Magnolia Project is showing in Maleny at Maleny Artworks Gallery, upstairs at 50 Maple St, Maleny, until the 31st of September. Ken has put all the pieces in the show online here.

In the Making

Craft Victoria is currently running in a "Month About Making". A celebration of the handmade.

This event includes an exhibition that I am part of. "In the Making" exhibits the work of 130 members of Craft Victoria and is a great snapshot of contemporary craft in Australia. From Helen Braun's tender ball of twine made from fragile lunch wrap....



.....to Simone Braund's beautiful spiral slab porcelain to......



.....Felicity Peter's chrysanthemum ring.



This exhibition encompasses the diversity of practice and ideas that Craft Victoria supports. You can see the whole catalogue and read the makers statements here.

melbourne exhibtions....... and artists

I had such a great time meeting other artists in Melbourne. My friend Jane Sawyer convinced to me to go to Janet De Boos' exhibition at Skepsi on Swanston.

Skepsi on Swanston is a beautiful small gallery dedicated to the ceramic arts. Seeing a range of Australia's top ceramicists in a retail context where you are able to get up really close to the work and even....touch them is a great pleasure.


I was lucky enough to see Janet give an artists talk on the opening night of her exhibition. The concepts behind Janet's articulate, sensually thrown tableware are fascinating. This body of work is building on ideas about the juxtaposition of the handmade and the industrial. One set included a variety of work all with different aspects of the same industrial decal , a handthrown teapot, with hand applied decal, formed a set with cups from gift shops and bone china designed by Janet and made in a factory in China. Janet made the point that sometimes makers of artisan wares think of industry as their enemy when in reality "industrial" wares are also created by individual crafts persons albeit working within the factory context rather than the studio.



It is so important that artists talk about their work, hearing Janet's speech added an important dimension to the viewing of this exhibition for me, the ideas were so exciting and complex that the work really served as the tip of the iceberg in terms of the complete concept.


The owner of Skepsi on Swanston, Vipoo Srivilasa ceramcist extraordinaire (more on him next time!) and Janet De Boos

Craft Intelligence

I have just discovered an essential blog for anyone interested in handmade ceramics. Judith and David Rofe are serious collectors of contemporary Australian pottery and have set up a scholarly and fascinating blog on their collection with an emphasis on tracking down the provenance of unknown pieces. This is a major contribution to the craft community . Australian pottery is rarely treated so seriously and with such respect. Recording the history of our craft increases 'Craft intelligence" in everyday society, this leads to an increased appreciation of the role artists play in our communities and, in turn, a greater chance of artists being able to make a living.

Here is what Judith sees as the role of her blog and collection:
"I've been anxious that contemporary potters might not like a blog encouraging people to collect work from "the last century". It is now much harder to make a living as a potter so shouldn't the collecting dollars go to new work? But at the moment there are few outlets where Australians can gain an appreciation of Australian pottery. Public collections are not often on display (with the exception of Shepparton). Retail outlets are few and far between, replaced by shops selling glass or imported pottery. Work in private galleries is often very highly priced and targeted to an elite market.
It is also a snapshot of a current body of work and doesn't reveal any history of development of a potter's individual style. It is as though a potter always exists in the present. And even the term "Australian pottery" has been commandeered in the collecting world by pre-war studio pottery and the slip-cast work of semi-commercial potteries."

This contemporary potter thanks you from the bottom of my heart...........
The images are of my hands. They were taken by Anne Mossman at a recent workshop I did for the Gold Coast Potters. Blogging and virtual friends are fun but they are no replacement for coming down to earth and meeting wonderful artists and budding artists . Sharing knowledge is what keeps a craft alive. Read more about what a fun weekend we had here..and here.

pastizi and pots in Sydney

I went to Sydney on the weekend.
We packed the kids and descended on my marvellous brother and his one bedroom flat for four days. It was a huge trip but when you are an exhausted parent- artist it is really worth making the effort to do these things. It affirms the fact that there is more to life than toilet training and paying bills.

My favourite parts were pastizi with brother and sister at the Maltese Cafe in Surry Hills.


Wandering around the Harbour in Birchgrove playing our favourite game of "I could live there!" with the stone convict cottages and wooden houses overlooking the water. And ........
seeing the pots of Jane Sawyer and Andrew Halford at Freeland Gallery.


I've written about Jane Sawyer's wonderful thrown terracotta and slip vessels before. In this latest work Sawyer has captured movement in clay. The terracotta slab pots epitomize what it is to be a potter. They are thrown then cut off the base and flattened out. The firing process causes the pots to curl up again at the edges with the memory of their old shape. The finger holes in these pots create an almost violent punctuation, but when you put your fingers through them your whole hand is drawn into the vessel, through the soft, smooth texture of the slip and glaze. This drawing of the hands into the pot then creates an impetus to lift it up. These pots are so clever and funny and beautiful . An abstract drawing of tensions - pulling the wall of the pot up, flattening it out to make a platter, the drawing together of the hands through the finger holes and the final impulsive lift this creates.

The other Sawyer vessels I was very attracted to were the double walled, pillow bowls. I love the use of the hard medium of clay to create something so soft. Once again these pots seem to contain a gentle humor , playing with the viewer/user, inviting them to touch and consider the nature of the material and the relationship of this shape to the human body.

today.....

Today..... When I woke up there was mist all through the trees and the Summer Beauty Eucalyptus was bright pink against the grey.



Our washing needs folding.....



Fizzy D slept in her big bed for the first time last night. There is a craft to motherhood. The materials are so volatile, sometimes it is more like witchcraft than the quiet craft of making pots. But in the beginning I used to feel like the clay was a weird, live substance and I was just barely trying to keep it going in the vague direction I wanted- I pretty much always feel like this about being a mother. Scary, volatile, exhilarating, and at times (odd times) peaceful.