The Journal of Australian Ceramics Vol 52 No 1 April 2013

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Contents 

Volume 52 1 

April 2013 

S16 

(over 

Jim Cooper 

M il/brook Holiday 

(the league for 

spiritual discovery) 

2012 Premier Award 

The Portage Ceramics Award 

See pages 39-43 

The Journal of Australian Ceramics 

Oates of Publication 

1 Apnl, 17 Juty, 20 November 

Publisher 

The Austrahan Ceramics Association 

PO Box 274 WiNe~ NSW 2024 

1. 1300 720124 

F: 02 9369 3742 

mallOaUSlralianceramics.com 

WWrN australianceramic:s.com 

ABN 14 001 535 502 

ISSN 1449-275X 

Editor 

Vicki Grima 

WrI'NI.vldclgrima .c:om.au 

Marketing and Promotions 

Carol Frac.zek 

Design 

Astrid Wehling 

www.astndwehllng.com.au 

Subscriptions Manager 

Ashley McHulChlSOfl 

WYoW.ashleytiona.com 

Editorial Assistant 

Elisa Bartels 

W\NIN.elisabartels.com 

Proofreader. content 

Suzanne Dean 

Australia Wide Reports 

ACT: Jane Crick 

NSW: Sue Stewart 

OLD: lyo R0gef5 

SA: Sophia Phillips 

lAS: John Watson 

V1C: Glenn England 

WA: Elaine Bradley 

Printed by 

Newostyle Pnnting Co Ply ltd 

41 Manchester St. Mile End SA 

5011 cerofled 10 ASlNZS ISO 

14001:2004 Environmental 

Management Systems. Printed on 

Impress Satin (FSC) stock using 

100% "'9"table-based 

process Inks. 

2 EDITORIAL 

3 CONTRIBUTORS 

TRIBUTES 

4 Janet Mansfield by Prime Minister Julia Gillard 

5 Janet Mansfield by TACA President Patsy Hely 

6 Janet's Story by Judy Boydell 

12 Vincent Francis McGrath 

13 Robert 'Bob' Mickan 

14 AWARDS 

15 GALLERY 

PROFILE 

18 Terrains of the Heart The life and work of Vincent McGrath by Terry Davies 

FOCUS: NEW ZEALAND CERAMICS 

22 An Accumulated History 

Karl Chitham considers the work of Raewyn Atkinson 

28 The Significance of the Decorative 

Anna Miles reviews the work of Richard Stratton 

33 Of Portage and the State of Things Across the Ditch 

Moyra Elliott considers the state of ceramics in New Zealand through the 

lens of their principal annual exhibition 

40 What Makes Me Do It? 

Jim Cooper writes about the ideas behind the imagery 

44 Aaron Scythe - a personal statement 

45 Mother Matrix David Eggleton considers the works of Christine Boswijk 

50 Chester Nealie Woodfire Potter 

A world of his making by Jan Irvine-Nealie 

55 Bring on the Jugs An exploration by Christine Thacker 

59 Driving Creek Potteries Barry Brickell's story 

64 The List 

66 Todd Douglas Ceramic Artist A profile by Karuna Douglas 

67 Infinite Shades of Green A glaze story by Karuna Douglas 

70 Darryl Frost A pictorial survey of The Innocent Glaze exhibition 

72 A Path Less Travelled 

Richard Fahey considers the evolution of Richard Parker's practice 

PROMOTION 

76 Woodrow Kilns 

REGULARS 

80 VIEW 1: Hybrid Places 

Michael Keighery reviews a recent exhibition of work by Janet DeBoos 

82 VIEW 2: A Concise Guide to Indigenous Australian Pottery 

A review by Karen Austin 

86 COMMUNITY: Meeting a Need 

Don Chisholm reports on his latest invention 

88 CERAMICS+: Dreaming with Open Eyes 

Pamela Irving discusses her mosaic installation at Luna Park in Melbourne 

93 UP THE COMMISSION PATH : Production Ware in a Digital Age 

Stephen Benwell interviews Christopher Plumridge 

98 CERAMIC SHOTS: Shoot the Studio Potter 

t 02 STUDIO: Sue Scobie Q&A with Vicki Grima 

106 JOIN THE POTS: from The JAC archives - Vincent McGrath 

108 THE TRUDIE ALFRED BEQUEST 2013 WINNERS 

110 EDUCATION: Where to from here? 

Suzy Dunser considers Ceramics Education in New Zealand 

114 COLLECTION 1: Jeff Mincham's Sea of Grass 

Patsy Hely discusses a work recently acquired by the NGA 

116 COLLECTION 2: The Secondary Market for Applied Arts 

Simon Manchester shares his experiences 

11 9 POTTERS MARKS 

120 AUSTRALIA WIDE: State Representative Reports 

THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APRIL 2013 1

Editorial 

In November 2012 The Australian Ceramics 

Association facilitated a ceramics showca5e at 

Eveleigh Artisans Market with more than 20 

potters participating from Sydney, regional areas 

and interstate. Connections between potters 

and their audience at markets, open studios and 

community events are becoming an effective and 

enjoyable way for us to promote ceramics. The 

Journal of AustraUan Ceramics has initiated a 

national open ceramic studio project, the OSCAS. 

to be held in mid-August 2013. So far, around 60 

studios have registered their interest. If you would 

like to join in, see page 126 for details. 

Right: Vicki Grima and Katy Mitchell 

(from Queensland) swapping spoons at the 

Eveleigh Artisans Market. 

Janet Mansfield took Australian ceramics to the world and she returned the world of ceramics back to 

us through her magazines, her personal interactions, her robust woodfired ceramics, and the clay events 

in Gulgong. We soaked in all that she gave and we will miss her 

Thank you to Judy Boydell who, in the first pages of this issue, shares the story of her life with Janet 

over the last 40 or so years. It's a personal story illustrating the depth of Janet's passion for ceramics - 

as a potter, a woodfirer, an editor, a traveller and a friend. In the July 2013 issue I will build on Judy's 

tribute with more stories from near and afar. 

An extra 16 pages in this issue allowed space for our special focus on New Zealand ceramics. My 

aim was to capture a snapshot of the diversity of ceramic practice through a melting pot of profiles, to 

introduce readers to some new faces and to consider how Australia's neighbour is facing similar issues 

of dwindling funding of tertiary level ceramics. Although we have skimmed the surface, I hope this will 

lend support to our ceramic fellows across the ditch and strengthen ties between us. 

The feeling of a community rallying in the face of difficult times is coming through loud and clear 

wherever I go and wherever I look. Many TAFEs around Australia have closed their ceramic studios, 

highly skilled teachers have lost their jobs, students have nowhere to study, or, if there is a local course, 

they can't afford the fees. We are being forced outside our comfort zone, to be creative and to consider 

new ways of building knowledge and skills. It is important to find innovative solutions that support and 

enable those who have lost ceramics courses in their local TAFE to continue to improve their skills. The 

Australian Ceramics Association, via The Trudie Alfred Bequest Ceramic Scholarships, is proud to be 

playing its part by giving financial and moral support to our five winners for 2013. See this issue for a 

brief introduction to their plans for the year. 

I wish everyone a creative and productive 2013! 

~. 

2 THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APRIL 2013

Contributors 

Dr. Terry Davies was born in Wales. He graduated with a BA 

Hons in Art and Design and by 1980 had moved to Australia. 

Terry gained an MA from Flinders. and in 2002 a PhD from 

Monash University. He is a practising artist. researcher and writer 

based in Adelaide. 

www.terrydaviesceramics.com 

David Eggleton lives in Dunedin, New Zealand, where he is a 

poet, writer and arts journalist whose articles, reviews, profiles 

and essays have appeared in the Listener, Art New Zealand, 

New Zealand Books, Art News, Architecture New Zealand, 

Urbis, Landfall and many other publications. His books include 

Towards Aotearoa: A Short History of Twentieth Century 

New Zealand Art, (Reed Publishing/Raupo Books, 2007). 

These days Moyra Elliott spends much of her time writing. If it 's 

not a rant or a review for her Kiwi-clay blog, it's prep for a paper 

at some conference somewhere or it might even be something 

towards her second book on the history of New Zealand ceramics. 

http://conetenanddescending.wordpress.com 

Richard Fahey is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Design 

and Visual Arts, Unitec, Auckland. He writes regularly on the New 

Zealand studio pottery movement. In 20 11 he was curator of 

the exhibition, Richard Parker: Master of Craft, (Objectspace, 

Auckland). Other curated exhibitions include Peter Hawkesby 

(Gus Fisher Gallery, University of Auckland, 2011 ), and Clay 

Economies (Objectspace, 2008). 

E: rfahey@unitec.ac.nz 

http://pinterest.com/richardfahey 

Anna Miles has a background as an art critic, curator and 

lecturer. She established Anna Miles Gallery in 2003, and 

lectures part-time in the School of Art and DeSign at AUT 

University. Recent curaled exhibitions include Bespoke: The 

Pervasiveness of the Handmade (Objectspace, Auckland, 

2006), and A Lace Life: The Alwynne Crowsen Collection 

(Objerupace, 2008). 

www.annamilesgallery.com 

http://pinterest.com/amilesgallery 


Tribute to Janet Mansfield 

PRIME MINISTER 

CANBERRA 

MESSAGE FROM PRIME MINISTER TULIA GILLARD 

IN MEMORIAM 

JANET MANSFIELD OAM 

1934 - 2013 

On behalf of the Goverrunent and people of Australia, I pay a sincere and 

respectful tribute to the la te Janet Mansfield. 

I did not have the privilege of knowing Ms Mansfield as you all did, but I do 

appreciate the high esteem in which she was held, and can only imagine the 

gap her passing has left among her family and many friends. 

Janet Mansfield's long and distinguished life saw her rise to the peak of her 

chosen field of ceramics and represent our country with passion and flair, 

putting Australian ceramics firmly on the international stage. 

Today you remember a woman of fine intelligence, creative depth and 

generosity of spirit who is justly regarded as an international treasure. 

I join you in acknowledging Janet's exceptional contribution as an artist, author, 

cultural leader and teacher. She leaves a powerful legacy not only in her art 

and her writings but in the love and respect you will continue to feel for her. 

Thank you for allowing me to share these words of farewell to a wonderful 

Australian. Vale Janet Mansfield. 

nourable Julia Gillard MP 

Pr' e Minister of Australia 


OFFICIAL MAIL 

If not delivered please return to 

ENVOO7A


As editor of Pottery in Australia. Janet Mansfield is 

shown here Interviewing Ivan McMeekin In the 1970s. 

Photo: courtesy Margaret Tuckson 

The Crafts M ovement in Australia: A History 

by Grace Cochrane 

Janet Mansfield OAM (1934-2013) 

The Australian Ceramics Association was saddened to hear of the recent passing of Janet Mansfield. 

Many members will have met Janet and most will have benefited from the many contributions she 

made to the field of ceramics. As an artist she inspired many and her strong woodfire and salt-glazed 

work demonstrated a singularly consistent vision . As a writer and publisher she forged new ground in 

bringing out the international journals, Ceramics Art and Perception and Ceramics Technical while 

her books on ceramics form a solid backbone amongst published works in the area . Janet donated her 

time to a long string of public roles: President of the Polters Society of Australia (1985-86), the Craft 

Council of NSW (1972-73), the Ceramic Study Group of NSW (1968-69) and the International Academy 

of Ceramics (2006-12), amongst others. 

The Association would like to particularly acknowledge the position Janet held as editor of Pottery in 

Australia (now The Journal of Australian Ceramics) from 1976-1989. A personal remembrance by 

longtime friend Judy Boydell is published in this issue while in the July issue 52/2 a number of colleagues 

will offer their memories of the energetic and extraordinary Janet Mansfield. She will be sorely missed. 

Dr Patsy Hely 

President, The Australian Ceramics Association 

THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APRil 2013 

S

Tri bute to Ja net Mansfield 

Janet at a Ceramic Study Group firing at 

Mount Victoria in the 19705 

Photos: courtesy Judy Boydell 

The one who stokes the fire is 

the flame itself - Kawai 

janet's Story by judy Boydell 

It was in the early '70s when it was suggested I attend an event at Janet Mansfield's home in 

Turramurra. So of course I went. I wandered up the drive, which was quite deserted, up the front 

steps and through the house, passing Japanese pots on the tables and shelves on my way, but no one! 

Arriving at the back door I was greeted by a scene like a Hieronymus Bosch painting complete with large 

trees forming a canopy over the whole stage. There were people (clothes on) everywhere, some carrying 

pots, wine glasses, boxes and food, and some attending the fire-breathing kiln in the far corner. All 

were thoroughly animated and engaged, and oblivious to me as a newcomer. This picture has remained 

with me and is typical of many of Janet's happenings. 

Through the Ceramic Study Group, where Janet was variously President, Newsletter Editor, Librarian 

and Tour Planner and Leader, fifty of us were transported to Peru and Mexico. In an attempt to 

reinvigorate the ancient art of the Peruvians, Harry Davis had set up a pottery there and we set out to 

visit him as well as local potters, then on to see Machu Picchu and to investigate the ancient cultural 

pieces that had survived and to which we were given access in the Museum of Lima. It was fun and 

memorable, a well-researched and informative trip. In Mexico we visited potters, pyramids and galleries, 

staying in haciendas. A quote from my diary reads "got back in time for a drink by the pool when Janet 

stepped out looking utterly glamorous in a new dress. Off we rushed to find one for ourselves but, alas, 

all were too formal, too elaborate or too expensive". Hers was just right. Having shopped with her on 

many occasions since, I know how decisive she was. It saved a lot of time and anxiety. 

In 1979 I joined her again on a group trip to Japan. What fun and excitement. For me she opened 

6 THE IOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMI CS APRIL 2013


both doors and eyes. We visited 

exhibitions in department stores 

where on one occasion we met Mr 

Fujiwara Yu; I'm not sure whether 

planned or accidently. He took all 

25 of us to lunch and invited us to 

his home by the Sea of Japan for 

a tea ceremony by the light of full 

moon. How fantastic that was. We 

visited Kenji Kato who was working 

on Persian glazes. It seemed a 

little bizarre that a Japanese potter 

should look to another culture for 

his research when, in fact, we were 

aspiring to his! On visiting Shoji 

Hamada's Museum in Mashiko we 

were welcomed by Mr Shimaoka 

who was obviously pleased to greet 

us, but even more pleased to see 

Janet. We saw pottery everywhere 

including work by a young Koie 

Ryoji. We experienced Japanese 

culture and gardens, visited museums 

and the second-hand kimono shop, 

ate food from department stores, 

bento boxes and little hole-in-thewall 

bars, and enjoyed public hot 

baths and accommodation at Mrs 

Uno's 'ryokan' as well as Japanesestyle 

hotels. We visited David Walker 

(from Orange) who was working in 

Shigaraki. We filled every minute 

with discovery, finding pots in every 

adventure. 

Late 19705. Janet's workshop at Morning View 

1979/80, Call Minogue (left) and Janet firing the fast-fire kiln 

at Morning View 

Soon after this Janet invited me and a few others to her recently acquired property "Morning View" 

to bring pots and fire them in the gas kiln she had built there. We seemed to do this quite often and 

over the years several woodfired kilns were built and we fired them regularly. While we waited for the 

kiln to cool we took picnics by the river, collected fruit in the orchard, visited the clay works or the glass 

maker or one of the wineries; there was no end of local attractions. During this period Janet worked at 

Turramurra and Morning View with one of her apprentices of the time, Coli Minogue, Alexis Tacey or 

Karen Wells. I had a van so on Friday nights the three of us would load it up with ceramic pots, food 

and sleeping bags and drive up to the farm. Some nights we wouldn't get there until after midnight 

and it was the one who drew the short straw who had to get out of the car to open the gate in the 

bitter cold on a winter's night. I was glad to be the driver! 

They were fun times, always making pots and playing with new ideas. There were many visitors from 

both overseas and Australia wide. Some were young graduates who came to experience life as a potter 

and who better to show them how than Janet. Some of the local potters would come over to the farm 



------- 

1979180, Judy Boydell (left) and Janet firing the fast-fire kiln 

at Morning View 

from Dunedoo and we would fire a salt 

kiln together, This may have been when 

Jane Hamlyn had visited, influencing and 

inspiring us, Around this time Ken Horder 

became a regular visitor and he was 

invaluable, I never saw Ken flurried and he 

stoked away with dogged determination, 

even past his designated shift. Wood 

was plentiful and was spread over the 

adjoining paddock. We often collected, 

cut and stoked in one continuous action, 

which was really exhausting in the early 

hours of the morning. Ken had a fine 

sharp axe which he wielded with keen 

accuracy but wasn't prepared to share. 

All through this time Janet was editing Pottery in Australia, receiving proofs, altering, adjusting 

and fine tuning the magazine. She wrote How to Support Yourself as a Potter, The Potter's Art 

and A Collector's Guide to Modern Australian Ceramics as well as collating Directories for 1977, 

and several other years to 1987. We also had fantastic sale days in the drive of her Turramurra home. 

We put signs out on the highway where there was plenty of passing traffic and, together with word of 

mouth, produced a good crowd. The sellers were always different people depending on whom Janet 

had been speaking to that week. She was spontaneous and generous: it was a case of the more the 

merrier. I attended a discussion group, which Janet also attended, led by Peter Travis and held at the 

original Potters Society premises in Bourke Street, Sydney, where each week our pieces were assessed 

by Peter, Every week Janet produced a fresh body of work - her output was prolific; her direction was 

committed. I don't know where her energy came from. She has produced many books, publications, 

speeches and reference letters over the years. She made it seem so easy, so gracious in her generosity of 

time and energy. 

late 1970., dinner in Gulgong after a firing; left to right, Judy Boydell, Janet 

Mansfield, leonard Smith, Sandy lockwood, Bob Greig, Lindy Rose Smith, Bronwyn 

(from Newcastle), Clare Mansfield and Margaret Tuckson 

19B3 Janet Mansfield with l ex Dickson 

in Japan 



-- ---- -------- ----- ------- 

1983, Judy Boydell (left) and Janet Mansfield in Kyoto outside Doug Lawrie's home 

There was always a stream of overseas visitors who came to visit at both Turramurra and Morning 

View. There were editors, practitioners, recent graduates looking for advice and direction, and also older 

potters who needed a sympathetic ear. There were many dinners after exhibition openings, meetings 

for Potters Society events, conferences in Sydney and events in other cities. We seemed to attend them 

all! We also demonstrated throwing at various wineries around Mudgee. Meanwhile the books and 

magazines came out on time reflecting her capable intellectual ability. 

I had two more trips to Japan, one being to arrange an exhibition of Janet's work with The Green 

Gallery in Arkasaka, Tokyo. I didn't see the exhibition the following year but she told me it was 

received favourably and there were good sales. In the 1980s there were few western ceramic artists 

who managed to have their works shown in Japan. We met up with Alexis Tacey who had been an 

apprentice with Janet in Sydney and was now working with Yoshida Yoshihiku, near Tajimi. We headed 

for Kyoto where we stayed in an old ryokan that we decided had been a brothel in the '30s, and 

definitely in the red light district. It had smoked glass windows that were quite ethereal and delicately 

Japanese. We were excited to see Alexis again and I know she must have been glad to see us. She had 

many stories to tell of life in this alien country, in seriously freezing conditions. It was fun. 

The main goal of the 1997 trip was to get Janet's work to the Takekichi Gallery in Kyoto and to be at 

the exhibition opening of this prestigious show. Janet, Clare (her daughter) and I had our bags weighed 

down with pieces for the exhibition, At Kyoto airport, struggling with our overweight luggage, customs 

official were curious about our intentions. The reception was a resounding success with many dignitaries 

attending the opening including Professor Inui, Professor Yasue Arimitsu, Senior Cultural Officer from 

the Australian Embassy Sachiko Tamai, and Hirokuni Katsuno a well known ceramicist. The day following 

the opening Shiro Tsujimura invited us for lunch at his home in Nara. It was an all day affair with us 

Sitting on the floor of his ancient farmhouse. The fire was burning brightly inside, whilst outside through 

the window we could see the garden with his 'reject' pots lying about casually, some sprinkled with 

camellia petals or coloured leaves fallen from the overhanging trees. We sat on the floor eating the most 

delicious food served out of beautiful ceramic pieces - each a different shape and size, appropriate for 



------------ 

1997 Janet Mansfield enjoying lunch at the home of Shiro Tsujimura in Nara. Japan 

the food or sauce, well savoured with the best sake until we could eat or drink no more. In his desire 

to keep us entertained, he made noodles on a large wooden board. Later he led us to his workshop 

and threw pots for us to see his relaxed technique throwing off the hump. Still on the entertainment 

bent, he showed us his ancient tea house whence followed a hilarious demonstration of his version of 

the tea ceremony only to be saved by the appearance of a traditionally dressed Japanese woman, a tea 

ceremony master who offered a dignified performance of the honoured ritual. All stops were out ... 

what a never-to-be-forgotten day. 

