The Journal of Australian Ceramics Vol 50 No 2 July 2011

Process + Mean ing
Left: Janet DeBoos, Garniture Series, 2010. porcelain
decals glazed, h.2Scm; photo: ANU photography
Above: Gerry Wedd. Poppy Plate, 2011, porcelain, glazed
w35cm; photo: courtesy artist
flora, dividing the surface of her vessels into sections, then applying stylised drawings of Australian flora
using the sgraffito technique,.
I have the decorative motifs cross borders in the same way that I consider my practice crosses borders.
Alison (Milyika) Carroll and Carol (Anilyuru) Williams of Ernabella Arts use surface marks to tell their
stories, in a similar manner to 'milpatjunanyi' - the Anangu practice of telling stories in the sand .
Founded in 1948, Ernabella Arts is Australia's oldest Indigenous art centre. The women use the lost wax
technique derived from earlier batik work on fabric. Initially they continued the decoration and patterns
they would have done on silk, but, as manager Ruth McMillan explains:
... the work has developed; it is changing from decorative work, in the manner of the batik, to work
which tells 'tjukurrpa' (law, story).
Carol (Anilyuru) Williams concentrates on ceramics as a medium, dividing her time between the art
centre and being an Anangu worker at the Ernabella Anangu School. Her main story is Piltati, a water
snake story. Alison (Milyika) Carroll has a multi-disciplinary practice working with ceramics, paint, batik
and tjanpi (basket weaving). Milyika's tjukurrpa (story) is Minyma Kutjara, a story about two women
travelling. McMillan says:
As we are in the desert, it is no good doing ceramics here all year - things dry too quickly over
summer so we work according to the seasons.
Gerry Wedd uses marks to tell stories from documenting local surfing legends, objecting to current
political issues, to studies on social phenomena :
I feel like interesting work comes from an instinctive urge tempered by a little conceptual rigour.
78 THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS JULY 2011