Issac Button can throw a ton of clay into pots a day!

Students of ceramics and the austere beauty of hard work will love this film. Made in the 1960's it features English potter Issac Button, a man who makes herculean tasks appear effortless. I like the way he smokes a pipe while throwing, I like his simple robust pots. Issac Button claimed that he "never left a pub the same day I entered it!"
As a country potter myself I admire the plain way he goes about his daily work. We are very lucky to have a visual record of something at once so amazing and so ordinary.
Thanks to David Neale for putting the film up on his blog.

ceramics, tapestries and googling medieval owls..........

Sometimes Googling is an immensely satisfying, inspiring process.


I was looking up images of owls in medieval tapestries this morning (as you do) and I was thrilled to discover the ceramic and textile exhibition of Dan and Amanda Wright.

Dan produces thrown, altered earthenware and his influences range from 1950's English slipware through to the graphic work of Piero Fornasetti.The terracotta base forms of English slipware have a warmth and vitality that infuses the drawings and seems to pull them into the surface of the vessel.

Dan and Amanda's exhibition was shown in St Davids Cathedral in Pembrokeshire in August. The setting, combined with the beautiful soft detailed texture of the tapestries and the dynamic composition of the vessels, where the image seems to be thrusting against the constraints of the forms creates a visually exciting exhibition. I wish I could have seen this one.

I have to credit illustrator Jackie Morris for the photos of the St David's exhibition. I came across them on her beautiful blog. Jackie's website is extensive and browsing through her enormous body of work is a perfect thing for a Sunday morning.

Book of the year- the winner

"Fludd did import, by train, a pale, creamy clay from Dorset, which he used to make a pouring slip, or engobe and mixed with the red clay to lighten it. Phillip learned to pound and sieve this clay, and mix it in water. He learned to revolve the clays in the bladed pug mill which stood where the butter churn had been.......Like most potters Fludd was secretive about the recipes for both these things. He had leather-backed ledgers, locked in a drawer, written in a code based on Anglo-Saxon runes and Greek lettering which Phillip could not read. He did not use conventional weights, but had his own spheres of dried clay, numbered from one to eight...." pp128,
"The Children's Book", A.S. Byatt, Chatto and Windus, 2009

The Children's Book by English writer A.S. Byatt was my favourite book of 2009. Set in England a the end of the Victorian era "The Children's Book" follows the story of the Wellwood family, a bohemian group of artists, writers and dreamers as they formulate ideas on living, loving and society through the changing fabric of British life at the turn of the 19th century. Olive Wellwood is the beautiful, talented matriarch of the family, in love an errant husband, trying to reconcile the emotions of an "open" relationship and the financial hardships of living a bohemian lifestyle. Olive writes fairytales. These stories capture the tension between creativity and family life as Olive is forced by continuous child-bearing and the pressure to bring money into the sprawling Wellwood establishment to write more and more stories. The wild joy of creation is suppressed under a thick blanket of weariness and worry .

Olive's children and younger relatives follow their own journeys through rejection of Bohemia, creative flowering and fervent belief in Socialism. An orphan boy adopted by the Wellwoods takes up an apprenticeship with genius mad potter Bernard Fludd. This character, based in some ways on Palissy runs his household with a rod of iron, terrorising his fey children and wife with his insane rages and depressions. Through all these stories run the twin threads of descriptions of work and descriptions of objects. Byatt's evocation of the era and use of tapestries, houses, pots, dresses, and jewellery to illustrate the emotional and political growth of her characters is wonderful. As you can see in the above description of Fludd's studio the research is meticulous. It is such a pleasure to read detailed accounts of working life complete with details of tools and materials.

This novel connects creativity to socio/political movements and to work and this insistence on the reality of the innovation and inspiration makes "The Children's Book " powerful document of artistic life. I found it very inspiring to realize that my ideas about the power of objects and the need for art to be connected and active in the wider world of politics are part of a long tradition of artists being politically active and changing the ideas of a nation. Amongst all the other beautiful, inspiring, intriguing ideas in this book the integral pairing of creativity and politics is the thing that galvanised me.
Fizzy D was inspired by the cover to do this drawing.

Coming up....

I have a few things on the go and few coming up. This is the time of year where the quiet desperation in the studio (about not making enough work) is contrasted against the madness of exhibitions, markets and gala events.