Another of our ventures was a little house in Gulgong which we bought with Karen Wells, one of 

Janet's apprentices. We called it 'Three Ways' . We thought it would be great to offer it to potters to 

establish themselves in this clay-rich town. The bicentennial year 1988 seemed a good omen and with 

our Australian fervour we found a newly graduated ceramics couple to live and work there (one still lives 

in the district and practices as a potter). Next to occupy the house were Mary and Duncan Ratcliffe who 

lived there happily for several years, moving on to Dubbo to take charge of the ceramics department at 

the Technical College. Chester Nealie and his partner Jan lived there for several years, establishing their 

presence in Gulgong (they still live nearby). About this time Janet and I were developing an Australian 

porcelain made of all Australian materials from the Gulgong district. We tested batches of clay until we 

were satisfied with the product. It was good clay and it was popular with the woodfirers as it produced 

a warm pink blush. We thought the cottage would be ideal as an outlet for our product which was 

being made up by the local clay maker ... all good on paper but unfortunately the owner of the pit was 

not able to commit to a regular supply of the important white clay. We still have ingredients enough for 

ourselves but not for commercial production. 

We had other trips together. After sailing with friends on the coast of Turkey, Janet and I arranged 

to meet in Istanbul where we were assailed by the vastness of the Topkapi Palace collection - shelves, 

tables and cupboards full to overflowing with ceramics. We enjoyed the pleasures of the bathhouse, 

the arcades, the markets, the fantastic tiles of Ayasofya and the splendid architecture of the old city. 

Then went on to Italy where we called in to Grottaglie to pay a visit to Greg Daly's show for the 2nd 

Biennale Internazionale di Ceramica, up north to Faenza to visit Carlo Zauli who greeted Janet like a 

long lost lover, then by train to stay with Claude Presset in Switzerland, who joined us on our way to 

10 THE 10URNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMI CS APRIL 201)


Hohr-grenzhausen in Germany and the Salt Glaze competition where we had entered salt-glazed work. 

Again many of Janet's friends welcomed us warmly and entertained us in restaurants and homes and 

the Museums of Keramik of Westerwald and Cologne where, on a sunny Sunday morning, there was 

a wonderful classical music concert performed. We both enjoyed classical music as well as sharing a 

similar taste in ceramics. This was in 1989. 

During 2000, whilst still working on our porcelain clay, we set off for China to check out Chinese 

porcelain. In Foshan there was a conference on woodfiring as well as a symposium on porcelain in 

Jingdezhen, and Janet was invited to give papers at both. We were feted and entertained then sent 

off to enjoy the highlights of the country: visits to ceramics museums, towns specialising in ceramics, 

antique markets, the warriors - it would seem that the whole of China was there for our pleasure 

to view, so much both ancient and modern work. I don't know how much we learnt about Chinese 

porcelain! 

Even after starting her new magazine in 1990 and running the Ceramic Art Gallery in Sydney, there 

was still the urgency to continue to make and fire pots. Because the Morning View property was now 

the sole source of ceramic production for Janet, all work was woodfired, which was her preference. She 

developed a different rhythm in her life. Having started yet another magazine, Ceramics Technical, 

overseas travel became more important for collecting articles and promotion. In the past 20 or so years 

Janet devoted much of her energies to their success. In her first editorial she stated "the magazine will 

be one par excellence" - this is indisputable. 

I still travel to Morning View for firings, sometimes making work there but mostly I work in my own 

studio. The most popular kilns are the salt trolley kiln and the racing car kiln, a small anagama which 

appeals because of a shorter than usual firing time - only about 40 hours. 

Every three years, since 1989, we held Clay events in Gulgong with up to 500 delegates participating. 

These happenings have that Hieronymus Bosch quality I referred to earlier: the excitement, stimulation 

and concentration. Overseas and Australian demonstrators and lecturers fire enthusiasm in the many 

practitioners who gather in Gulgong. It generally takes a couple of years to pull together such an event 

and Janet is good at delegating the right person for the job in hand . The whole town becomes involved 

including the authorities, accommodation places, hotels, halls, shopkeepers, schools and local artists - 

no one is unaffected. The 2013 event will go ahead. 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, 

Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch ... 

I th ink Kipling's couplet applies aptly to the roles Janet took on as President of The International 

Academy of Ceramics, judge, speech maker, facilitator, editor and, certainly not least important to her, 

potter, exhibitor and demonstrator. There are also the many roles we never hear about She received 

the Australia Council Emeritus Award, the Order of Australia, a Doctorate from Hobart University and a 

seriously important American award and more. The diversity of her talents is remarkable . 

Over the years I have been visiting Morning View the property has bloomed w ith many plantings of 

Australian natives, vegetable gardens and colourful flowerbeds. Many more buildings have been added 

- all with grand and appropriate names like The Bibliotheque, The Cathedral, The Great Hall - each to 

house either Janet's ceramic work, over 3000 pieces of others' ceramics, and her comprehensive book 

collection. All so abundant! 

What is beauty but joy found in all of life - Kawai 

THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APRIL 20' 3 "

Tribute 

----- 

Vale Vincent Francis McGrath 

1946-2012 

Vincent McGrath was born in Leongatha, Gippsland, Victoria to a farming family. He studied art at RMIT 

and Melbourne University under the tutelage of Jack Knight and Jeffrey Wilkinson. He was inspired by 

Marjorie Ritchie in particular, and he looked to the late Harold Hughan and Ian Sprague as mentors. 

Vincent received a Rotary International Fellowship for postgraduate study at the Duncan of Jordanstone 

College of Art and Design, Dundee, Scotland. Upon returning to Australia, he took up a teaching post 

as Head of Ceramics at the Darwin Community College, now the Charles Darwin University. He became 

Head of the Art School and in that role guided the fledgling department to national and international 

prominence. 

In 1985, after a decade in Darwin, he was persuaded to move to Tasmania to raise the profile of the 

Art School at the Launceston campus of the University of Tasmania. As Head of the School of Visual and 

Performing Arts, he upgraded and expanded all the disciplines within the school and later initiated a 

successful campaign to move the entire arts department to a new site. Vincent was the driving force in 

creating the impressive Academy of Arts building and the development of the Inveresk site as a cultural 

precinct of Launceston. 

In 1991 , Vincent was made Professor and received a Doctorate in 1992. He was chairman and a 

member of several national art committees, including the Australia Council's Visual Art/Craft Board. 

Vincent expanded the academic curriculum to cater for international students as well as establishing a 

vibrant PhD program. He also fostered an outreach program for rural students throughout Australia. 

Under his watch the Academy Gallery nurtured and exhibited student and staff research and art 

outcomes, as well as showcasing local artists. He led by example as his work constantly pushed the 

boundaries of his medium. 

Vincent's passion for the arts was boundless as his academic record attests. He was a charismatic 

teacher and gifted artist. I and many friends, colleagues and ex-students, here and overseas, will miss 

him. His was a life crammed with achievements to which this short obituary and accompanying essay do 

little justice. 

Dr Terry Davies 


--------- 

Vale Robert 'Bob' Mickan 

1935-2012 

Tribute 

Robert Mickan was a major player on the Adelaide craft scene as 

main supplier and distributor of ceramic materials. He began his 

business career in the early 1960s, initially running delicatessens and 

greengrocers. He moved to establish a coffee shop and cafe called 

Kappys, and it was there, with its bohemian clientele, that he first 

started selling bags of clay and a few pottery wheels. 

By 1970, as demand grew, he decided to open a specialist ceramic 

supply shop. After moving to several different premises, which he 

outgrew because of the phenomenal growth of the interest in pottery, 

he moved to establish The Pug Mill at Rose Street, Mile End, in 1973. 

A major factor in this enterprise was the fact that as Geoffrey Walker's brother-in-law he effectively 

became an agent for the well established Victorian clay supply company, Walker Ceramics. 

Bob recalled the trepidation he felt when he first looked around the cavernous space that he had 

committed himself to and wondered if he had bitten off more than he could chew. His fears were 

soon allayed and the business thrived with pottery wheels and other equipment being bought on the 

pavement without even touching the shop floor. 

Bob catered not only for the swelling ranks of studio potters, but many art institutes, hobby potters, 

china painters and primary and secondary schools. He was the main supplier for the Darwin Community 

College when I worked there. In that role he never failed to ensure that supplies got through, despite 

some hairy moments during the wet seasons. 

In his dealings he was firm but fair and always generous with his time in answering technical 

questions. His depth of knowledge in all aspects of ceramic products and processes was phenomenal. 

With his positive personality, and the business thriving, his son Brett joined the enterprise in 1990, 

relieving Bob of much of the heavy lifting. He always had time to talk to his customers. As an ardent 

fisherman he loved to regale those of us with an interest in such matters of his piscatorial excursions to 

South Australia's many isolated beaches in the little time that he could afford to spend away from The 

Pug Mill. 

He spent the last few years travelling around Australia and overseas but still found time to be at The 

Pug Mill, as he said, "to keep an eye on young Brett". 

He will be sorely missed by his customers and friends. 



Profile 

Terrains of the Heart 

The life and work of Vincent McGrath by Terry Davies 

Vincent McGrath was raised on the land and witnessed first hand the sympathetic caretaker role his 

parents adopted when establishing their farm with minimal mechanical aid . Their contention was that 

man, animal and nature should and could co-exist harmoniously. These early environmental sensibilities 

ingrained in Vincent a respect for the earth and the certainty that more flexible and fruitful dealings 

with it were possible and necessary. Therefore it is no surprise that the Australian terrain, as subject 

matter, is the golden thread that runs through all his art. His artistic dialogue with the environment has 

been a continual process of arbitration and conciliation seeking to presage a new era of compatible 

co-existence. Like one of his favourite painters, Arthur Boyd, Vincent had an Edenic view of his 

homeland. 

Vincent utilised conceptual ideas which addressed and reflected contemporary issues of identity 

and meaning involving the land, where the past was informing the present. The thrown vessel was 

disregarded as he realised that it was a restrictive vehicle for his purposes. He decided that two- and 

three-dimensional handbuilt forms were more appropriate in expressing his take on the disparate 

terrains he encountered, be they the lush tropical north, temperate coastal south or the parched 

interiors. The genesis of his art began in Darwin when he commenced what he called The Platter 

Series. These works were essentially snapshots of his experiences in the Northern Territory over an 

eight-year period. Having gathered volumes of sketches and photographs, Vincent began to synthesise 

concepts concerning people and their intent and effect on the monsoonal regions, and vice versa. 

Additional ideas were conjured up when viewing mining and farming incursions whilst on aeroplane 

journeys across the Top End. It was akin to flying across a massive panoramic painting that was 

segmented by vehicle tracks and fence lines. He also noted animal enclosures and the encasement of 

homestead buildings ... elements that remained a constant in future work. 

Vincent McGrath, earthenware, diam.60cm


During this period Vincent spent a sabbatical year in the USA undertaking his Master of Fine Art. This 

experience loosened any doubts or inhibitions cementing a commitment to his developing oeuvre. A visit 

to Mexico whilst in the Americas led to a series of 'platters' celebrating the exuberance of that country's 

peoples. On his return to Darwin Vincent was commissioned to produce a large landscape mural. devoid 

of any human representation. for the Alice Springs Law Court. This was to be a pivotal experience. for 

when the large work was cut into segments for transportation. firing. and reassembling. he realised that 

the drawn figure as a narrative prop (which had previously featured in his Platter Series) was no longer 

necessary. Vincent perceived that the abstract surfaces were imbued with resonance and meaning. 

becoming more ideograms than pictograms. All this honed his compositional and painterly skills. 

which. with the addition of a personal lexicon of symbols. unleashed his expressive style. cementing his 

commitment to the landscape genre. 

His boyhood heroes. the early explorers of the Australian interior. influenced him to such a degree 

that he undertook his own mimetic investigations of the terrain. With a move to Tasmania. Vincent 

explored the new landscape and became fa scinated with the mining remains found throughout the 

state. Here again was evidence of man's bruising attempts to control the elements. which. successful 

for a time. eventually left only decaying ruins. Fired by these abandoned edifices Vincent embarked on 

a series of three-dimensional assemblages and stacks that were a synthesis of sculpture and painting. 

The crumbling mine works that were slowly eroding into their own architectural minimalism were 

captured by the artist in his ceramic tableaux. like frozen snapshots of the process. The patina and hues 

of corroding metal. decaying masonry and sulphurous yellow stains. provided a palette of colour which. 

co-joined with the seemingly weathered clay structures. made for inspiring and evocative work. creating 

beauty out of the scarred sites. Mine remains at Zeehan. Fingal Valley. Beaconsfield. Mount Bischoff. 

Mount Lyell and Derby provided fertile ground for this ongoing series. Vincent's modus operandi was 

to take a measured approach that avoided dwelling mawkishly on a tragic past or apocalyptic events. 

Fuelled by the certainty of experience. accumulated know-how and verve. he produced powerful 

allegories heralding a new age in our dealings with the Australian environment. His compressed versions 

carry a clout. an intensity. that enlarges the emotional reservoir. 

Vincent McGrath. Mt Lyell, earthenware, h.20m. w.8Ocm 



In a foray away from Tasmania he spent time in and around another mining area, Broken Hill, 

producing a large body of work, Heartlands. This was his first extended encounter with the arid 

interiors of Australia that had so taxed the early explorers. Vincent conducted an intense dialogue 

with, and an artistic post-mortem of. the very body of the terrain. At a sweeping glance, his clay forms 

appear like a trove of large shards literally sliced from rock faces or scooped from the desert's surface. A 

crusty thick impasto spread with gusto, alongside sumptuous textural segments with sliced and gouged 

linear passages create a rich palette out of the seemingly sterile monochromatic spaces of the region. 

Here the ruggedly cleaved shards with their fissured and cracked surfaces echo the processes that 

formed the outback eons ago. This inland region saw the artist's meanderings lead to a kind of ultimate 

confrontation with the very heart of the matter. His next project led him further into the parched stony 

wilderness. There resulted a large installation work, Interior, which was Vincent's personal interpretation 

of some of the sites that Charles Sturt recorded on his final epic, but ultimately disillusioned, journey. 

These bodies of work coaxed and manipulated by the artist from base clay, made the ordinary 

extraordinary and were the apogee of his explorations. Like a biblical character, Vincent was looking to 

find redemption from the failings of the past to resurrect a new Australian post-colonial identity and 

attitude towards the landscape. 

Vincent's poetic dialogue with the landscape as an explorer, recorder and cartographer produced a 

vast amount of reference points, grid maps and snapshots on ceramics for the viewer to contemplate. 

Vincent McGrath, The Blister, earthenware 

h.SOcm, w.2Scm, d.SOcm 

Vincent McGrath. Queenstown Legacy 

h.81cm, w.31cm, d.23cm 



Vincent McGrath 

Heartland Series 

Each. h.3Ocm. w.8Ocm 


earthenware 

h.50cm w.70cm 

Editors note: 

Thank you to Terry Davies 

for his efforts in scanning. 

from transparencies and 

prints, the images used in 

this article. 

Unfortunately dates were 

not available. 

These clay works are like the pages from a lost diary aiding our understanding of his milieu as we share 

in his findings and inevitably embrace the artist's spiritual vision. For me his elegiac vistas on clay are 

arguably the most painterly ceramics produced in Australia. Vincent was part of a group of artists riding 

the environmental winds of change of the last few decades. and his contribution to Australian landscape 

art has yet to be fully appreciated. 

Recently. despite declining health, he returned to his other great love, drawing and acrylic painting, 

and in the time left to him he synthesised all his previous experiences into depidions of his beloved Terra 

Australis. In my mind's eye I shall always remember him in his pomp. with his mop of red curly Irish hair 

working in the studio amongst his wonderful creations, wearing that impish wry smile of contentment. 


www.terrydaviesceramics.com 


Focus: New Zealand Ceramics 

---- 

An Accumulated History 

Karl Chitham considers t he work of Raewyn Atkin son 

I have always been a big fan of collecting keepsakes to remind me of moments or experiences I have 

found significant in my life. This habit has somewhat dissipated over time as I have tried to rationalise 

my own role in the ever-increasing accumulation of 'stuff' in the world. I still have a few little mementos 

- a stone from a windswept New Zealand beach, a shiny brass button from a military uniform, and 

a ceramic shard with an 1814 maker's mark found on a rocky shore in the north of Scotland. This 

little collection sits in a bowl alongside other assembled and discarded bits and bobs. On top of the 

pile rests another ceramic shard, this one by ceramicist Raewyn Atkinson. It was acquired during a 

cheeky promotional push by the artist during the Volume Craft Symposium for her show Praising Girls 

(2008) at Judith Anderson Gallery, and became another li nk in a chain of moments I was to have with 

Atkinson's practice over the years. 

I first encountered her work at the exhibition Designs on Antarctica (2005), initially presented 

at Objectspace, Auckland. This exhibition marked the completion of a significant body of work by 

Atkinson, inspired by multiple trips to Antarctica, both as an Antarctica New Zealand art fellow in 2000 

and as a tourist in 2003. The content of the exhibition was drawn primarily from Atkinson's observations 

and experiences of the layers of human history she had discovered on the Southern continent. Subjects 

as diverse as Scott's disastrous South Pole expedition, the Nazi bid for domination of the continent 

during World War II, and a painting of the Virgin Mary in the Ukrainian Antarctic base, were brought 

together in a su rprisingly succinct and harmonious series of works. As a somewhat curious component 

of the show, there was also a small carpet of porcelain shards that visitors had to walk across in 

Below: Raewyn Atkinson, Praising Girls, 2008, slipcast porcelain, each, h.1Scm, w.2Scm 

Opposite page: Raewyn Atkinson, Wastefl II. 2013, (work in progress), found ceramic; photos: artist


--- 

Raewyn Atkinson with Deep 11me #26,2010 

Work. in progress; photo: artist 

order to enter the gallery. The startling crunch 

as brave individuals made their way tentatively 

over the work was an unnerving experience for 

the participant and the observer. It heightened 

the senses and immediately shifted you from the 

passive gallery setting to another place - an ice 

field in sub zero temperatures, a beach with the 

compacting of shells underfoot, or the potters 

studio after some unforeseen kiln mishap. 

This experiential approach is just one method Atkinson employs in order to provide access to the 

strata of human experience that make up our idea of history. In Atkinson 's case, the goal is to bring 

these layers together - not necessarily to make sense of them, but more as a means of giving them a 

renewed prevalence. 

In 2010, Atkinson took up a residency at the School of Art Practice at Berkeley, University of 

California. Working in the space once occupied by Peter Voulkos, a famous figure in world ceramics, 

Raewyn Atkinson. Deep 11me #26, 2010, porcelain, chun glaze, h.l54cm, w.l77cm, d.S3cm: Fiat Lux, RH Gallery 

Photo: Elspeth Collier


Atkinson began to rebuild his immense kiln and expand on an earlier body of works called Deep Tim e 

(2001-20 11 ). Based on the Deep Time drilling projed at Cape Roberts, these works were a dired 

response to the adivities of the projed's scientists who colleded core samples from below the Antardic 

seabed to gauge the impad of climate change. 

One particular work fired in Voulkos' reconditioned kiln was Deep Time #26 (2010), described by 

curator and writer Felicity Milburn as "a 1.9 metre-high ceramic disk, perforated by a honeycomb of 

circular holes, ... poised like a piece of immensely magnified ocean coral or an unearthly white wheel".' 

This colossal porcelain artifact was, for Atkinson, the culmination of ongoing attempts to communicate 

her intense readions to the current state of stress the environment was and is still under. Deep 

Time #26 became a concise metaphor for the tensions of global change - the structure of the form 

undergoing enormous pressure as the clay softened, slumped, cracked and then solidified during the 

firing process. This work was a calculated risk, a visceral experiment in helplessness and vulnerability. 

While still at Berkeley, Atkinson began another series of works using found 'blank' shards recovered 

from Tepco Beach on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay. She first heard about the beach through 

one of the technicians who showed her a worn ceramic shard he had recovered during one of his visits. 

Over a period of 30 years, the Technical Porcelain and China Ware Company (TePCo), which closed 

its doors in 1968, dumped its flawed or 'unfit for sale' waste on a sedion of shoreline now known 

affedionately as Tepco Beach . Atkinson initially didn't expect to find much and was not disappointed 

when she arrived at a relatively barren stretch of rocky shore in an industrial area called Point Isabel. 

After further exploration she discovered the true Tepco Beach which has become a haven for ama teur 

foragers, mosaicists and artist s. 

Like the remnants of human occupation scattered around Antardica, Tepco is made up of layers of 

material that reference various periods of local industrial and social history. The process of colleding 

intrigued Atkinson . Trying to find all of the pieces in an effort to reconstrud a whole objed became 

an all-consuming pastime. The rules around what to keep and what to discard were something akin to 

Tepeo Beach, 2012; photo: Raewyn Atkinson 



Raewyn Atkinson 

Wasters I, 2013, detail 

found ceramic 

various dimensions 

Photo: artist 

Raewyn Atkinson 

Wasters I, 2013 

found ceramic 

diam.170cm 

variable depth 

Photo: artist 

Courtesy RH Gallery 


Focus : New Zealand Ceramics 

Raewyn Atkinson Wasters /11, 2013 

work in progress, found ceramic and laser decals 

various dimensions; photo: artist 

solving a complex puzzle. Atkinson suggests that "shards are enduring; they are what we use as a tool 

to construct our culture and history - we need them in order to make our understanding whole" .2 

While considering what to do with these countless pieces of broken pottery, Atkinson was drawn to 

the accidental outcomes of the ceramic process. Of particular interest was an example of a Delft 'waster' 

- stacks of individual ceramic pieces that have become fused during the firing process. These (often 

beautiful) malfunctions of pottery production share elements of the intentions of Atkinson's Deep Time 

#26 - a tangible instance of the potential for failure and also representative of the physical evidence of 

history. Using the shards from Tepco Beach as a starting point, Atkinson has begun incorporating images 

and impressions collected while at Berkeley into her work. Obvious references to over-consumption, 

such as shopping trolleys used by the homeless or stacked w ith black plastic bags ready for the 

recycling station, become provocative statements in place of the decorative motifs commonly found on 

dinnerware. Th is is what Atkinson refers to as a "revisionist approach" 3 - her attempt at reconstructing 

history through a personal lens. 

Th is predisposition towards combining historical references w ith the artist's own impressions and 

experiences is what allows Atkinson's practice to have currency. She is intent on commenting not only 

on how we have influence over the environment but also how we fictionalise history. For Atkinson, the 

shard has become a corporeal agent for a tendency towards what she considers the approximation of 

history. As with my own collecting fetish, shards have become mementos for Atkinson, visual markers of 

the ebb and flow of time. They are the substance and the conduits of human history in the same way 

that core samples are a historical record of the environment. Both are reliant on someone making sense 

of them, tying the pieces together into some semblance of truth. As Atkinson reminds us "history can 

be a fiction" 4 

Karl Chitham is currently the Curator of Art at Rotorua Museum 

Te Whare Taonga 0 Te Arawa, New Zealand, 

1 Felicity M ilburn, 'under Pressure, Raewyn Atkinson's Deep time #26',Art New Zealand, no. 1361$UMME R 2010-2011, pp, 49-53, 

2 Raewyn Atkinson, in conversation with the author, January 2013. 

3 ibid. 

4 ibid. 


Focus: New Zealand Ceram ics 

-- -- ------ 

The Significance of 

the Decorative 

Anna Miles reviews the work of Richard Stratton 

Richard Stratton 

Disjunctive Ca meos Teapot, 2007 

stoneware, thrown, altered, applied sprigs 

lithographs, underglaze, lustre, h.22 .Scm 

w.17.scm, d.l 8cm; Private collection 

Photo: courtesy artist and Anna Miles Gallery 

The Wellington-based ceramicist Richard Stratton 

is a maker of conglomerations. His teapots, vases and 

tureens are greedily assembled miscellanies that reflect an 

unending fascination for the historical forms of European 

domestic pottery and a personal entanglement with political 

issues of the day. 

Stratton graduated from the Otago School of Arts with a Diploma in Ceramic Arts in 1993. He 

travelled for a long period and before settling in Well ington he worked as a production thrower at 

commercial potteries in the United Kingdom. His clay work is distinctive in the New Zealand context 

in that it relates to the world of industrially produced ceramics rather than the local studio pottery 

movement. 

Stratton makes compound vessels that fuse wheelthrown, cast and handbuilt components, many of 

which are indebted to time spent rifling through local 'op' shops acqu iring esoteric componen try. He 

is equally keen on archiving arcane ceramic technical information, tools and materials. "My studio has 

become a repository for old materials - stains, oxides, pigments, glaze materials, very, hard to get old 

ingredients. I like the idea of using old things and old materials to make new work." Among his prized 

possessions is The Manual of Practical Potting (1897), originally brought to New Zealand by James 

Rowley, who came to Otago to reinvigorate the Milton Pottery in Southland. 

Stratton views politics through a domestic prism: A teapot sitting on a suburban kitchen table is the 

culmination of a long history of East-West conflict and trade. He is committed to the significance of the 

domestic vessel. His first dealer gallery exh ibition Nurturing Dialectics: A Legation of Teapots (2007) 

was, as the title suggests, composed entirely of teapots. The fifteen elaborately built and embellished 

works referenced his role as a 'stay-at-home-Dad' responsible for the daily care of pre-schoolers (that 

presumably required many cups of tea) . 

Stratton is interested in the minutiae of an effective teapot. " When you want to be a purist, the 

spout has to sit in the right position. It has to have the right volume and shape to balance the handle. 

And it has to work. A teapot is basically a pot with appendages. I love them, always have. Don't like 

28 THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APRil 2013

handmade brown 1970s New Zealand ones. 

Prefer Chinese or European variants on the 

Chinese." 

Stratton produced the 'teapot growth chart', a 

timeline from 900AD to the present to accompany 

Nurturing Dialectics, that makes apparent 

the way his ceramic and social preoccupations 

coalesce. The timeline strings together childrearing 

didates, war statistics, great moments in 

design typology, and personal milestones. 'The 

birth of Richard Stratton (1970)', comes soon 

after' American media begin to write about 

Anorexia Nervosa, and the birth of Barbie (1959), . 

All work by Richard Stratton 

Right: 200 to 1 Teapot, 2009 

Below: Old Sins Cast Long Shadows exhibition installation 

2009 Anna Miles Gallery, Auckland 

THE 10URNAl OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APRil 2013 29

Focu s: New Zealand Ceramics 

---------------------- 

Richard Stratton's studio 

'Bakelite handles first used on teapots and other domestic ware (1922)' makes its appearance, as does 

'Stratton and Scott attend antenatal classes (2003)'. 

The prompts for Stratton's creations are inevitably social, however his most recent work pursues a 

rather different track to his previous mining of personal history. His exhibition Structures of Stricture 

(2012) was inspired by the recent controversial sale of 16 New Zealand dairy farms to a Chinese 

company. This became the basis for a fantastical trawl through a particular lineage of ceramic design, 

starting in China and finishing in New Zealand - by way of Staffordshire and Dresden. 

Stratton has long admired the fusions of Chinese and Greco-Roman techniques created by the 

influential eighteenth-century potter Thomas Whieldon. His interest in the immigrants who established 

pioneering commercial potteries in Southern Otago was piqued when he discovered they were 

Staffordshire-trained and hence steeped in the application of Chinese-derived technique pioneered 

by Whieldon. Stratton 's fascination with the way in which trade and exchange throws up sometimes 

surprising configurations is fuelled by utilitarian objects manufadured in early New Zealand industrial 

potteries that bear Whieldon's tortoise-shell and polychrome glazes. Today, as Stratton ruefully observes, 

local domestic ware is imported diredly from China. 

Structures of Stricture included large-scale monochrome vases, small Yixing-inspired, lustrously 

glazed teapots, and large teapots sporting agateware spouts and handles attached to bodies cast from 

an antique local gatepost. Displayed within a large glass vitrine, this line-up of the rare and curiously 

conjoined looked like floating inhabitants of an exotic aquarium. 

While the recent works mark something of a departure from the 'personal-is-political' ethos that has 

governed most of Stratton's work to date, these pots also introduce a new ornamental strategy. Typically, 

the elaborate shapes of Stratton's earlier pots were heavily inscribed with drawn and painted decoration 



The Structures of Stricture pieces, by contrast, 

are fairly simple forms, encased in a remarkable 

new form of fragile 'scaffolded decoration'. 

This largely monochrome prosthetic-to-the-pot 

reflects another aspect of Stratton's excavation 

of Chinese influence, in particular one of his 

own earliest ceramic influences. As a child he 

was entranced by a 'Mud Man' miniature of a 

riverside bamboo shack on stilts that lived in his 

Grandmother's Dunedin house. Relocated along 

with a few other ornaments to his Wellington 

studio, this tiny ceramic hut was an invitation to 

explore a more three-dimensional approach to 

applying narrative information. 

As Stratton appears to burrow deeper into 

his preoccupations with the convoluted social 

and political origins of domestic ceramic form, 

it is interesting to speculate on his links with 

fellow travellers. One may be American West 

Coast artist Adrian Saxe, whose work critic Peter 

Schjeldahl describes as being "packed with 

insight about the predicament of decorative 

handcraft in the late twentieth century". like 

Saxe, Stratton is an active participant in an 

international revision of what - in art terms - 

has been much maligned: the significance of the 

decorative. 


All work by Richard Stratton 

Whieldon Reading, 2012, cream ware, thrown, handbuilt 

additions, lead glaze. h.1Scm, w.17 .scm, d.14cm 

Wellington Whieldon, 2012. cream ware, thrown. 

handbuil1 additions, lead glaze, h.13cm, w.18cm, d.13cm 

Agate Tea Chest, 2012, stoneware, pressmoulded agate 

clays, handbuilt additions, lead glaze, overglaze, h.27.5cm 

w.23cm, d. t Bem 

Photos: Samuel Hartnett, courtesy of the artist and 

Anna Miles Gallery 



2001 Prem ier Award: Tony Bond 

Of Portage and the State of 

Things Across the Ditch 

Moyra Elliott considers the state of ceramics in New Zealand through the lens of 

their principal annual exhibition 

Oh the days of wine and roses that flourished with 'The Fletcher'. At its height, through the '90s, 

ceramics enjoyed an annual brawny boost to profile and stimulation that infused the entire sector. The 

economic and conceptual impetus offered by the Fletcher's presence buoyed what could otherwise 

be recognised as a foundering sector; its presence largely disguised that ceramics was faltering and 

flattening due to withering educational programs along w ith wilting critical and curatorial interest. 



-------- 

2005 Premier Award: Merilyn Wiseman. Arctic Rim, earthenware, h.43cm, w.11Ocm. d.27cm 

Judge: Robert Bell 

Artist's statement extract: The naming of a work brings its difficulties, as do too many words of 

explanation ... , prefer to allow the work to speak for itself. The Utle is intended to act as a 

trigger to activate dialogue. 

The Fletcher Challenge Ceramics Award's demise in 1998 presented a gap that was difficult to fill as 

it became clear that more than a competition was in peril. By then there were many other competitions, 

although none carried the same cachet or the rewards. The real void comprised withdrawals of a 

variety of specialist retail venues that steadily changed focus or closed doors from the late 1980s as 

progressively lifted import restrictions allowed in competitive ceramics. A corollary to this meant one 

after another tertiary programs removed ceramics from their offerings as students turned to what 

seemed more rewarding courses in the shrinking retail and exhibiting environment. When courses were 

retained they went under the heading of Visual Arts and were part of a wider, more generalised arts 

program that might include clay, but only under a fine arts rubric and with no cognisance to ceramics' 

particular and rich histories. 

The vacuum has been partially filled by Distance Learning Courses offered via local pottery societies 

that resource from Otago Polytechnic. These courses offer a certificate and a diploma but no degree 

qualification. Results vary enormously, depending on who can be found to teach in the region, but it's a 

chalk and cheese affair when compared with a well-resourced tertiary program. 

When Garth Clark was in New Zealand in 2006, he talked about how, in America, ceramics had 

settled into two layers. One was essentially taken up by major public and white cube galleries while 

the other operated at local and regional level and was active in craft fairs and direct sales of various 

kinds. What had been in between, the specialist craft gallery and regionally focussed publicly funded 

institutions where craft media work was exhibited as such, had for the most part departed from that 

purpose or disappeared. The first category was small and particular, while the second was still large and 

active, but aging. 

While Clark's somewhat sweeping generalisations seemed a tad extreme at the time, I have since 

realised that much the same has happened here, albeit in our own small way with our own small 

community. There are a few whose work has been taken up by white cube spaces who enjoy what 

such venues can offer and comply with what such venues expect. Most have no regular gallery and 


the solutions found to display and reta il work are 

varied. There remains a '!Weens' group of established 

artists who have stayed with what endures of 

quality craft media venues, have regular shows, 

albeit of work that changes little, and retain a 

loyal following. Economically they probably 

do best. Dired retailing by the artist, via 

co-operative strudures or craft fairs has 

largely disappeared, although vestigial rural 

gate-sales remain. Compared with the 

buoyant, import restriction-protected 

scene that thrived until the 1980s, 

the culture of interest is bleak and 

unfruitful. 

At the beginning of the 

new millennium, into this 

arid scene stepped a new 

competition intended to 

address the desiccation. 

The Portage Ceramics 

Award is managed by Lopdell House Gallery which is sited in a hilly, half-hour-from-town western 

su burb. The gallery had gained sponsorship from a regional liquor management authority, the Portage 

Licensing Trust. The sponsorship is dependent on that Trust being retained by local voters every time the 

issue comes up for public polling, The Portage Trust, for western Auckland City, is one of few remaining 

in the coun try; and herein lays the Achilles heel. Long-term planning by any recipient is impossible as 

Trusts disappear as soon as locals decide that getting cheaper alcohol at their supermarket is more 

TOp: 2006 Premier Award: Peter lange 

Left: 2007 Premier Award: DeAnne Lawford-Smith 

Keeping Quiet, h.67cm, w.4Scm, d.13cm 

Heart of Glass, h. 71cm, w.4Sem, d.13cm 

white clay, glass, BRT 

Judge: Jeff Shapiro, USA 

Artist's statement extract: "Ideas for my sculptures 

come from ancient clay and stone fertility 

figures. While the exterior form ;s static, I like 

to give a sense of an inner dimension and 

personality. The textures and colours aflude to 

the thermal and volcanic nature of the central 

plateau . .. N 

THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APRil 2013 35


2008 Premier Award: Matt Mclean 

Sca led Heights. mixed day. h.l6Ocm 

w.180

2009 Premier Award (awarded iointly to Jim Cooper and Philip JarvisIMadeleine Child). Philip Jarvis/Madeleine Child. 

Doodads & Doodahs and Widespread Occurrence of Possible Symbioses, stoneware, sponge, paint. rubber, glass, metal, 

wire. h.32cm. w.12Ocm. d.5Ocm; Judge: Scott Chamberlin. USA 

Artists' statement extract: "There are recurring themes about things that come with their own funniness, such as 

popcorn, polyps, grey matter or vegetable sheep. They offer some sort of organic fecundity that ;s right for clay 

because it is mostly poked and pushed or grabbed and squeezed ... " 

The choice of juror is naturally ripe for scrutiny. It has always been someone with a ceramics 

background. usually currently practising or sometimes moved across to another role such as curatorial. 

The basic premise is that they bring little or no knowledge of New Zealand work to the task. However. 

as most jurors stem from Australia. this is difficult. although some have displayed more familiarity than 

others. 

It's when the juror is a studio-based practitioner that most controversial decisions have been made. 

Exceptionally accomplished makers can be so attuned to their own criteria they demonstrate a lack 

of sentience to the wider field. It has mainly been the theorists and teachers who make the most 

informed choices. They can read historical allusions. and recognise contemporary theory, current trends, 

and precedents within the genre. They understand when supreme technique is involved and whether 

this work presents new thinking, something in-the-style-of, or is simply plagiaristic of something from 

somewhere else . Accepted is that total originality is extremely rare and probably would not first appear 

in a competition situation. 

Most jurors have complied with the standard 'one pot shot' nature of ceramics competitions. The 

shows have generally been displays of otherwise unconnected works, as are most competition shows. 


2011 Premier Award: Bridie Henderson, Feathers, porcelain, American white oak, LEOs, h.84cm, w.66cm, d.14cm 

Judge: Janet Mansfield 

Artist's statement extract: #My journey with ceramics is evolving and I have a profound connection with clay. ... These 

works were inspired by the ancient use of feathers as ornaments ... My present Diploma in Ceramics study through 

Otago Polytechnic has opened my eyes to the endless possibilities of ceramics. # 

However, constructing the exhibition has engaged some as primary focus, possibly more than deciding 

winners. Two departures from bog-standard have occurred recently, both controversial but both 

enlivened an otherwise predictable display format. Interestingly, neither of these arbiters derived from 

Australia but both are fully engaged in teaching. The concern of the most recent juror, Paul Scott (from 

the UK), was curation . His method was to make his selection of outstanding submissions and then build 

a show around those from the other entries. This curatorial jurisdictive approach has some similarities 

with 2009 when Scott Chamberlin (from the USA) also chose his exceptional works, then (and here lies 

the difference) the selected artists were asked for other works to be directly added to the exhibition; the 

notion being to contextualise the competition work. But this variation was somewhat ineffective as few 

had extra work in reserve. 

Both jurors' strategies were aimed at avoiding the obvious lack of relationship between the diverse 

works on display. That there were differing opinions on both Chamberlin's and Scott's processes is 

unsurprising, but for this viewer, a change in curatorial strategy is a pleasurable trail to follow. Instead of 

viewing each work individually and in isolation, relying on imagination, historical knowledge or memory 

to offer context, both exhibitions offered alternative itineraries, where the viewer might frame the 

exhibits by its neighbours. 

The Portage catalogue's current format is quite lavish. While conservative in design, this isn't 

inappropriate for the only consistent documentation of 21 st century ceramics practice in New Zealand. 

The commissioned essay was a great addition from the beginning and continues with a different view 

around some aspect of our small ceramic world each time. The voices, and the opinions, change each 

year - some have proved more readable and valuable than others - rambling, pertinent, obscure, 

challenging, quizzical, or excessively academic have all evidenced at different times and that matters 

little because collectively, they provide another useful resource toward figuring out what is unique about 

our own ceramic culture. 

Similarly, the catalogue in general records where changes in practice have occurred. Currently, the 

place of seriality, assemblage, mixed media and multiples in wider art production is reflected more than 

ever before. Sometimes it can be a very slight notion, even a well-worn one, gathered in strength via 

repetition of elements or the now familiar still life groups. Sometimes it illustrates an exploration around 


Fo cus: New Zealand Ceramics 

a decorative concept; occasionally it manifests as a small installation of a number of works that perfectly 

illuminates an era or an attitude. Just sixteen of forty-three exhibits were single works in the most recent 

show. 

Prize-money is now $15,000 plus $6000 for distribution as the juror sees fit, but alongside that is the 

elimination of the Waitakere resident prize - its annual redistribution between the same two or three 

artists served no useful purpose. There is now the addition of a residency at Guldagergaard in Denmark 

for an artist chosen by the judge, which will prove more valuable in the longer run. 

The Portage serves as a reflection of the state of things ceramic in New Zealand/Aotea roa . Neither can 

be termed robust in every sense but have their assets, alongside what is yet to ripen. May both flourish 

in the future. 