I am part of a group show at the Noosa Regional Gallerey called "Flora"
Anna Varendorff, Barbara Hart, Carole Roberts, Cathy Keys, Dean Phipps, Justine Newport, KT Doyle, Liana Kabel, Melissa Harvey, Paul Hamilton, Shannon Garson, Zaishu. This show runs until the 27th of September.

On October the 31st and November the 1st Rebecca Ward and I are sharing a stall at the Finders Keepers Markets being held in the wonderfully gothic Old Museum Building in Brisbane.

Also Spring Fever, an exciting clay event will run on the Sunshine Coast from the 15th-19th of October. I'll be demonstrating along with Fleur Schell, Vipoo Srivilasa, and Jim Robison from the UK. I can highly recommend this kind of event as a great way to add to your skills, purchase pots direct from the makers and meet people.

There are heaps more but I've got the computer blues so I'll post,link and image when I'm back on track.

Ceramics Review Blog

Teabowl by Emmanuel Cooper
I've just discovered a fantastic new blog. It is written by Emmanuel Cooper and associated with the covetable British magazine Ceramic Review. Full of great observations about ceramics in the world of modern art, with a couple of recipes thrown into the mix this will become a regular on my reading list.

PS.I just thought I'd mention for readers new to the blog scene..... when you see text in a different colour on a blog this is actually a link through to the subject the author is writing about. So if you click on the word "blog" in the first line of this entry you'll get whisked through to the Ceramic Review blog.

A Christmas Story

I have just received a lovely present from Welsh potter/illustrator and publisher Joanna Howells and it put me in mind of the Christmas Eve I went to Wales.



About ten years ago I was living in a boring suburban town in England and a friend asked me up to Wales for Christmas. On a wild and windy Chrismas Eve I walked to the train station glad to be leaving the stultifying boredom of St Albans behind me. I'd prebooked my ticket to the famous Welsh town of Carnarvon.



At St Pancras station I looked at the board and .....to my horror found that the train to Carnarvon had left 15 minutes before. I was determined (and a little hysterical) to get out of the Southeast and into Wales any way I could. The man behind the information desk was wearing a very fancy ring like a glittering diamond skull, when faced with a hysterical Australian crying and babbling about Carnarvon and seemed to be a bit worried. I insisted on getting whatever train was going to Wales that night and sleeping in the station if I had to! He let me ring my friend who was on the snow covered road from his isolated farmhouse to the train station which was actually in the less well-known Welsh town of CARMARTHEN!!!!!!!

Eventually I reached Carmarthen.........



Happy Christmas to all Welsh men and women.
Lovely pots by Joanna Howells

the medium is the message

These baskets are by Irish artist Lizzie Farey.


She says of her work

" I have a fascination with living things and natural form. For me, willow has become a medium for an interaction with nature that is deeply personal."

"On the Wing 2"

I feel that Lizzie has summed up my own feelings about nature.



I interact through porcelain, Lizzie interacts through willow. For both of us the medium and the message strengthen each other. That is something that craft has which art often bypasses. Through the craftsmanship and skill in making the medium of the craft artist becomes an intrinsic part of the message making a very strong piece where all the technical an formal elements combine to articulate the message- in this case the mysterious, unknowable beauty of the living world.

Naughty Happy Child

I just bought this off Etsy. I believe that Mister Rob Ryan must have met Fizzy D. Whenever I am at the end of my tether (at least three times a day) I should just remember that naughtiness and happiness are two sides of the same coin.

old techniques, new context

I recently came across the fascinating wold of Ruth Singer an English textile artist. Ruth originally trained in museum studies hoping to become a costume curator and her love of historical costume comes through in her contemporary pieces.
I love the way these works take historical costume conventions such as pleating, applique and quilting and apply them in a contemporary context creating clean, uncluttered compositions.



Ruth has a fascinating blog where you can see photos of her work in construction.

...drift away

I have blog fatigue after Lepidoptera week! Actually I have everything fatigue due to having a baby and a 2 year old. I have heaps of interesting thoughts but half-formed they just come into my head ...and.......seem..........
.......................to drift away.

I only have the appearance of a normal person due to the extreme effort I put in every day to get dressed and brush my hair!


........What was I saying?
Here are some really lovely toys/jewellery by talented English artists Mike Abbot and Kim Ellwood. you can find more of their work at Akar Gallery.