Moyra Elliott is currently a writer and curator, She is working on a second book on the history 

of studio ceramics in New Zealand, beginning where the f irst left off in 1980. Her blog is 

http:// conetenanddescending.wordpress,com 

Photos: courtesy Lopdell House Gallery 

2012 Premier Award: Jim Cooper, M illbrook Holiday (the league for spiritual 

discoveryJ, stoneware, paper backdrop, h.170cm, w.200cm, d.l OOcm 

Judge: Paul Scott, UK 

Artist's statement extract: "Someone said 'it is lies that life is black and white' 

with the realisation that in fact the greatest truths lay in the distance 

between (if one can endure the discomfortJ ... Millbrook holiday (the league 

for spiritual discovery) has its foundations in Dr Tim's proposal that Psilocybin 

and LSD could unravel that which we have created ... .. 



What Makes Me Do It? 

Jim Cooper writes about the ideas behind the imagery 

LSD was the finger that pulled the tear-tab from that well-shaken can of pop that was the mid- to late- 

1960s. The resultant uncontrollable gush of effervescence seeped into all corners of the mundane and 

proved surprisingly indelible through successive decades. While constantly referred to as experimental 

in arts and cultural reform, it would be foolish to suggest that Timothy Leary and his team of graduate 

devotees from the Harvard Temple of Higher Thought Single-handedly blew the trumpets to herald the 

new - but they were a large part of a unified global consortium that did, and among the finest minds of 

my generation. 

The dictum from the heavens, at this time of transition, exposed polarities and suggested urgency to 

an unprepared, self-indulgent generation of baby-boomers whose reludance to accept the perceived 

emptiness and material focus of their generations' inheritance from their forefathers was loudly 

expressed, and suggested that, for some, a more sustaining alternative should be found. I must add that 

it was a hard-grafted inheritance, one that had seen two world wars and global economic depression. 

Jim Cooper, The Last Record Cover, installation at the Taiwan Ceramics Biennale, 2010 

Taipei County Yingge Ceramics Museum

Focus : New Zeala nd Ceramics 

This image shows Jim Cooper working at the 2010 Taiwan 

Ceramics Biennale (TCS) at Taipei County Yingge Ceramics 

Museum. Cooper was one of three artists invited by Moyra 

Elliott, curator of the TCB, to take up residence in the 

museum and create works for the show. Jim Cooper's 

installation (see left) was composed of more than 1000 

individual pieces. 

The wonder, naivety and often selfishness of this time, that history showed was short-lived, allowed 

expression of an unguarded vulnerability and, to its adherents, an indifference to judgement and 

alienation from 'them' - the others. This assuredness came from the convinced and the convicted 

rendering condemnation powerless. This, in turn, contributed to an increasing generational breach, at 

times beyond comprehension or reconciliation. 

Then here, in this separateness - the day-glow other - acid achieved the status of holy host - t he 

lysergic supplement. 

Guru Doctor Timothy Leary's guide book to the psychedelic experience ran obvious parallels to the 

Tibetan Book of the Dead and influenced John Lennon's 'Tomorrow Never Knows', and all this while 

the Beatles were elevated by the said Doctor Tim to the exalted position of avatars. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch ... the Harvard Temple devotee Baba Ram Das, upon returning from 

India, the new Holy Land, presented a chemical-free route to Being Here Now' . Pink Floyd, Jimi 

Hendrix and numerous others consulted and quoted the I-Ching and Bhagavad Gita while middle-class 

white kids ingested a potpourri of eastern cosmology, psychedelic drugs and music for breakfast, lunch 

and dinner. 

Dark clouds gat hered, circled, intensified and became darker. The deaths of Kennedy and Martin 

Luther King Jnr, live action replays from Vietnam, drugs, money and media exploitation and life's grim, 

harsh realities, corroded the essential core of an undefinable philosophical desire to change the world 

via mind expansion and corrupted the ideals of many who t ried to survive within such an ethereal 

structure. 

THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APRll2013 41

- --- - ------ 


Jim Cooper, It's all too beautiful, 2009, Auckland Art Fair, approx. 85 pieces 

Photo: courtesy Whitespace Contemporary Art. Auckland 

I realise others have summed up the deluge that was the demise of that extended summer of love 

with a quote from WB Yeats' poem, The Second Coming yet it is so strangely appropriate to say, 'the 

ceremony of innocence is drowned'. By the time Charles Manson had taken things into his own hands, 

the dream had vanished. No more young girls were coming to Laurel Canyon. 

The dream still exists in that beam of light that extends out into the ether. There is a bit marked 1967 

to 1969. It is this sliver of history that articulates my work. I choose not to deal too much with that 

which is real; I prefer the myth. Always have. The real world offers little refuge for the things I want to 

explore. In the myth there is this driving desire for communion with God. Not the Anglo-American God 

who made the universe, but the other one; the God that is the universe - that enormous swirling sea 

of consciousness and planets. I am not suggesting that a blotting paper ticket-to-ride got anyone there, 

but perhaps, for some, it was the catalyst for the question. Others consulted oracles, sought insights via 

astrology, studied yoga and got together to discuss revelations both profound and ordinary, posed for 

photos in fields of flowers, talked with animals and the animals replied, or pursued the exotic in modes 

of dress and appearance. 

It is important to me that I can feel there is an honesty in the making and the conception, an attitude 

that renders me both modernist and dinosaurian. I'm OK w ith that. I don't want the work to be clever 

either. I do this for me. 

1 Published by Three Rivers. an imprint of Random House 


All work by l im Cooper 

Top: Sgt p, 2007,168 pieces; photo: courtesy Whitesp.:!ce Contemporary Art, Auckland 

Bottom, from left to right: Beatie, Shirley Temple, Marilyn Monroe, (details from 5gt P.) 

Jim Cooper is an artist and teacher, He is currently on a residency in Hualien on the east coast 

of Taiwan as ground-breaker with the Taiwan Land Development Corps, 



Aaron Scythe 

What I make I feel comes from me ... 

When you look around at everything 

There is beautiful design everywhere 

Yet it is made in a factary, often without thoughts of 

Nothing left of the human soul 

Completely dehumanised soulless beauty 

Like talking to a wall waiting for an answer ... nothing 

Yes, what I make I feel comes from me ... 

Designed yet often not thought out 

Fingerprints, imperfect forms, distortion, soul 

A human expression ... 

You. 

Aaron Scythe throwing bowl 

http://tinyurl.comlb2gsnwb 

Aaron Scythe WorkShop 

@ kyouej-gama 

http://tinyurJ.comlaJb5ynm 

Aaron Scythe, Kete. 20 13 

Photo: courtesy Form Gallery 

Chr~tchurch 

W'NW.aaronscythe.com 


Focus: New Zealand Cerami cs 

Mother Matrix 

David Eggleton considers the works of Christine Boswijk 

Christine Boswijk's ceramic works are at once so earthy and energetic, so visceral and larval, that they 

almost seem to bristle under your gaze, as if they have only paused here on their way to another state 

of being. It's as if she is a sorcerer of shape and form, combining metaphors for organic cycles of life 

with grand myths of the self, of the human. 

Currently one of New Zealand's most significant workers in clay, Boswijk lives with her family in the 

province of Nelson (at the top of the South Island) on a peninsula of land that overlooks the Mapua 

Estuary. Here, she is inspired by tidal movements across the sheen of the mudflats - the passivity of the 

water as it slithers in and out, the mountain ranges nearby, her garden, the native bush, and the climate 

- Nelson's sunshine makes it a horticultural paradise similar to Tasmania. 

Deriving a potent iconography of the earth from her location, Boswijk has moved over the past 

decade or so from being known for her brightly glazed domestic ware, big handbuilt spherical pots and 

biomorphic vessels (ultra-wide shallow dishes, very deep bowls, conical vases wit h buckled, wrinkled 

and scarified surfaces) to resonant sculptures - ritualistic objects summoning up fears, dreams, awe, the 

collective unconscious. 

Philosophically, Boswijk's work offers a collage of ideas that have remained constant since she first 

came to notice as an important potter in the mid-'80s. She's an eco-feminist, representative of the 

greenie tradition of sustainable living, who, using clay as mother matrix, a 'first material' from which 

all else springs, has sculpted objects that are fertility objects in shape - seed, pod, husk, bud, womb, 

Christine Boswijk, Fact, (detail), Fact Faith and Fiction exhibition, 2003, timber posts, black paint, h.12Ocm 

Suter Art Gallery, Nelson


---------- 

Below: Christine Boswijk, Totems fo r a 

Vineyard (thirteen promises), 2004, black clay, 

wood, steel. lead, various dimensions 

Photo: Elspeth Collier, courtesy RH Galle", 

Left: detail 

chrysalis - and are equally evocative in their surfaces: her glazes can evoke the sensation of looking 

through a flowing current of water to the riverbed . 

But her major installation at the Suter Gallery Te Aratoi 0 Whakatu in Nelson in 200 1 revealed that 

she is an artist in essence more non-denominationally humanist than prescriptively feminist. Unfolding 

a personal narrative, which drew on a legacy of physical injuries as well as a concern with the mystical 

and spiritual that dates back to her childhood as the daughter of an itinerant Methodist minister, this 

installation, with its cabbalistic atmosphere, offered measured, elegiac acknowledgement of loss, human 

fragility and grief. Its theme, in essence, was metaphysical, asking the question, what is it to be human? 

Bringing together the weight of wharf timbers, the sparkly black of iron-sand, the materiality of copper 

and lead as well as clay, Boswijk created votive forms resembling the human figure that would not have 

been out of place in a forbidding temple. 

Elsewhere, her ceramic pieces have emerged from the kiln ruptured and split and then been exhibited 

to acclaim: fissured objects whose stigmata of ruin, rips and vents embody a kind of purification like

Christine B05Wijk, Specimen Jar, 2008, white clay, Perspex, steel. 

wheels, vodka, h.195cm, w.78cm 

Photos: Elspeth Collier, courtesy RH Gallery 

Christine Boswijk, Signals of Aotearoa 

(Group of Five), 2012, white clay, steel base 

with pin, each approx. h.61cm, w.12cm 

that of the scourged flesh of Christian martyrs. Boswijk has mixed crushed glass, pine needles, paper 

and gravel into her slurries. The melted glass allows the light to pass through, while the pine needles 

and paper burn away to leave random vents and cracks. 

Light in Boswijk's work is given sacramental status. Totems for a Vineyard (2007), a large sculpture 

commissioned by the Woollaston Estates Winery Gust outside of Nelson city) consists of a grouping or 

grove of freestanding forms which seem placed so as to celebrate the light, the life-giving sun. Thirteen 

logs, salvaged from blue-gum trees cut down elsewhere on the winery are sky-pointing plinths topped 

with collars of steel. On each rests a giant black clay egg or pod, grooved with an unCOiling spiral. These 

bulbous hieratic forms are a kind of earth-work ra ised on high, acting as a focal point for meditations 

on New Zea land 's once-primeval landscape - its ferns, birds and chthonic forces - while the grove of 

silhouettes suggest archaic worshippers. 

Another sculptural work, Specimen Jar (2009), commissioned by art-collector Glen Schaeffer, 

continues a thematic preoccupation with primal life-forms, represented by ceramic objects - which have 

been boxed-in or framed by industrial materials. In the past, Boswijk has spoken of an interest in the 

symbolic way the ancient Egyptians and other cultures practising mummification and embalming would 

store hearts and lungs in covered jars. Here, the outsize white ceramic pods, resembling the seeds of a 

lotus flower, are placed in a transparent vat (a large laboratory jar) on wheels. This jar has a double layer 

THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APRIL 201) 47


Christine Boswijk. Series I, 2010, triptych. polystyrene. fibreglass, oil stid:, wax, various dimensions 

Before Words exhibition; photo: Elspeth Collier, courtesy RH Gallery 

of Perspex, the middle of which has been filled with 22 bottles of vodka to create the illusion that the 

ceramic pods are floating inside the jar. 

The arc of Boswijk's practice, then, establishes an unbroken continuity of thematic concerns or 

obsessions, but she is always challenging herself to find fresh and innovative ways to present or 

investigate them, not programmatically but intuitively. At the centre is always clay as an articulate plastic 

substance, but frequently amalgamated with or contrasted against other metaphor-inducing materials. 

A five-part 2010 installation, Before Words, at the RH Gallery, offered an extraordinary set of 

sculptures whose roots were in Boswijk's beginnings in Nelson (then possibly New Zealand's potting 

capital) in the '70s as a potter drawn to t raditional European craftwork - to old French and Dutch 

ceramics and to artisan pottery that valued functional expressiveness. Before Words though, marked 

a new departure in its emphasis on scraping back to minimalist geometries, to a clarity of profile and 

tonality, with the chosen motifs or glyphs softened by the incorporation of bulging rounded contours or 

intense, dynamic colours. 

Before Words was an heraldic ode to European medieval emblems, to early Russian Modernism 

and also to the continuity of ancient relics, which, in a way, are still being worn and used vitally in the 

form of jewellery - necklaces and earrings as well as gilded religious medals and amulets. The risendough 

effect of these cross-shapes or circle-shapes made them intensely haptic, especially when waxed 


Christine Boswijk, Series 11, 2010, Multiplication, clay (terracotta, white, black), each, h.S3cm, w.53cm, d.11cm 

Series VI, 2010. Pod. fihreglass. binder twine. bitulustre. lacquer, w .68cm 

Ph010: Elspeth Collier, courtesy RH Gallery 

smooth or gilded. The collection of culturally-loaded shapes was intended to be wall-hung in a rather 

small exhibition space, but some, turning out too heavy, became floor works in a flowing moment of 

responsive improvisation which might be said to characterise this ever-alert artist. 

And curiously, though perhaps inevitably too, given Boswijk's characteristic panoptic range and wide 

knowledge of art history, the series groupings, with their mingling of high and low cultural registers, 

also evoked the American Funk ceramic scene and Pop Art of (Iaes Oldenburg and others. For Boswijk, 

the semi-precious stones pressed into the wall of a Byzantine grotto in an East European cathedral are 

as much grist to the mill of her visual imagination as the plant life of the New Zealand rainforest, the 

waterspouts coming in over the sea, and the prismatic light on the snow of mountains in winter. 

David Eggleton lives in Dunedin New Zealand, where he is a poet, writer and arts journalist 

whose articles, reviews, profiles and essays have appeared in the Listener, Art New Zealand, 

New Zealand Books, Art News, Architecture New Zealand, Urbis, Landfall and many other 

publications. His books include Towards Aotearoa: A Short History of Twentieth Century New 

Zealand Art, (Reed Publishing/Raupo Books, 2007). 

www.christineboswijkworkshop.co.nz 


Chester gives firing partner Susie McMeekin instructions for the next shift, 2006; photo: Geoff Amble 

Chester Nealie Woodfire Potter 

A world of his making by Jan Irvine-Nealie 

Something drives Chester Nealie in his pu rsuit of ceramic excellence - drives with singular focus and 

determination through months of making pots, the rigours of preparing tonnes of wood and the long 

hours of firing to bring his pots through the metamorphosis he has chosen for them. 

This drive underpins his achievement as a woodfire potter and explains his dedication to the aesthetic 

he pursues in his work - the aesthetic that both rewards and fuels his ongoing practice. 

Watching Nealie at work - adjusting wheelthrown pots or unloading his kiln post-firing - it's clear 

that he has an instinct for what he wants and doesn't want, whilst remaining mindful of what he might 

come to understand. This forms a direction from and for his work and comes from the accumulation 

over years of preference, experience and response to results. 

Embedded in this awareness is his working knowledge of chemistry, of cause and effect and of 

interrelatedness during process, understood through a knowledge of physics. These science disciplines 

have informed his experimental and spontaneous approach to making and firing from the beginning, 

allowing him to analyse, interpret and plough that understanding back into his practice. 


Focus: New Zealand Ce ra mics 

Nealie's working life began in Auckland, New Zealand, as a teacher of chemistry, maths and physics in 

the early 1960s. While studying at Auckland Secondary Teachers College he was distracted by a potters 

wheel. Later, teaching at Westlake Boys High, he built a diesel-fired stoneware kiln and taught night 

classes. At Glenfield College he established a ceram ics department, building and firing another dieselfired 

stoneware kiln. Later, as ceramics lecturer at North Shore Teachers College, he initiated a ceramics 

course for trainee teachers, using a similar kiln. 

Pottery became a passion and led him away from his trained area of teaching into a life chasing 

his own personal aesthetic. This direction brought together his instinctive love of nature and natural 

surfaces, his awareness of ancient and antique objects and his knowledge of chemistry, physics and 

geology. 

His aesthetic and technical development were greatly informed by studying collections of ceramics 

and ethnic objects at the Auckland Museum, some of which had been collected by his grandfather, 

Sijvard Jacob Dannefaerd. He continues to study collections around the world. 

Born in 1942 in Rotorua, New Zealand, Nealie lived his first fif1y years in and around Auckland . 

Surrounded in his childhood by objects collected by his grandfather, he absorbed shapes and surfaces 

from different cultures and developed a respect for ethnic ways of life and cultural objects. He formed 

a life-long interest in complex surfaces, natural and handmade, often burnished w it h time and use. 

He delighted in studying the accumulated evidence in objects that told of their making and cultural 

purpose. 

As a boy, Nealie was 'taken on' by his 

retired neighbour, Mr Baxter, who taught 

him the care and use of tools, the skills 

and techniques of fishing, and the sacred 

art of smoking fish - his first lessons in 

reduction firing. 

Chester Nealie firing the anagama kiln 

he built in 1977 at South Kaipara Head 

New Zealand; photo: Steve Rumsey 


Focus: New Zealan d Ceramics 

------ 

Baxter's 'old world' knowledge laid the foundation for much of Nealie's confidence in making and 

building. A comprehensive vocabulary of skills and a firm belief in traditional crafts equipped him 

with the fundamentals to make what he needed. Over time this has included three distinctive homes, 

numerous outbuildings and hundreds of kilns. 

In his university years, Nealie became interested in paintings. He studied the European classics in 

his grandfather's art books. In his university library he discovered a whole new visual language which 

sparked a great interest in New Zealand painters, especially Colin McCahon and Ralph Hotere. 

In his early years as a potter, his involvement with the Auckland Studio Potters was vital to him, 

bringing the camaraderie and shared experience of working with others, particularly Len Castle and 

Peter Stitchbury. 

From the 1960s to the 'SOs Nealie joined with colleagues to develop pottery opportunities in New 

Zealand. He was active on committees for the Auckland Studio Potters (including time as President) and 

the New Zealand Society of Potters, teaching and exhibiting with both organisations. In this way he met 

overseas potters invited to New Zealand. Interactions with Shoji Hamada and Takechi Kawai from Japan, 

Michael Cardew from England, Paul Soldner and Don Reitz from the USA, and Col Levy from Australia, 

were of particular influence. 

In 1976, Nealie lectured at the World Craft Conference in Kyoto, Japan, where he was introduced 

to the Japanese aesthetic of woodfiring which resonated deeply with him. On seeing Japanese kilns, 

Chester Nealie, firebox bottie fired at South Kaipara Head, 

1990, h.27cm; photo: Geoff Ambler 

Chester Nealie, Feldspar Slip Jar, 1997, h.llcm 

photo: Ian Hobbs 

52 THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APRil 2013


particularly those of Arakawa and Rokasai, he was inspired to build an anagama kiln on his property at 

South Kaipara Head, west of Auckland - one of the first anagama kilns in the Australasian region. 

In building and firing this kiln, Nealie called on remembered observations, intuition and his innate 

problem-solving ability. Isolated from other anagama firers, he developed creative solutions and 

processes through trial and error. 

His intrig ue with the way painters layered colours to give subtle depth prompted him to find ways 

to do that in ceramics. He developed a way of laying down ash and raising temperature to flux as a 

repeated process during firing, achieving a simila r depth on his pots. 

His interest in painting caused him to take up a brush himself - a brush of his own making, from 

bird bone and animal hair - trailing fluid, flowing lines which he used with watercolour and as a resist 

decoration on his pots. 

Early in the 1980s, Nealie travelled to Australia for conferences and workshops, establishing 

connections with anagama woodfirers including Dr Owen Rye. He invited Rye to South Kaipara to fire 

kilns and enjoy the bounties of the Kaipara waters. Since that early beginning, Nealie and Rye have 

shared many firings. 

The '90s saw Nealie relocate to Australia where he travelled widely, building kilns and teaching 

woodfiring. He settled at 'Goanna Ridge', a property outside Gulgong in New South Wales, near Janet 

Chester Nealie, Latex Res;st Bottle, 2003, h.24cm 

Chester Nealie, Mufti-fired Vase, 2011, h.26cm 

Photos: Geoff Ambler 

THE IOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APRIL 2013 53


Chester Nealie reviewing firebox pot post-firing, 2007 

Photo: John Nealie 

Mansfield's pottery at 'Morning View'. As neighbours and 

woodfirers, Nealie and Mansfield shared a strong working 

friendship, discussed firing results and enjoyed mutual 

friends in the international woodfire community over 

many a bottle of good red. 

Nealie has regularly taken a leading role in woodfire 

events, including keynote speaker and master of 

ceremonies. Under the directorship of Janet Mansfield 

he's been involved in staging international ceramic events 

in Gulgong, and he will be there again in April 2013. 

Ceramic involvements have taken him abroad where his 

experience has been extended by the generous give-andtake 

of the woodfire fraternity. His associations with Torbjorn Kvasbo from Norway, John Neely and Jack 

Troy from the USA have been important. as have his friendships with Alan Peascod, Peter Rushforth and 

Bill Samuels in Australia, among others. 

NeaHe is, first and foremost, a woodfire potter, involved as exhibitor, lecturer, teacher and kiln builder. 

He has been external examiner for tertiary studies and judge for numerous exhibitions. He is a builder, a 

fisherman, a naturalist and enthusiast, a collector, an enquirer and a gatherer of aesthetic influence. To 

many he is an entertainer, a rascal and compulsive host. 

Nealie is w idely known as a New Zealand potter and continues to represent his country through his 

ceramic involvements. He has exh ibited in many countries and enjoys an international reputation. He has 

been published as writer and subject and his work is held in private and public collections around the 

world. He is a member of the International Academy of Ceramics and is Associate Research Fellow at 

Monash University in Victoria, Australia. 

Now, in his 70s, Nealie is bringing his focus back to the studio. Decades of experience feed into his 

woodfired pots and continue to excite his enthusiasm. He's building another kiln, expanding his practice 

w ith other ceramics styles and looking forward to firing with colleagues. Somewhat in the Baxter 

tradition, he hopes to share his knowledge with younger potters in his own environment. 

By 1964, NeaHe had firmly established a determination to follow ceramics as a life career. This decision 

led him to explore the world of his own making and has given him a language he shares with likeminded 

potters throughout the world. 

In 2014, he celebrates fifty years as a potter. 

Jan Irvine-Nealie is a textile artist. She lives and works w ith husband Chester 

near Gulgong, NSW; www.janirvinenealie.com 



Bring on 

the Jugs 

An exploration by Christine Thacker 

The word jug, and it's recent news to me, derives 

from the female names and variants of Joan or 

Judith, and once described a maidservant or low 

woman. The dictionary cites this usage as rare 

nowadays, and quite right too. 

As all potters know, a jug begins as a vase 

and with the modifications of a handle and lip 

becomes a vessel for pouring. 

Historically, the pottery jug would have been 

the common carryall in every household for water 

in the days when it was drinkable and w ine 

and ale in earlier times when it wasn't. In New 

Zealand the word jug became one with ale when 

tap beer was dispensed in glass jugs, so much 

so that The Flying Jug became the default name 

for any pub known for drink-induced fights and 

evictions. Definitions aside, the jug is a canonical 

form for the potter and carries with it the weight 

of history, nostalgia, tradition, comfort and joy 

to temper and moderate ever-changing modern 

lives. 

In my ears, the word 'jug' shortcuts back 

in time to one of those shoebox-shaped jugs 

standing in the refrigerators (and bearing 

the whiteware manufacturer's name), of my 

childhood. This image is followed by a sensory 

flash to the taste of icy cold water tinctured 

with refrigerant from one of those jugs. The 

next memory is the heaviness of such a cold and 

slippery water-filled jug. 

Katherine Smyth, Black Jug, 2006, earthenware, coilbuilt, 

h.4Scm; photo: Guy Robinson


Without getting too deep into the nature of recollection I might not remember the rather plodding 

look and shape of this archetypal jug if not for experiencing its weight and chilly contents. 

So the jug is much more than a jar with a handle and lip. It holds received and experienced memories 

and that may be why in the face of less domestic need we still want to make and have these almost 

anachronistic objects in our homes and contemporary lives. 

After twenty plus years of making nearly everything else with clay, and a decade of dusting (very 

occasionally) and gazing (very often) with admiration at a jug in my house made by New Zealand potter 

Ian Smail, and serving milk in a most exquisite small porcelain jug made by Australian Sandra Black, I 

became entranced by the form and the idea/associations of the jug. 

Philosophical treatises tell us that the thingness (or jugginess) of a jug is the void inside. The jug 

is only truly a jug when it is being held and poured. But surrounding the vOid-that-is-the-jug is a 

w rap-around surface and for several potters in New Zealand, as elsewhere, this surface is a canvas of 

opportunity to prolong the experience and extend perceptions of the jug. 

Auckland artist and potter Louise Rive sees the jug as a familiar and easily understood form which 

can carry painted and drawn stories and emotive expressions. She applies standards such as structural 

ease, geometry and balance to her irregular constructions, and while Rive's jugs can be used that is not 

her reason for making them. " Each jug is the start of a new painted story" and each jug shape tells the 

painter how the story will begin. 

Katherine Smyth, Fruit, 2012, earthenware. coil built, average h. 22cm; photo: Guy Robinson 

S6 THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APRil 2013


Katherine Smyth, a Wellington-based potter, makes tall, attenuated jug forms (inspired by past Middle 

Eastern work experiences) and smaller fruit jug lets with the astoundingly replicated surface detail of, 

for example, strawberry, melon and lemon skins. She is interested in the linear qualities of the jug form, 

the groundedness as well as connotations of gatherings, sociability and conviviality. Smythe also enjoys 

the anthropomorphic and zoomorphic suggestibility of jugs where attitude and personality as much as 

containment can grace the table. 

1 Christine Thacker, Jugscape 

2012, white earthenware, coiled 

pigment, painted, transparent 

glaze, h.38em; photo: artist 

2 l ouise Rive, Stdte House Kid 

2011, earthenware, slab, pulled 

handle, h.22em; photo: artist 

3 Christine Thacker, Ian Smail 

Schoof of Jugs, 1980, to 2012 

tallest 48em; photo: Mika O'Brien 

4 campbell Hegan, 2012 

earthenware. thrown 

Photo: artist 

As for my own foray into jug making, I see the jug as a physical and metaphorical carrier. I try 

to adhere to first principles that a jug should be fit for purpose. Also the form needs to look well 

proportioned and appear as an evolved rather than constructed form. As for the painting, there are 

many small personal rules about colour ratios, symbolism, graphic balance, etc., but the clincher is to 

surprise myself, to feel compelled to keep looking. 



There are many mighty fine jug-makers in New Zealand, including the triumvirate and well-known 

chain of mastery - Barry Brickell, Ross Mitchell-Anyon and Paul Maseyk. Another is Hana Rakena, from 

Christchurch, who has made one of the most sensuous, unglazed, lyrical jug forms I have seen on these 

shores, and Aucklander Campbell Hegan whose jug from his 'black and white table setting with jug' is 

one of the most skilled and lively. 

Jugs have a handle and a lip, a void inside and a function but they also have an emotional hook to 

sustain a part of our own internal void. A little jug-shaped void! 

Christine Thacker 

lives in Auckland, has 

been making pottery 

for three decades 

and appears in the 

2010 lark publication 

Masters; Earthenware. 

Hana Rakena, 2009 

coiled, h.48cm 

Photo: Dean Mackenzie 

58 THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APRIL 201)


Barry Brickel l, 2012 

Photo: LUCille Nobleza 

Driving Creek Potteries 

Barry Brickell's story 

Born in 1935 in New Plymouth, New Zealand, a third generation 'Kiwi', the eldest of four siblings, lefthanded 

and 'arty' and thus a puule to my father, I came into ceramics during my early teenage years, 

not through art or craft but via fire, furnaces and steam engines at the nearby coal-fired gasworks and 

associated firebrick works in Devonport, Auckland where our family lived _ Fascinated, watching the 

sweating fireman stoking raw coke into his round of ten fireboxes to achieve 1300°C in the huge kiln, I 

built my first serious kiln with waste firebricks to fire miniature bricks_ 

Later, after meeting potter Len Castle, eleven years my senior, I became ecstatic about making pots 

after watching him throw so effortlessly to make big bowls, wine jars and strappy-handled jugs_ I 

persuaded my father to make me a crude potter's wheel. Len was having his pots fired in an industrial 

coal-fired salt-glaze kiln, clandestinely I believe, but to me the results were so beautiful that I had to salt 

my coke-fired kiln which, by now, had pots in it instead of mini-bricks_ I regarded Len as my mentor in 

studio pottery, but many years later our paths diverged; while he went into more sophistication in terms 

THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APRIL 201) S9


Barry Brickell, Erik Omund.on and Paul Ma.eyk, The Weed, 2008-2010 

terracona. hAl Oem; photo: Howard Williams 

of forms and techniques, I strove to retain and enhance my love of sensuous earthiness, a 'warts-and 

-all' approach, almost the opposite. Indigeneity became my theme: I need to make work that expresses 

my love of the land, its indigenous biodiversity and the largely untouched wealth of potters' raw 

materials hidden in the natural environment; but such an approach is not always popular. 

Two more influences shaped my later teenage years, the first being Bernard leach. A Potter's Book, 

a Christmas present from my parents in 1953, became my 'bible'. It had a worldwide impact that hit 

New Zealand about 1950 when our studio potters were mainly dependent on imported materials from 

England for making earthenware pottery. This book showed how to use local materials and to build 

kilns for stoneware. About that time, with the help of a local blacksmith, I evolved a drip-feed waste 

oil burner that reached cone 10 easily in the crude small kilns I had built, much easier than firing on 

salvaged coke and coal. The other influence came from the late Keith Patterson, an expatriate Kiwi who 

had worked in Spain with some contemporary painters. On examining my copious drawings and my 

crude pots, he told me that I was an 'artist'. But his real influence on my work was to introduce me to 

the technique of coiling. Having watched Spanish potters making huge terracotta vessels for local wine 

makers, he showed me how to roll out soft clay and build up forms entirely by hand: it was an utter 

revelation . From then on, I have been experimenting with built-up forms in both terracotta and saltglazed 

stoneware. 

After a period at university majoring in botany and geology, at age 26 I fled the city life choosing the 

remote small town of Coromandel in which to become a full-time stoneware potter, hell-bent on ridding 

myself of a secure career in school teaching. Coromandel has plenty of good clay, lots of indigenous 

wilderness and direct sea access to the Auckland city markets. Although I might pride myself on 

becoming New Zealand >s first New Zealand-born full-time stoneware potter, it was Mirek Smisek born 

in (then) Czechoslovakia who was actually first, making salt-glazed domestic ware from local clays. len 

Castle and others followed in later years, until the impact of rogernomics (see below) took effect during 

the mid 1980s. Thereafter, with the influx of cheap imported ceramics of all kinds, most of our potters 

gave up and found other sources of income, 

In 1973, I was able to buy a large hilly scrub-covered property just north of Coromandel town, where 

I established the present set of studios, kilns, clay and brick-making machinery and living quarters. 

The survival of Driving Creek Potteries is a story in itself but it's largely been due to the success of the 

associated Driving Creek Railway. As an early railway enthusiast, I studied railway engineering and it has 

stood us in good stead. While trying to make my living as a potter I was also building, over a period of 

33 years, a narrow-gauge mountain railway. This railway is now a major tourist attraction, the proceeds 

from which maintain the potteries, make contributions to the local community and support resident 

artists. It had also enabled the establishment of an art gallery of my own works and also of many others 

whose works I have collected over many years. 

Studio pottery sold quite well until the onslaught of 'rogernomics' in the mid-1980s, when Roger 

Douglas, then labour Minister of Finance, demolished import restrictions and tariffs with a cruel blow, 

allowing cheap ceramic products to flood into the country. I was fortunate to receive a series of ceramic 

mural commissions which literally 'saved my bacon' as a struggling potter, until the railway started to 

60 THE JOURNAL Of AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APRIL 2013


----- 

Barry Brickell. stoneware sculpture. 

woodfired. sodium bicarbonate 

salting: photo: courtesy artist 

make a profit after 1990. Because many of these murals are inaccessible to the public, I was persuaded 

to publish an illustrated book on them, Plastic Memories, due for publication early in 2013. 

But back in 1974, when Bernard Leach's A Potter's Book was creating much interest, I built a fairly 

large downdraught-type kiln fitted with a 'dutch oven' firebox. Taking my cue from wood-burning 

boilers of old steam sawmills, I was impressed how hot the arched firebox could get, even on wet wood. 

The kiln worked well on dry pine waste wood from a local sawmill, reaching stoneware temperatures 

with comparative ease. It attracted potters from afar to learn the gentle art of woodfiring. This kiln has 

been preserved as a kind of monument, although the arch fell down only recently. 

Kiln building has become a major aspect of the potteries, driven largely by the need to fire very 

large sculptural pieces. One of our kilns has a chamber large enough to act as a studio and one of our 

visiting potters made a very large piece in it rather than having to transport a fragile unfired work and 

manipulate it into the kiln. But then, as if this was not enough, I decided to build a trolley kiln closer 

to my own studio. Large terra cotta pieces can now be made on the false floor of the trolley (with 

flues underneath), wound in when dry and woodfired with a firebox on one side. After some trials we 

arranged various baffles and now the chamber heats up quite evenly. For salt-glazed stoneware, we 



---------- 

Barry Brickell, collection of terracotta sculptural pieces. rivets decoration inspired by blacksmiths making boilers from 

steel plates; photo; courtesy artist 

have also built two phoenix-type kilns. I also found I needed a smaller stoneware kiln for domestic ware, 

to be fired on waste oil, and so engaged an ex-engineer potter near Tauranga to build this kiln . It fires 

almost smokelessly using a sloping length of angle iron into which oil and water are dripped in the 

correct proportion. This kiln is brilliant, even-heating, reaching cone 12 with ease and costing very little 

to fire. 

Today, Driving Creek Potteries offers studio space, facilities and accommodation for visiting potters 

and ceramic sculptors. With a capable staff now managing the railway, I can at last return to the studio 

without the anxieties associated with money. The writing desk still has an old-fashioned electronic 

typewriter and now a laptop that occasionally drives me mad. But above all, the architect who designed 

my art gallery also gave me an attached 'supershanty' with comforts, something I never thought I would 

need ... until recently. 

Rails Toward the Sky. Barry Brickell. David Ling Publishing. 2010; available from the author 

The Story of Driving Creek. 8th edition. 2013 

www.drivingcreekrailway.co.nz 


Focus: New Zealand Cera mics 

The List 

GROUPS 

AUCKLAND STUDIO POTTERS 

The Auckland Studio Potters (ASP) has promoted 

and supported potters in Auckland for almost 

50 years. They offer teaching, studio and firing 

fa cilities, support, friendship and fun. 

www.ceramics.co.nz 

CANTERBURY POTTERS ASSOCIATION 

This Christchurch group is 44 years old with 

about 120 members. 

E: canterburypotters@gmail.com 

HUTT ART SOCIETY POTTERS 

The Hutt Art Society is a community facility 

where a range of different art and craft activities 

are practised in a beautiful old building situated 

close to the centre of Lower Hutt. 

MT PLEASANT POTTERS 

The Mt Pleasant Community Centre building, 

home to the studio of the Mt Pleasant Pottery 

Group, was demolished after the earthquakes. 

Club activities and classes are being held at 

venues around the city. 

www.mtpleasantpottery.org.nz 

NZ POTTERS 

This incorporated society formed in 1965 and 

now has around 400 members. Celebrating 

Ceramics, the 54th National exhibition of NZ 

Potters' Inc, will be held from 23 March to 12 

May 2013. Their members' page gives either 

individual information on members or you can 

select a region of NZ and see members in that 

area . www.nzpotters.com 

WELLINGTON POTTERS ASSOCIATION 

E: wellingtonpotters@gmx.com 

http://newzealandpottery.forumotion.net 

A friendly community of New Zealand Pottery 

enthusiasts - Crown Lynn, Titian, NZ Studio 

Pottery, NZ Potters Marks and NZ Commercial 

Pottery 

MAKERS 

Kathy Baird is a vessel maker with a beautifuf 

studio overlooking Orongo Bay in Russell. 

Visitors are welcome. www.mudflats.co.nz 

Elise Bishop makes robust sculptural functional 

vessels using local clay, stoneware and porcelain. 

She now lives on Great Barrier Island. 

http://elisebishop.bannoy.net 

Peter Collis is currently working with bone 

china. Collis Studios, run with his wife Julie, is in 

Birkenhead, Auckland. Visitors are welcome at 

the studio and gallery. www.collis.co.nz 

Kim Henderson has a studio gallery in West 

Melton, Christchurch, where she makes slabbuilt 

stoneware ceramics influenced by the local flora 

and fauna. www.kimhenderson.co.nz 

Below: Kim Henderson. Beaded Seascape Series~ 2012 

Photo: courtesy artist 

OTAGO POTTERS GROUP 

Facebook page only 

64 THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAM ICS APRIL 201)


-------- 

Peter Lange works 

with clay, bricks and 

fi re. He ma kes pots, 

fires strange kilns and 

builds brick structures. 

www.peterlange. 

cO.nz 

Peter Lange 

photo: lucille Nobleza 

Alice Rose is fascinated by illusions of 

perception, imitation and trompe l'oeil. Her 

Mirage Vases reference art from the era of 

modern machinery and mass-production, treating 

the three dimensional form as a drawn illusion. 

www.alicerose.co.nz 

Marilyn Wheeler has created a unique way to 

glaze and texture clay with one firing. She makes 

functional domestic ware and artistic works in 

clay. 

www.marilynwheeler.co.nz 

Jo Luping and her team create collections of 

stoneware ceramic bowls featuring line drawings 

of flowers, endangered species and insects. 

The design studio is in Lower Hutt. 

http://www.jolupingdesign.com 

Royce McGlashen is one of New Zealand's 

leading potters. He qualified as a Master Potter 

in 1971 . He is a member of the International 

Academy of Ceramics (Geneva) and in 1989 

received an MBE for his services to pottery in 

New Zealand. www.roycemcglashen.co.nz 

Fran Maguire has been potting since 1994 and 

has developed her style based on simplicity of 

form and texture. www.franmaguire.co.nz 

GALLERIES 

Anna Miles Gallery, Auckland 


Avid Gallery, Wellington 

www.avidgallery.co.nz 

Form Gallery, Christchurch 

www.form.co.nz 

Masterworks Gallery, Auckland 

www.masterworksgallery.com 

Kura Gallery, Auckland 

www.kuragallery.co.nz 

Morris & James is a production pottery in 

Matakana, nea r Warkworth, offering pottery 

tours. a showroom and a cafe. They are known 

for using the local clay. 

www.morrisandjames.co.nz 

Art by the Sea, Devonport, Auckland 

www.artbythesea.co.nz 

South Street Gallery, Nelson 

www.nelsonpottery.co.nz 

Kiya Nancarrow's ceramic sculptures. also 

known as 'energy loops' capture a sense of 

energy. She lives in Rocky Bay, Waiheke Island. 

www.kiyanancarrow.com 

John Parker is a maker of things - pots and 

theatre sets and costumes. 

www.johnparker.co.nz 

Lopdell House Gallery, Auckland 

www.lopdell.org.nz 

Piece Gallery, Rodney District 

www.piecegallery.co.nz 

RH Gallery. Nelson 

www.rhgallery.co.nz 

Elena Renka is a woodfirer whose latest focus 

has been on making shino-glazed bowls and 

cups. www.elenarenker.com 

Vessel, Wellington 

www.vessel.co.nz 



Todd Douglas, Pa Kahawa; 

2012, handbuilt stoneware 

macro-crystalline glaze 

porcelain, totara 

hAOcm w.23cm, d.6cm 

Photo: Howard Williams 

Todd Douglas Ceramic Artist 

A profile by Karuna Douglas 

Born in 1965 in Auckland of Pakeha and Nga Puhi (Ngati Manu, Te Mahurehure) descent, Todd is a fulltime 

ceramic artist living and working at Muriwai Beach . Primarily self-taught, he is recognised for using 

a broad range of ceramic techniques and surface treatments as well as combining materials such as clay, 

wood, lashing and LED lighting. 

In his contemporary Maori sculpture, Todd uses carved burnished clay with contrasting technical 

glazes and lashing. His work is particularly well known for its beautiful crystalline glazes, referencing 

pounamu. The theme that runs through this work is the reference to tools, including hoe (paddles), pa 

kahawai (lures), tiheru (canoe bailers), and toki (adzes). 

I love the chal/enge of clay. It's not like any other material. It has a life force, an ageness about it. 

Todd's second style of work is closely linked to his environment; he is surrounded by native bush 

but close to the crashing surf of Muriwai. These new works have strong and intimate connections 

to geology, biology and astronomy. Most recently, Todd has been developing multimedia work that 

combines the disciplines of art and function. 

A member of Nga Kaihanga Uku (the national Maori clayworkers group), Todd has won five national 

art awards since 2008 and is profiled in Denis Robinson's book New Zealand Gallery which profiles 

62 New Zealand artists. Recently, he exhibited at the prestigious biennial Auckland Botanic Gardens 

Sculpture exhibition. Todd has work in private and corporate collections throughout the world, including 

New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, Dubai, Taiwan and the United States. 

www.todddouglas.co.nz 


Pounamu, origin unknown, circa 19705 

Photo: Focus New Zealand 

Todd Douglas, Toki Pou Tangata, (detail), 20t I , slip glaze, porcelain, 

macro-crystalline glaze; photo: Howard Williams 

Infinite Shades of Green 

A glaze story by Karuna Douglas 

In 2007, my husband and studio partner Todd Douglas began developing a series of contemporary 

ceramic sculptures inspired by traditional taonga', specifically, toki pou tangata (a ceremonial adze with 

a carved wooden handle), lashed to a pounamu (New Zealand nephrite or greenstone) blade. 

I am Todd 's glaze developer. I don't make objects; I'm into surfaces. I love the infinite possibilities 

within the surfaces of ceramics. And luckily for me, I have a studio partner who has a diverse range of 

work that challenges me to push the boundaries of my glaze knowledge and repertoire. 



Todd Dougl.s, Te Wai Pounamu, 2012, h.162cm, w.17cm, d.4cm 

After studying traditional toki, I knew the challenge was going to be the pounamu blade. Half of this 

beautiful country is named after pounamu, a mysterious, enchanting and highly sought after material, 

New Zealand's semi-precious stone. Highly prized by Maori for its cultural and spiritual value, pounamu is a 

protected natural resource that is considered tapu (sacred). Te Wai Pounamu (the greenstone waters) is the 

traditional Maori name for the South Island of Aotearoa/New Zealand. 

Pounamu is most commonly recognised for its infinite shades of green and its incredible translucency and 

depth of colour. The degrees of translucency range from high to opaque, giving the stone its wairua (life 

force), Varieties of pounamu include kahurangi (translucent clear green), kawakawa (dark mottled green with 

dark inclusions), tangiwai (transparent blues/greens) and tahutahi (snowflake). Pounamu also comes in shades 

of grey, blue, brown, orange and yellow, as well as black and white, variations mostly due to the presence of 

iron and chromium. 

What glaze could possibly represent pounamu? It would have to be a glaze that could capture the 

materials' elusive and almost indefinable properties as well as have something to add. My desire was always 

not to mimic pounamu but to reference it. As I began studying the mineralogy, geology and Maori creation 

myths around pounamu, I was immediately drawn to the commonalities between pounamu and zincsilicate 

macrocrystalline glazes, which I had investigated 

several years earlier as part of a glaze research project. I 

discovered that nephrite is essentially composed of fanlike 

fibres radiating from a point. and when subjected to 

intense pressures and temperatures (such as those within 

the collision zone where the Australian and Pacific plates 

collide and are forced upwards forming the Southern 

Alps), these microscopic fibres become tangled and form 

an interwoven texture known as nephritic or felted texture, 

giving the material some of its unique properties. 

These words resonated with what I already knew about 

macro-crystalline glazes. This branch of glaze chemistry 

produces a large variety of crystals that vary from large, 

well-developed distinct crystals immersed in a glassy matrix 

to a glossy surface blanketed in overlapping crystals. Unlike 

traditional glazes, crystalline glazes contain very little 

alumina, resulting in a glaze with a low viscosity so that 

Todd Dougl.s, M uriwai II, 2008, h.Slcm, w.50cm, d.lOcm 



the fluid glaze runs, allowing the crystals to seed and grow. The principal ingredients in the glaze recipe, 

zinc oxide and silica, combine to form crystals of zinc silicate (Zn,SiO.). The crystals seed and then grow 

outwards, similar to ice on a window, creating a myriad of distinct crystal shapes. In a crystalline glaze, 

these crystals allude to pansies and snowflakes, thistles and double axe heads, rods and leopard spots, 

which all seemingly float within the glaze matrix. 

One of the primary factors for determining the size and shape of the crystals is the rate of cooling 

and holding patterns used during the firing process. Basically, utilising heat and time within the kiln, you 

mimic the geological forces that occur within the earth itself. Of course all this volcanic activity is quite 

tough on the kiln, plus the levels of heatwork required to make these glazes really dazzle means that 

you're often working at the limits of what the clay body can handle, Go too far and the clay melts and 

warps; don't go far enough and the glaze is ho-hum. 

I knew macro-crystalline glazes could be difficult to control but I had absolutely no idea how 

temperamental they really were until I started working with them extensively. There are so many 

variables that can affect the crystal development and the fired result that it's mind-blowing. But, when it 

works, it works so beautifully I can't imagine a more perfect glaze for Todd's taonga sculpture. 

To be honest, before this I had never 

been a fan of macro-crystalline glazes. 

I thought they were flashy, showy and 

ostentatious, and too often the glaze 

masked an unsuitable or poorly made form. 

Frankly speaking, there's still a lot of this 

around but I hope this article has illustrated 

that the sculptural possibilities of this glaze 

family can be astonishing. 

1 A taonga in Maori culture is a treasured thing, whether 

tangible or intangible. Tangit»e examples are all sorts of 

heirlooms and artefacts, land, fisheries. natural resources such 

as geothermal springs and access to natural resources. such 

as riparian water rights and access to the nparian lone of 

rivers or streams. Intangible examples may Include language, 

spiritual behefs and radio frequencies: Wikipedia. 

Karuna is a glaze technician 

ceramicist and Girl Friday, 

Todd Douglas, Toki Pou Tangata, 2011 

hand built stoneware, carved, slip glaze 

porcelain. macro·crystalline glaze. h.44cm 

w.42cm, d.7cm; photo: Howard Williams 

1st Ceramics Award, 2011 

Royal New Ze313nd Easter Show 

THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APRil 201) 69

Focus: New Zealand Ceram ics 

Darryl Frost 

Darryl Frost works from Playing with Fire, his 

piduresque studio garden at Kina Beach, Tasman, 

forty minutes west of Nelson at the top of New 

Zealand's South Island. He is t he only ceramicist 

in the region to operate an anagama kiln and 

is one of a small community of woodfirers 

scattered throughout New Zealand. 

The images shown on these pages are from 

Da rryl Frost's 2009 exhibition The Innocent 

Glaze at The Suter Art Ga llery in Nelson. 

http://playingwithfire.co.nz 



----------- 

A Path Less Travelled 

Richard Fahey considers the evolution of Richard Parker's practice 

Richard Parker's career as a producer of commercial utilitarian wares gained traction in New Zealand 

during the mid 1970s. This was a moment of unprecedented enthusiasm for studio pottery as New 

Zealanders turned to the handicrafts as a means of reimagining an 'authentic' past and symbolically 

reconnecting with their pioneering colonial history. Brownish, artfully misshapen, dribbly glazed, organic 

primitivism stood for an aestheticised ideal of the cultural vernacular and stories abounded during the 

1970s of New Zealand craft retailers ordering consignments of whole kiln-loads, sight unseen. 

In 1978, the large geriatric diesel kiln that Parker fired once a fortnight in a small rural town in 

the remote reaches of New Zealand's upper North Island collapsed under sheer fatigue. The occasion 

prompted Parker's resolve to quit the production line and harbour an altogether different aspiration for 

his ceramic practice. He was to repudiate what many considered, a reasonably profitable and wholesome 

lifestyle. Demand for the ubiquitous handmade brown pottery was at the time, seemingly insatiable. 

Whether this resolve was a moment of intractable wilfulness on Parker's part or a canny anticipation of 

the virtual demise of this commercial market that was soon to eventuate, one can only speculate. What 

is certain, however, is that Parker was one of the few notable practitioners at the time whose practice 

survived and persisted throughout the 1980s when the political evisceration of trade protectionism and 

the removal of import restrictions resulted in the local market being inundated with cheaper wares from 

third world producers. Parker's subsequent career t rajectory is notable for the determination with which 

he has pursued his own creative aspirations, unencumbered by the mutable dictates of clay fa shion and 

interior decoration . 

Parker's conviction is founded in an historical idea of the restorative capacity of the handmade 

object in OPPOSition to the dull indifference of the industrially mass-produced. The domestic domain 

has remained the natural habitat for his work as he has sought to enliven the ongoing intimacies of 

an individual's daily routine. For Parker, the single most defining attribute of success is whether a work 

made in clay can impart a sense of movement. He conceptualises this notion through his fascination 

with the way in which the eye is constantly seeking variety within uniformity and by acknowledging the 

perceptual mechanics of peripheral vision. 

The edge of your eye is really important· it has a lot to do with w ellbeing. The visual field is too disturbed 

when it is too symmetrical. The lack of symmetry is what the body desires, where it feels more at home. A 

lot of the information that comes into the brain is through the periphery; it 's where memory lies. I worked 

it out because when / was a kid, we lived in a house that made me pace around like a caged animal. / 

began to realise what I was pacing for - / was looking for information, for stimulation, and there wasn't 

quite enough. There was much more interesting stuff to be examined in the damp stains on the wallpaper 

than the wallpaper pattern. 

Parker's desire to insinuate movement is practically abetted by a variety of handbuilding techniques 

that he applies to his signature 'vases' ; slab construction, coiling, press moulding, and - perhaps what he 

Opposite page: 

Above: Richard Parker, Vases, 2007, h.26.5cm, w.9cm, d .9cm; photo: Studio I..l Gonda 

Below: Richard Parker, Vases, 2009, h.28cm, w.21cm, d .13.Scm; photo: Studio La Gonda; Masterworks Gallery 


Focus: New ZealanCl Ceramics 

Richard Parter, Vases, 1991-2007. various dimensions 

Photo: Studio La Gonda 

has made most distinctively his own - the practice of drawing a wire through a solid block of clay as a 

direct means of generating form in space . These methods of construction avoid the uniform profile and 

symmetry that 'wheelthrown' forms insist on. 

Since the mid-1980s, Parker has chosen to work exclusively with low-fired earthenware. It carried 

nothing of the professional gravitas associated with high-fired stoneware that was exclusively adhered to 

by the professional potting fraternity of the time. What it did afford Parker was the opportunity to fully 

exploit his other great fascinations, colour and decoration. Cream-coloured slip provided a clean slate 

to carry a palette of rich amber, verdant green and blood red. These colours form the staple ingredients 

from which Parker assembles his wily arsenal of ornamental patterns consisting of infinite variations on 

the stripe, dash and dot. 

The distinctive wares that Parker has produced over four decades have brought him national and 

international acclaim. During this time, however, the audience for his work has been typically polarised. 

There are those who are confronted by Parker's deliberate courting of a nonchalant precariousness 

and those instantly beguiled by his raw ambition for direct and fluid expression. Within a local context, 


Parker's production defies easy classification. Few have so audaciously departed from New Zealand's 

last great ceramic moment (the 1970s heyday of utilitarian ware). Parker's fugitive forms look to 

capture inquisitive attention through a defiance of predictability. His decorative glaze schemes appear 

like purposefully ill-fitting sets of clothes, worn loosely to unsettle any sense of monumental sobriety. 

Parker's ideal is not a classical pursuit of purity but a productive entanglement with uncertainty. What 

he pursues is a deep sensory appreciation, analogous to the infinite variety that can be found within the 

natural world. 

The customary seal of approval that comes from acknowledging demonstrable exercise of skill and 

technique will be forever contested in the appreciation of Parker's craft. Parker is unperturbed and 

continues his singular quest for that elusive quality in form and decoration . 

Richard Fahey is a Senior l ecturer in the Department of Design and Visual Arts, 

Unitec, Auckland. 

www.form.co.nz/artisls/richard_parker.htm 


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A testimonial from one of our happy clients 

My Woodrow kiln is the first kiln I have confidently used where the heat is intense 

and consistent. As a result, I do not need to guess or over-compensate the 

temperatures or saturations. This ca n be seen in the clarity and brilliance of the f ired 

lustres I used on my award-winning vase featured below. I was presented with two 

awards for my porcelain paintings from the representative of HRH Queen Sirikit of 

Thailand, HE The Privy Councillor, at the Tha iland International Porcelain Painting 

Convention (TIPP) 2012. 

Award~winning vase by Ingrid Lee, Orchids - Purity of Lo ve, 2012, Platinum lust re, paste work, 

burnishing gold. hAD.6em 

This vase took nine firings to complete. The design represents the complex message 

of the language of flowers; in general, the orchid is a symbol of luxury, sensuality, 

mystery and passion represented by the gold paste work used throughout the 

painting. 

Ingrid Lee is a professional, international award winning artist in modern 

porcelain painting, abstract expressionist acrylic painting, mixed media and 

fabric art. She teaches master classes and creates collaborative art projects 

with public and corporate sectors to share creativity and inspire art enthusiasts 

in Australia and overseas. 

For information about Ingrid's exhibitions, master classes, art projects 

and commissions, please visit http://ingridleeart.com, or email ingridlee@ 

ingridleeart.com 

78 THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APRIL 201)

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View 

Janet Oe8oos, Covered Jar 4, 2012. thrown 

porceHaneou5 stoneware. black underglaze 

stain, terra sigillata, sgraffito, clear glaze 

stock overglaze decals, h.27em, w.26cm 

d.26cm; photo: Greg Piper Image Solutions 

Hybrid Places 

Michael Keighery reviews a recent exh ibition of work by Janet DeBoos 

It is a long time since I have been as surprised, excited and stimulated by a ceramics exhibition as I was 

by Janet DeBoos' recent showing at Sabbia Gallery in Sydney. 

Picasso supposedly said that "good artists borrow, great artists steal" and so it is with De Boos' new 

body of decorative and functional ceramics. The difference is that DeBoos does not so much steal as 

gleefully plunder from a diverse range of influences, and she does so with such an exuberance and 

openness that the audience is swept up in an almost conspiratorial sense of delight. 

The word 'hybrid' indicates that something new has been made by the combination of different but 

existing things and in this case, Janet DeBoos neatly and seamlessly welds Chinese floral decals with 

sgraffito Australian botanical imagery incised through earthy ochre slips. 

In the decades since Modernism lost its potency, people generally acknowledge that all work has 

antecedents whose ideas and styles influence an artist's work. However, how does one achieve the 

degree of resolution that DeBoos displays in an exhibition of work that draws on such diverse traditions, 

cultures and styles? How does she manage to achieve a seemingly effortless integration of so many 

ideas in her work? 

An invitation by Sabbia's Anna Grigson and Maria Grimaldi to open Janet's exhibition and engage in a 

short Q&A session allowed me the opportunity to tease out some answers to this conundrum. 

Previously known primarily for work that emphasised the making process, with pronounced throwing 

ridges and slightly off-centre vessels which were complemented by a minimalist approach to glaze and 

decoration, DeBoos says that she responded to her accumulation of brushes, decals and overglaze 

enamels, and then, as she said, " gave herself permission to decorate" . 

In pressing her to elaborate on what she meant, DeBoos confesses to having been a 'fabric junkie' 

for years and that the major impetus for this change in direction came from the request of a Chinese 

factory to decorate her more understated forms which they were producing for the Chinese market. 

Rather than simply decorating her existing forms, she decided that she needed to make decorated 

forms that reflected her own time and place rather than decorating for a Chinese aesthetic. 

The finished work is a complex marriage of patterns, motifs and colours on forms, and I ask myself 

why it is that the work has been so enthusiastically received even by the Chinese. De Boos says that she 

"does not know what she has done " until she has done it and she needs time to reflect on finished 

work and digest others' responses. 

Perhaps the fact that the work resonates across such boundaries of place and culture reflects the 

zeitgeist of our times where things are incredibly busy and we revel in a barrage of the old and the new, 

the familiar and the unknown rubbing up against each other in a way we see as perfectly acceptable. 

Hybrid Places; New works in ceramics by Janet DeBoos, November 2012 

www.sabbiagallery.com 

http://keighery.com 

80 THE JOURNAL Of AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APRil 2013

View

View 

A Concise Guide to Indigenous 

Australian Pottery 

A review by Karen Austin 

Earth Works - contemporary Indigenous Australian ceramic art 

An Exhibition and Catalogue curated and written by Dr Christine Nicholls. 

Flinders University Art Museum & City Gallery, Adelaide, South Australia, 

1 September - 14 October 2012. 

The publication that accompanies the Earth Works exhibition is much more than an exhibition 

catalogue; it is an authoritative and engaging account of the relatively short history of Indigenous 

Australian pottery. In the foreword, former ceramics co-ordinator at Hermannsburg, Northern Territory 

(1990-2006) Naomi Sharp suggests that this publication may well be the first ever overview of the 

history of Indigenous Australian ceramics practice. 

Christine Nicholls offers a concise history of Indigenous ceramic practices, covering the major 

centres throughout Australia. Whilst acknowledging that ceramics is an introduced practice. Nicholls 

provides evidence of the pre-contact use of clay in Aboriginal societies. Clay played an important role in 

traditional medicinal systems as a means of absorbing toxins in the body and the treatment of various 

gastro-intestinal ills including diarrhoea. The addition of clay also made it possible for Aboriginal people 

to consume a broader array of native vegetation that othervvise would have caused sickness, even 

death. Clay, in the form of ochre, was used extensively in artistic and ceremonial life. White, yellow 

and red ochres were used to paint secular and sacred images on rock faces, to decorate objects and as 

ceremonial body cosmetics . Coloured ochres were also traded along extensive trade routes throughout 

mainland Australia. 

Hermannsburg Pottery, which began in the 1960s, is the location of the first sustained effort to 

introduce a ceramics industry to Aboriginal people. This built upon Pastor Friedrich Albrecht's much 

earlier attempt to establish an arts-based cottage industry at Hermannsburg. In the 1950s, the small 

plasticine models created in the school became precursors for later ceramic figurines, the 'signature' 

adornments atop many contemporary Hermannsburg pots. In the early '60s, a non-Indigenous mission 

gardener, Vic Jaensch, together with Arrernte men Nahasson Ungwanaka and Joseph Rontji, hand-built 

the first kiln, in which the men fired small, hand-modelled figurines. While Jaensch left in 1966 and this 

initiative faltered, the seeds of a sustainable industry had been sown. 

Considerably later, in the 1980s. Ungwanaka attempted to reinstate the industry, requesting that 

the government provide a ceramics teacher. This led non-Indigenous ceramics teacher Naomi Sharp 

to conduct a workshop in 1990 that, in turn, led to her staying at Hermannsburg for a further 16 

years (1990-2006). Sha rp taught the local people various coiling and other pottery techniques and 

encouraged them to explore their own style, creating figurines for lids and painting the distinctive, 

rounded-belly pots with their Altyerr ('Dreamings') and depictions of Country. 

Nicholls observes that Arrernte potters have now transformed ceramics into their own distinctive 


View 

art form. Many pots are decorated with panoramic landscapes and adorned with figurines that reflect 

matters of significance to artists. Irene Mbitjana Entata's (1946-) Babes (1996), synthetic polymer on 

terracotta, 15 x 11.3 x 10.8 cm, is an example. The pot is painted with a vivid rendition of Country. On 

its lid stand two bright pink pigs with curly tails. This work is both a testament to the many feral pigs 

that roam the region, as well as to Entata's delight in the 1995 hit Australian movie Babe. 

In 1966, under the auspices of the University of New South Wales, Professor Leslie Haynes and others 

established a Ceramic Research Un it at the Bagot Road Aboriginal Settlement, Darwin. An Indigenous 

pottery venture was eventually established for commercial gains and as an outlet for artistic expression. 

Nicholls notes that this venture led to the establishment of the overwhelmingly male Tiwi Pottery, 

providing a foundation for the activity of many current-day ceramicists. 

With support from Catholic Missions, Tiwi Pottery was established in 1972. Well-known Tiwi 

narratives and traditions were often the basis for works. The earthenware sculpture l arakalani lantu 

(Turtle Boat) 1999, 56 x 80 x 32 cm, by Mark Puautjimi and Cyril James Kerinauia, is a depiction of 

traditional turtle hunting. The work is painted with typical Tiwi geometriC patterns in red-brown, black 

and white that parallel designs on traditional barks and canvases. 

Nicholls asserts that no account of Indigenous ceramics could be complete without reference to 

Thanakupi, also known as Thancoupie (1937-2011). Thanakupi was a renowned, indeed inspirational, 

linguist, educator and ceramicist. Her works are displayed in fine arts institutions worldwide. She was 

the first Indigenous Australian to study fine arts at a tertiary level, to establish her own studio (1976), 

and to maintain a long, successful career as a ceramicist. In later works, Thanakupi often represented 

narratives associated with her Cape York Peninsula people. Spherical earthenware sculpture, Thaal the 

black eagle, Mal the red eagle, 1994, 29 x 32 cm, is representative, and has been incised with deep 

figurative and non-figurative patterns representing these sacred eagles. 

Nicholls's personal involvement in the (aborted) development of a modern ceramics tradition at 

Lajamanu (Tanami Desert) parallels her association with the community that she lived in as linguist, 

Thanakupi Gloria Fletcher, 1937-2011, Thaynakwith, Love magic pot, 1985, earthenware, salt glaze, h.9.8cm, w.13.Scm 

Flinders University Art Museum 2229; courtesy Jennifer Isaacs; photo: Flinders University An Museum

View 

school principal, and 'emergency' adult arts educator from 1982- 1991. Amongst the most successful 

of the adult programs she organised was the 1988-89 ceramics project, culminating in a National 

Gallery of Victoria exhibition in 1990. Mostly women attended classes and adopted the technique of 

painting designs into black-slip over terracotta pots. Primarily their paintings were, and continue to be, 

expressions of their personal Jukurrpa, or Dreamings. 

Amongst Lajamanu women, Jeannie Herbert Nungarrayi was the only person to have prior knowledge 

of ceramics, having been inspired by celebrated artist Thanakupi (Thancoupie). Nungarrayi's 1989 

earthenware works Ngarlkirdi Jukurrpa and Witchetty Grub Dreaming, 20.2 x 20.2 cm, 20 x 20.6 

cm, have been influenced by Thancoupie's signature spherical shape; although Nungarrayi has adorned 

hers with strong black and white designs that reflect Warlpiri iconographic traditions and her own desert 

upbringing. 

Australia's oldest continuing Aboriginal art centre was established at Ernabella on the Anangu 

Pitjantjatjara Yankunyljatjara Lands, South Australia, in 1948. However, it was not until 1997, under the 

direction of Adelaide's Jam Factory, that ceramics practice was introduced to the centre. As there were no 

ceramic making/studio facilities at Ernabella, bisque-fired platters were underglaze painted at Ernabella 

and sent to the JamFactory for firing. Ceramicists Robin Best and Peter Ward undertook several 

workshops in 2001/2002, teaching coiling and form-moulding as well as encouraging development of 

underglaze painting. 

As part of this growing ceramics movement, Robin Best forged a working relationship with artist 

Nyukana Baker to produce some wonderful collaborative works. Settlement, 2005, seven porcelain 

works with Baker's underglaze designs, is an assortment of bottles that represent grog bottles 

introduced by colonists. The work provides striking reference to traditional punu carving (although the 

works have not been incised, but painted), whilst 

referenCing the sinister effects that alcohol has had on 

the community. 

Recently a number of independent ceramic artists 

have emerged. Amongst them is Torres Strait Islander 

Ricardo Idagi, originally from Mer (Murray) Island, 

Queensland. Idagi's politically-charged 20 12 Wolf in 

Sheep's Clothing, earthenware, feathers and cane 

sculpture, 60 x 27 x 65 cm, comprises a complex 

structure of a face-mask attached to a traditional TI 

headdress of geometrical design. Atop the headdress 

sits an imposing wolf's head. The wolf, with its sharp 

teeth and skeletal fish body of feathers and cane, 

suggests an ominous colonial presence overlaying 

and bearing down on the t raditional islander culture 

beneath it. The wolf implies that imposed colonial 

culture has, and continues to, dominate traditional 

islander practices. 

Danie Mellor, born 1971, MamWNgajoni, The totem (mo tif) 

2008, slipcast stoneware with feathers, h.7Iern, w.33em. d.Slern 

Gift of Emeritus Professor JVS and Dr M Ruth Megaw, Flinders 

University Art Museum 4562; courtesy artist 

Photo: Flinders University Art Museum

Nyukana Baker, born 1943. Pitjantjatjara and Robin Best 

born 1953, Settlement 2005, cast coloured porcelain 

with underglaze, black punuku walka by Nyukana Baker 

seven elements, various dimensions; Flinders University Art 

Museum Collection 4668; courtesy artists 

Photo: Grant Hancock, Adelaide 

Originally from Mackie, Queensland, Mamui 

Ngajoni man Danie Mellor is an artist who explores 

issues of identity and inter-cultural relationships 

in various art media, including ceramics. His The 

totem (motif) 2008, slip-cast stoneware with 

feathers, 71 x 33 x 51 em, is a dog sculpture 

decorated with cockatoo feathers that parallel 

body adornments of traditional ceremonial 

practices. Mellor's dogs are a metaphor for the 

historical treatment of Australia's Indigenous 

people by the Anglo-European coloniser-usurpers. 

In the book's conclusion, Nicholls remarks on 

the unique capacity of Indigenous ceramics to 

convey traditional thematics and express spirituality 

and connections to Country. She believes that 

Indigenous ceramics collectively constitute a 

Ricardo Idagi, born 1957, Meriam Mer, Wolf in Sheep 's 

Clothing, 2012, glazed earthenware, feathers, cane 

h.60cm, w.27cm, d.65cm; courtesy artist and Vivien 

Anderson Gallery. Melbourne 

Photo: Simon Anderson Photography, Melbourne 

form of conceptual art that draws .. 'a udiences away from the inherent narcissism characterising 

certain contemporary art ... [causing] ... us to reflect on the past, and on our shared Australian present 

and future'. Perhaps less controversially, Christine Nicholls concludes by commenting that Indigenous 

ceramicists, like their non-Indigenous counterparts, primarily strive to 'bridge gaps' between people and 

objects within a contemporary, global context. 

Karen Austin is currently a Humanities PhD student at Flinders University in South Australia, 

under the guiding hand of Dr Christine Nicholls. 

E: klaustin@adam.com.au 

Copies of Earth Works contemporary Indigenous Australian ceramic art (RRP $20; P&H $7.50) 

are available from Flinders University City Gallery, State Library of South Australia 

T: 08 8207 7055; www.flinders.edu.au/artmuseum 


Community 

Meeting a Need 

Don Chisholm reports on his latest invention 

For the last twelve years I have been one of a number of Adelaide Potters Club members who 

volunteer each Wednesday during school term to teach craft at the Broughton Art Society, a voluntary 

organisation which has been teaching art and craft to disabled adults for forty years. Broughton Art 

is sponsored by the Unley Council who provide use of a building and finance for exhibitions, a service 

which is much appreciated by the local disabled community. The Council's efforts are to be commended. 

Pottery and craft day is Wednesday, art and other subjects on the remaining days. Broughton is staffed 

largely by volunteers and caters for around 100 disabled clients per week. 

Over the years I found that teaching pottery to this group was primarily limited by their ability to sit at 

the wheel. We have a number of people who live in wheelchairs and many of them would like to try the 

wheel. 

The Unley Council gives grants each year for projects that may improve the life of their citizens, so 

I applied for and obtained a grant of $3000 to come up with a wheel that could be used by people 

seated in a wheelchair. I went to see an engineering company who previously had designed a special 

three-wheel device for me to use in laboratories where women had to handle large gas cylinders. This 

device has been in wide use for twenty years now. We made many drawings over a one-year period and 

came up with a wheel that can be lowered to the exact height of each person, with controls each side 

at arms length. This makes it possible for both user and instructor to control the wheel's movement. It 

has proved successful for wheelchair people as the throwing action proves to be beneficial to their back 

muscles which tend to waste in the wheelchair. 

Other groups who may also find it useful are tali people, those with back problems and able-bodied 

potters who wish to stand. All can adjust the height of the wheel to their exact requirements. 


Communit y 

I had this unit on display at the Australian 

Ceramics Triennale in Adelaide last October. There 

was a lot interest from potters from other States 

as well as some who have persistently bad backs 

due to using a sit-down wheel over long periods. I 

am sure it will find a place in teaching facilities for 

disabled people throughout Australia. 

About the author and inventor: 

Don Chisholm has an interesting ceramic 

history. His grandfather, John Ramsay had a large 

pottery company in Bundamba, Queensland 

(near Ipswich) in the 1920s and '30s. His two 

apprentices, John Ramsay Jr and Mervin Feeney, 

were sent to Koster's Pottery in Norwood, South 

Australia, during World War" to throw acid jars 

for the war effort. After the war, Merv Feeney 

returned to Queensland while John Jr opened 

a pottery company in Bowden, South Australia, 

making household wares. Merv Feeney purchased 

Bundamba Pottery and became the father of 

pottery in Queensland. The name is still kept by 

Walkers who now make and distribute their clay. 

In 1954, Don Chisholm moved to Adelaide to 

join his uncle and learn the family trade. When 

plastics hit the market, the pottery business was 

reduced from 19 down to three employees. Don 

left to join Fowlers Pottery who were making 

slipcast sanitary ware for the South Australian 

Housing Trust. Later he left the industry to teach 

pottery at night classes at Tech Schools, then 

moved to Melbourne for nine years where he 

continued teaching. On returning to Adelaide he 

made small-run insulators and refractory bricks 

for the local industry as a hobby. This was a 

business left by Koster's Pottery. He has been a 

member of the Adelaide Potters Club since the 

early 1960s and now teaches disabled people at 

the Broughton Art Society and works in his own 

studio in Panorama. 

The height and speed adjustable pottery wheel has been 

developed to improve access for people of all capabilities. 

Features of the Wheel 

- eledrically height adjustable from nOmm to 1500mm high 

- wheel chairs can be wheeled with ease under the unit 

- the pottery wheel can be raised to be used by a person 

standing upright 

- a stainless top for ease of cleaning 

waterproof switches; easy and safe to use 

the lower support rail is coloured in safety yellow 

the electric motor can be controlled safely by a second 

person 

the motor features a soft start 

Don Chisholm'S latest ceramic interest is firing fine porcelain 

using the raku process. 

For wheel enquiries, please contact 

FS Solutions,S Quinlan Ave, St Marys SA 

T: 08 8276 8666 


Ceram ics + 

Luna Palace depicting HA HA and Mr Moon 

Dreaming with Open Eyes 

Pamela Irving discusses her mosaic installation at Luna Park in Melbourne 

Entry to Luna Park through Mr Moon's gaping mouth is an experience Melbourne kids have enjoyed for 

100 years. As I walked through the entrance in December 2012, I reflected upon my own journey as an 

artist over the past thirty years that had brought me to this place . How had my ceramic education and 

practice taken me from making coil-built ceramics (sculptural mythological creatures, glazed and fired) to 

applying 'ready-made' ceramics to more than 100 square metres of a permanent mosaic installation on 

Luna Park's Luna Palace? 

My undergraduate and postgraduate work in ceramics centred around kiln-fired, sculptural works. 

exhibited works based on myth, both ancient and modern. For the first decade or so of my professional 

practice, I had the time to devote to the technical challenges of sculptural ceramics; however, the 

arrival of children led me on a completely different trajectory. The demands of newborns did not sit 

well with the production of coil building, glazing and firing. I resorted, from necessity, to making lots of 

smaller ceramic objects - things that I could fire, glaze and cement together, achievable within my time 

constraints. Unconsciously, out of necessity rather than by design, I was becoming a mosaicist. 

Reference to the history of pottery and ceramics has always been very important to my mosaic 

practice . I began to combine my early handmade components with found objects and commercial tiles. 

sought out hallmarks and shards from some of the world's great potteries and ceramic production ware, 

which placed the work within a context. At times I used the hallmarks as part of the narrative . 


Ceramics + 

My early mosaics used doll parts, figurines and ornaments, 

which I altered. Some of these were shown in my 2004 

exhibition, Treading the Boards, which toured around some of 

Victoria's Regional Galleries. That body of work was inspired by 

the American folk art tradition of Memory ware - a 19th century 

craft developed by women who affixed keepsakes to the outside 

of vessels. I found the notion of creating these visual time 

capsules as personal mementoes, very inspiring. 

It was from this time that I stopped making my own ceramic 

components. Instead, I used factory-produced wares and t iles 

exclusively in my work. The use of commercial ceramic shards 

makes reference to the demise of the production potter whose 

wares were rapidly being replaced by cheap Asian imports. My 

palette came from opportunity shops and friends who gave me 

their broken, treasured ceramic heirlooms and kitchen china. 

Their trash became my mosaic treasu re. 

Nom Nom figure 

The use of broken china in mosaic is called 'pique assiette'. 

While it translates literally to 'picnic plate', it is also colloquially 

used to describe "one who steals from others' plates" . As a mosaic technique, it describes the process 

of using broken and recycled china as the tesserae. A good example of the application of this technique 

is found in a china-encrusted house in Chartres, France called La Picassiette. Other examples of mosaic 

environments created from found objects are Nek Chand's Rock Garden in Chandigarh, India, and Isaiah 

Zagar's Philadelphia's Magic Gardens in the USA. 

Bird Lady. detail


As my children grew, family holidays involved visiting those three sites as well as Niki de Saint Phalle's 

Queen Califia's Mosaic Garden in San Diego, Jean Linard's Cathedral in France and, locally, the Old 

Curiosity Shop in Ballarat. These places have been enormously inspirational for me. Other travels took 

us to the classic Roman mosaics of Pompeii, to Carthage and EI Jem (Tunisia), Volubilis (Morocco) and 

Italica (Spain). Inspiration from the modern mosaic environments has combined with my fascination for 

ancient Roman pottery and mosaics to inform my current ceramic practice. 

In 2010, I received a large commission from the Luna Park Trust. It came about quite serendipitously. I 

was travelling with my husband in Tunisia at the time, looking at Roman mosaics in the Bardo Museum, 

when I received an email from the Executive Director of Luna Park, Mary Stuart. Mary had visited my 

gallery/studio in my absence and fell in love with my courtyard, a space encrusted with scores of bird 

mosaics and bird ornaments. She felt my quirky, playful style would be a perfect fit for Luna Park. 

The front arches of the Luna Palace Building, housing the famous dodgem cars w ith a reception area 

upstairs, presented as the ideal site. Located in the centre of the Luna Park complex, it is approximately 

2 S metres wide and one metre in height. I was given free reign as to the content of the work, as my 

playful style was already anticipated. 

I decided to make large, giggly heads - a reference to the Giggle Palace that adorned the Park before 

a fire destroyed it in 1981. I also used my vocabulary of animals and characters which inhabit my prints 

and drawings. The workers at Luna Park (sometimes referred to as 'The Carnie People', as in 'carnival') 

also provided inspiration. 

This installation also makes reference to pottery and ceram ic history. On one archway is the SI. Kilda 

Mermaid, which is a 2.S-metre reclining figure. Her tail is made from the bottom of coffee mugs cut 

Installing the HA HA figure 

Mermaid tail detail


in half to create scales, each one bearing their hallmark 'Made in Japan', 'Made in China', 'Made in 

England'. She is a truly multicultural mermaid, befitting of the generations of immigrants that have 

entered through Mr Moon's Big Mouth since it's opening on 13 December 1912. 

My entire mosaic installation at Luna Park is titled Dreaming with Open Eyes. It is not only the title, 

but also describes my approach to this major project. 

The first installment was unveiled on 13 December 2010 by transport magnate Lindsay Fox, one of 

the Park's owners. On that night I was commissioned to do another section, the 12-metre high turret 

immediately adjacent to the arches. On the second section many of the characters represent people in 

the real world. They have more personal significance. 

One example is the large 'HA HA' figure, with a face made using shards collected by the vivacious, 

tattooed, in-house carpenter, Dalida Azar. The Luna Park site was a tip in the 1890s. Dalida collected 

the shards for me while repairing the scenic railway. Inside the HA HA figure's stomach, you can see 

what he has just eaten - duck, rabbit and chook! The little antique animal figurines are perched 

inside his stomach, much like the pigeons seen perching around the park. The HA HA figu re has a 

peg leg. Peg Leg was an imaginary figure I shared with my grandmother. He also has two tattoos with 

swallows, which represent my grandfather who worked at the Swallow and Ariell Biscuit Factory in Port 

Melbourne for most of his life. 

Mrs Moon 

being Installed

Harry Happy Pants about to be installed 

Genie head with skewers in place to 

keep the screw holes open 

The words 'HA HA' emerge from his mouth representing the joy and laughter that rings out 

through the park. It is also harks back to the original Giggle Palace that I remember so fondly from my 

childhood. 

This second section was unveiled for the Park's 99th Birthday by Simon Crean, Federal Minister for 

the Arts. The third section, celebrating the 100th birthday, was unveiled by former prime minister Paul 

Keating in December 2012. 

The third section of the installation covers the second turret and connecting arch of the Luna Palace 

building. Here, Mr Moon does a kind of disco jig and finds a girlfriend - his own carnie girl, Mrs Moon. 

Mrs Moon sports whole plates as eyes, salt and peppershakers for eyeballs, and a broken dinner set for 

her skirt. My favorite piece on this section is above the archway, Harry Happy Pants. His big, grinning 

face is made from smashed Moroccan tagines and Italian smalti. 

Creating works using the historic shards found by Dalida, gifted ornaments, and pre-loved 

dinnerware, has given the large, wacky pieces their own character as 'Melbourne Memory ware' . 

In September 2012 I attended the International Mosaic Conference in Cyprus, where I gave a 

PowerPoint presentation of the mosaic installation, Dreaming with Open Eyes. From this presentation 

I received an invitation to participate in an exhibition at the Ravenna Mosaico, the International Festival 

of Contemporary Mosaic in Italy, to be held in October 2013. I have also been invited to create a new 

section (the fourth installment) for the Luna Palace building. 

So, how did I move from coil-built ceramics to a huge mosaic installation at Luna Park? I suppose 

the answer is that my ceramics journey has not been conventional. but throughout three decades of 

ceramics practice, I have always been dreaming with open eyes. 

Entry to Luna Park is free. See their website for opening times. 

Pamela's gallery at 68 Patterson Road, Bentleigh in Melbourne is open by appointment. 

T: 03 9557 2688. 

You can see progress shots of the installation on www.facebook.com/pamelairvingart 

www.pamelairving.com.au 


Up the Commission Path 

Production 

Ware in a 

Digital Age 

Stephen Benwell interviews 

Christopher Plum ridge 

While having a telephone conversation with 

my friend Chris Plumridge about his recent 

commission, I asked to see an image of the 

work. Down the wire came a photo of the 

ceramic sculpture in question - a trophy stack 

of cool-hued, teetering shapes. Chris had made 

eighty-five of them to grace the tables at the 

Australian Business Arts Foundation (AbaF) 

awards night at Peninsula, an events centre at 

Docklands in Melbourne in late 2012. 

For a potter like myself, there is virtue in 

not making two pieces the same. In contrast, 

the clean repetition of produdion pottery can 

seem an alien proposition. I am curious to 

know more about the world of the potter who 

makes to order and for whom a stray dribble or 

unplanned mark spells failure. 

I passed the idea of an article about Chris by 

Vicki Grima. With her encouragement, I drive 

to Chris's studio, one of a small complex of red 

brick fadories, in a bayside suburb 20 km from 

Melbourne's CBD. His neighbours are cabinet 

makers, metal workers and plastic model 

makers - all professional, technical businesses 

of single operators. 

We sit down to talk next to benches piled 

w ith plaster moulds, pots, buckets, and 

AbaF Award on the table at lhe award night 

Photo: courtesy Creative Partnerships Australia 

and Trudi Sheppard 


Christopher Plumridge, Individual Rice Cooker, 1989, cast porcelain, h. tOem, diam.13cm, placed within UNI bowl, indented, 

2010, h.8cm, diam.28cm; photo: artist 

containers large and small, a testament to eleven years inhabiting this studio space. A spool of bubble 

wrap hangs from a beam. The kiln is a tall, electric front-loader, door open, half-unpacked, three cones 

bent obediently. 

Stephen Benwell; What do you make and how do you make it? 

Chris Plumridge: I make tableware, tea ware, decor ware and cookware. My poached egg boats are 

my best seller, always have been. I sell everything else but not as quickly. I slipcast, make moulds either 

thrown or from found shapes, design and formulate glazes, and do the firings of electric, oxidation 

stoneware. 

SB: Do you have a business plan? 

CP: Sort of - to make domestic tableware and sell through retail stores, maintaining production to meet 

demand. Since 2011, I've been on-line and I've been selling a bit that way. I try and build relationships 

w ith store owners, predominately because bricks and mortar stores sell more quickly than on-line stores. 

SB: Tell me about the AbaF commission. What was the idea that won you the initial design competition? 

CP: It was a competition project-managed by Craft Victoria. The brief was to design a centrepiece for 

the tables at the AbaF awards night. My idea was a 40 cm high sculpture of six sections. It represents 

the anxiety I have being a potter. Today everything is zeroes and ones. 

94 THE JOURNAL Of AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APRil 2013

Up the Comm iss ion Path 

Christopher Plumridge, The March of the Egg Boats, 2000, sliP«'st porcelain, each h.6cm, w.12cm, d.7cm 

Photo: artist 

S8: Can you elaborate? 

CP: I don't make my living out of digital information, what I call 'zeroes and ones' . It's a part of it but it 's 

not my primary skill base . I'm a 3D object maker. 

S8: So by anxiety you mean a tension between handmade things and computer generated things? 

CP: Yes. Most of the products we get today are computer generated. 

S8: What is the most challenging aspect of your work in a creative sense? 

CP: Quality. Maintaining quality. 

S8: What do you mean by 'quality') 

CP: Ensuring that a product is well made, well finished, not flawed. There are so many subtle variations 

in glazes that something can be technically perfect but just because of the finish it may look dull or 

lifeless. 

S8: You had technical difficulties with the AbaF award sculpture. What were they? 

CP: I began w ith a plaster construction. Next step was to make the moulds of each shape. I bisque 

fired and glazed each separat e part. I tried three methods of attaching the cone f orms to one another. 

One was a screw thread; one was square-to-square interlocking device; and one was cone-to-cone by 

THE 10URNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APRIL 2013 95

Up the Commission Path 

All work by Christopher Plumridge 

Photos: artist 

1 Black 'Bird' Teapot, 2000, crystal matte black 

glaze, slipcast porcelain. electric oxidation firing 

1280·(, h.14.Scm, w.2lem, d.12em 

2 Black Crystal Matte plates and platters 

2012, cast (SIRO porcelain (artist prepared body 

not commercially available), diam.20.5-5OCm 

3 Cosy-cups, group of lidded egg cups, 2011 

cast, Southern Ice, h.9cm, w.Scm 

a pin and slot, built-in shape. Because the porcelain softens at high temperature, all three methods had 

deficiencies. It was only after the glaze firing that I realised attaching the forms would work. 

58: What worked in the end? 

CP: I used a combination of all three methods. Some I fused together with glaze and increased the 

casting time to strengthen the forms through weight, and some I glued with Aralditee. There was a 

packaging aspect that didn't go quite right. The sculptures had to be packaged, labelled, signed and 

delivered by a set date. 

58: You often work with clients. Do you have any advice for others in taking on commissions? 

CP: I get requests for specific objects in a range of sizes. Try (and there is no guarantee you 'll get this 

right) and get the brief for the piece very clearly defined. And ensure that the brief is maintained from 

the original description. Having the client change the brief mid-project is costly in time and re-testing 

things. Sometimes the client doesn't understand that to change any component requires more testing. 

58: You do one-off exhibition pieces too. What's the head-space there? 

CP: Ideas come to me that have a particular drive and I am excited about and they take precedence over 


Christopher Plum ridge, Carbomb Carbon Teapots, 2010, slipcast from plastIC fast food container and altered, 1280 0 ( 

Julia Gillard impressed photo image, car and bomb image on the other side, copper green gloss glazed porcelain 

h.IS.Scm w.7cm, d.9cm; photo: artist 

production and financial needs. I'm drawn to an image or external stimulus and see it as a form that I 

would like to make. I just come across it. 

S8: And do you get ideas from fellow ceramic artists? 

CP: Not usually. I think I get more of a sense of inspiration from their altitudes or liveliness. I think I just 

pick up on what drives other artists and absorb some of it. 

We finish the interview there. The formality of an interview is different to conversation, thinking what to 

say when someone else is listening in. Usually we nod and grunt and use expletives and make ourselves 

perfectly well understood. The phone rings. It's a client, a cafe owner to talk over a range of cups and 

saucers. The design is not his but Chris will be the maker. Somewhere, another world of zeroes and 

ones - here in the studio it will be hands-on. 

http://stephenbenwell.com 

http://home.vicnet.net.au/- cplum 


1 WINNER: Photographer: Denise McDonald, Denise McDonald, Randwick studio, february 2013 

Shoot the Studio Potter 

3 Photographer: Belle Brooks, Belle Brooks and Evie Barramundi 

Brooks, Mudgee, february 2013 


Ceramic Shots 

1 Photographer: Rona Sissons, Sharon RidsdaJe 

Sharon's studio, Wyong NSW, February 2013 

2 Photographer: Anne Gray, Rebecca Bacchus and Brigitta 

Kurmann-Fischer; Busselton Pottery Group, February 2013 

3 Photographer: Marion Henderson, Kron Kamal 

Blechynden, Susselton Pottery Club, February 2013 

4 Photographer: Esa Jaske, Esa Jaske, Esa 's Bilgola Plateau 

home studiO, February 2013 

5 Photographer: leanne Cole. Lene Kuhl Jakobsen 

Lene's Heidelberg studio, February 2013 


Ceramic Shots 

1 Photographer: Esa Jaske, Malcolm Greenwood, Malcolm Greenwood's 

Mosman Studio, January 2013 2 Photographer: Sarah Stackman, Emily 

Laszuk, Emily's studio, February 2013 3 Photographer: Alwyne Parker, 

Maureen Kieran, Busselton Pottery Group, July 2012 4 Photographer; 

Jacqueline West, Ian Richards. Principal Claycraft, Moonbi NSW 

January 2013 5 Photographer: Alex Davey, Margaret Davey, garage 

studio, Pennant Hills NSW, February 2013 6 Photographer: Christine 

Gregory, Martin Gregory, Taylors Beach NSW, January 2013 

7 Photographer: Sina Mejias Gates, Kathryn Mitchell, Gold Coast, 

November 2012 8 Photographer: Vipoo Srivilasa, Dean Netherton and 

group, Bangkok, Thailand November 2012 

8 


1 Photographer: Beverley Lacey, Glen Wardle and Ella , Glen's Toowoomba studio, February 2013 2 Photographer: Kevin 

Boyd, Brian Keyte, Kalorama, VIC, January 2013 3 Photographer: Kevin Boyd, Arnaud Barraud, Kalorama, VIC. January 

2013 4 Photographer: Rona Sissons, Rona Sissons, Hornsby studio. January 2013 5 Photographer: Robin Parke r. Dennis 

Chapman, Tintinhull Pottery, Kootingal NSW, February 2013 6 Photographer: Jason Van't Padje, Lone White, Calms, 

February 2013 7 Photographer: Rona Sissons. Dawn Perry. Westleigh studio, January 2013 8 Photographer: Anita Kules5a, 

lennifer Collier (left) and Kath Crawford, Tarago studiO, NSW, February 2013 


Studio 

Sue Scobie in her studio 2013 

Photo: Rob Burns 

Sue Scobie 

I first met Sue Scobie at the 2010 ICMEA conference in Fuping, China. 5he had entered the 3rd 

International Emerging Ceramic Artists' Exhibition and I was so impressed by the sophistication and 

technical skill of her pots that I have kept an eye on her work ever since. When planning this issue's 

focus on New Zealand ceramics, I thought it was time to catch up on her current practice. 

Vicki Grima: Do you have a mentor? Who is/was it and how does/did he/she assist you) 

Sue Scobie: I don't currently have a mentor. During the last year of my ceramics diploma in 2009, 

Anneke Borren was great to talk with, providing lots of encouragement to keep going in the face of 

seemingly endless technical challenges. My current work has developed from that fina l year. 

VG: What is your favourite tool? 

55: The only tools I use are my hands and metal scrapers (kidneys) - I can't do without either. The best 

scrapers are some I picked up in China but they are wearing pretty thin. 

VG: What do you listen to whilst working? 

55 : Mostly I have the radio on in the background, usually Radio National or RadioActive. When I'm not 

covered in clay (and able to change CDs) I playa lot of New Zealand music. Nick Cave gets a good 

thrashing when I'm in the right mood. 

VG: How is your work made? 

55: My current work starts with a pinched base and is bu ilt up with coils. I colour my own clay with a 

range of oxides. These give softer colours that work well with the land and seascapes I tend to work 

on. I sometimes include local materials in the mix, usually to add texture, but have also recently started 

including glaze chips in with the clay body which produces a different range of textures. 

I use mid-fire porcelain together with a stoneware body which can cause no end of trouble w ith 

differential shrinkage, made worse by the additional fluxing of the oxides. At times I lose up to half 

102 THE 10URNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APRIL 2013

(or more) of the pieces in anyone firing due to 

cracking. Really careful joining and drying seems 

to be the answer. 

The patterning that shows through on the 

finished piece is not always predictable. I 

combine different colours and/or clays in one coil, 

which is then often interspersed with a coil of 

a single colour or plain porcelain. The thickness 

of the coil before and after pinching affects the 

result. As the piece builds up, I leave it to dry for 

a while before scraping back and refining the 

shape and then adding more coils. The rim is a 

porcelain coil which can be quite tricky to work 

with as you only get one go at putting it on. 

I fire once only to vitrify the porcelain and then 

finish off each piece with a wet sanding. 

Left: 

Sue Scobie. Around the Mountain 2012, coiled porcelain 

and stoneware oxides. glaze inclusions, h.23.Scm w.l1cm, 

d.llcm; photo: Rob Burns 

Below: 

Sue Scobie, Together Alone. 2013 coiled porcelain and 

stoneware oxides, tallest h.7 em, w.8cm, d.8cm Photo: artist

St udio 

VG: What is your most treasured piece of ceramics? 

55: A smoke-fired fantail I was given a long time ago. It's very low fired and fragile but really captures 

the spirit of these small birds. 

VG: Describe your studio cycle - how you spend the dayslweekslmonths in your studio. 

55: I need at least four consecutive days to take a piece from the start to being able to leave it to dry 

104 THE IOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APRIL 2013

Sue Scobie, Tidelines, 2012 , coiled porcelain and stoneware, oxides, glaze inclusions, h.17cm. w.1Scm. d.15cm; photo: artist 

completely. If I don't have that time, it's not worth starting - catching the right stage between being too 

dry and too wet is critical for both joining and scraping back. 

Things can get pretty intense with exhibition deadlines. I try to work steadily all year, though in 

summer it's easier to make larger pieces due to much shorter drying times. while in winter it makes 

more sense to work on smaller pieces. My studio is unheated and not insulated, so I'm mostly working 

in the ambient conditions. On really hot days, I've had the porcelain dry so fast it just falls off, whereas 

in winter I can leave the same piece for days before I can finish it. 

Sue Scobie is participating in a group show at Avid Gallery in Wellington from 2-16 April, 2013 

with Chris Weaver, Janet Green and Hana Rakena; www.avidgallery.co.nz 

www.suescobie.co.nz 

THE IOURNAl Of AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APRil 2013 105

Join the pots 

Porcelain forms, 24cm. Dolomite glaze, air· 

brushed copper carbonate pigment. Exhibition 

at Museums and Galleries Board of the Northern 

Territory, Nov 1978. PIA, Vol IS No 1 1979 

Cyclone Ffashpoint 1, slab 

construction, mid range stoneware. 

assemblage 61em height 

PIA, Vol 20 No 1 1981 

Clay slab form draped 

into plaster mould. 

Underglaze stain. oxides 

and glazes applied 

through etching, airbrush 

and brush. Once fired 

vertically in an oxidizing 

atmosphere to 1080"C, 

64cm x 59cm. Potters 

Gallery. May 1981 . 

Photograph by Douglas 

Thompson. 



Wall (1979-80). Clay - Feeneys raku, handbuilt 

format divided into medular elements. 3m x 11 m. 

Client: Attorney-General's Department. Architect: 

Department of Housing and Construction. 

location: Foyer Court-house. Alice Springs. 

Photo: Gunther Deiehmann. PIA, Vol 23 No 2 1984 


Wishing for the 

West Season. 

Earthenware 120 

em x 60 em 1983. 

PIA, Vol 24 No 1 

1985 

Darwin 1942 . Earthenware 

100 em x 80 em 1983. 


A collection of images of work by Vincent Francis McGrath 

from the archives of Pottery in Australia (PIA)IThe 

Journal of Australian Ceramics (JAC) 


working for 

the Toronto 

Exhibition. 

Photo: The 

Examiner, 

i..Juneeston. PIA, 

Vol 2S No 3 

1986 

106 THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APRI L 2013

loin the pots 

1985. Earthenware, low-fire glazes, underglaze stains 

1.3m x 1.1 m x O.6m. PIA, Vol 2S No 3 1986 

Vincent McGrath in his studio 

Photo: Marion Bond. PIA, Vol 26 No 3 1987 

Through Fingal, earthenware 

1 m x 40 cm x 55 cm. 


Staff of the ceramics studio: Bernadine 

Alting. Vincent McGrath, Rynne Tanton 

PIA, vol 26 No 3 1987 

Sculptural 

form . 

PIA, Vol 27 

No 2 1988 

Vincent McGrath, leader of 

Tasmania '86. 


In Search 

of the 

Kookaburra , 

earthenware, 

1.2 m. PIA, Vol 

27 No 3 1988 

Mt Lyell Winter. Earthenware. 70

THE TRUDIE ALFRED BEQUEST 

CERAMIC 

SCHOLARSHIPS 

Congratulations to the winners of The Trudie Alfred Bequest Ceramic Scholarships 2013: 

Verney Burness (ACT), Alice Couttoupes (NSW), Anne-Marie Jackson (NSW), Kate Jones (VIC) and 

Antonia Throsby (NSW). Each of the winners received $4000 to assist them with their ceramic studies 

at a tertiary institution in 2013. Many thanks to the judges - Stephen Benwell (VIC), Ben Richardson 

(TAS), Patsy Hely (ACn and Vicki Grima (NSW). 

A call for Round 3 applications (for study in 2014) will be announced in The Journal of Australian 

Ceramics, Issue 52/2. The deadline is mid-September 2013. 

About the winners 

Verney Burness is studying a Bachelor of Visual 

Arts (Ceramics Major) at Australian National 

University (ANU). "In late March I will be 

attending a three week ceramics tour of China 

with ANU. I will be most interested in production, 

mould making and tool making. I hope to 

produce an installation that includes repetition 

of form, an environment in which the viewer 

moves in unconventional ways and references the 

scope of colour in iron glazes. I am particularly 

inspired and interested in rock formations and 

the chemistry of glaze testing." 

E: verney.burness@internode.on.net 

Alice Couttoupes is studying a Bachelor of Fine 

Arts Honours at College of Fine Arts, University 

of NSW. " This year J will be creating a body 

of work exploring colonial botany in relation 

to knowledge systems. Through the honours 

program at COFA I hope to consolidate my skills 

in ceramics." 

E: acouttoupes@gmail.com 


Anne-M arie Jackson is studying a Bachelor 

of Fine Art (Honours), ceramics major, at the 

National Art School, Sydney. " This year I will be 

investigating the relationship between ceramic 

objects and their context. I aim to make sculptural 

pieces that engage with the spaces they inhabit 

and reflect a sense of place." 

www.amcjackson.com 

Kate Jones is studying a Bachelor of Fine Art, 

Object Based Practice at RMIT. 

"I feel so lucky having access to the fantastic staff 

and the facilities at RMIT, particularly at a time 

when we are losing so many ceramic courses. I 

am going to fit in as much experimentation as I 

can, as well as preparing for a couple of shows, 

the first of which is in the Craft 24n window 

space from 6 May to 1 June. 

www.katejjones.com 

Photo: June Cassam. Goulburn TAFE 

Antonia Throsby will be studying the Graduate 

Certificate in Visual Arts at ANU in Canberra. 

" My aim for the year ahead is to be as busy as 

possible in my developing home stu dio. I have 

ideas I want to develop and ultimately want to 

supply outlets in Canberra and Sydney with my 

work. Apart from my functional pieces, I am 

building on a concept which I have been working 

on over the past 1-2 years. I also hope to travel 

to China and spend a week in Jingdezhen at the 

Pottery Workshop/Sculpture Factory exploring the 

many facets and techniques of ceramics." 

E: antoniathrosby@gmail.com 

2014 APPLICATIONS OPEN SOON 

A call for Round 3 applications (for study in 2014) will be announced in the next 

issue of The Journal of Australian Ceramics, 5212 July 2013, and on our website, 

www.australianceramics.com. 


Education 

Where to from here? 

Suzy Diinser considers Ceramics Education in New Zealand 

The Distance Diploma of Ceramic Arts Ceramics education in New Zealand, as in many other places in 

the world, is facing an uncertain future. The last few decades have seen a shift in government policy 

away from funding programs in individual disciplines, with the result that skills-based education has 

been watered down. There is a reason for this, of course: the heyday of the handmade everyday object 

is long over. A generation ago, making pots was an attradive way to earn a living, but today, choosing 

to become a potter or ceramic artist as one's main occupation is as brave and risky as to venture out as 

any other type of contemporary artist. 

Ceramics does, however, still have a strong amateur base in New Zealand with classes offered through 

community education. The Auckland Studio Potters Society (ASP) provides a particularly successful 

example of this with a strong and active membership of more than 300 people, both amateurs and 

professionals. The senior members and Centre staff have extensive technical knowledge which they 

readily share. There is a strong commitment to developing good craft skills. 

About ten years ago, the idea of creating an in-house ceramics "diploma" course arose at the ASp, 

in response to the changing academic environment in New Zealand and the resulting gap in ceramics 

education. Most ceramics courses that had previously existed in polytechnics had been shut down. A 

few had been integrated with other disciplines to create 'design' diplomas, which gave an introdudion 

to a number of different areas but without the depth that had existed preViously. The strongest 

remaining ceramics program was at Otago Polytechnic, so the in-house diploma idea was developed into 

the Distance Diploma of Ceramic Arts (DCA), administered by Otago Polytechnic and offered at ceramics 

centres around the country. 

Right: Jo-Anne Rail! 

(DCA 2007), Elite, 2012 

thrown, handbuilt mid fire 

porcelain, h.60cm, 

w.30cm; photo: artist 

Far right: Helen Perrett 

(DCA 2009), Jester, 2012 

handbuilt earthenware, 

oxides. underglaze. 

h.26cm, w.18cm, d.13cm 

Photo: artist 


Education 

Diploma programs traditionally aim to develop 

skills to prepare students for a vocation. This 

is the starting point for the DCA: students are 

meant to learn the skills a craftsman would need 

to produce competent work. There are also 

classes to teach drawing, glaze technology and 

history. If one aspires to become an artist - 

delve into theory, develop concepts, and, 

with that, learn to write about one's 

work - the next step would be to do 

a degree. 

Unfortunately, in a small country 

with few ceramics students and 

fewer ceramics programs, this can be easier said than done, and the DCA has been stretched to cover 

more ground. In Auckland there are many accomplished ceramic artists to calion, so the program has 

benefitted from a variety of tutors w ith a wide range of experience. The sculpture modules include 

lessons on learning to research and develop ideas, and the throwing modules cover principles of design 

and context for use. The ASP also supplements the course by organising on-site drawing instrudion and 

sessions on marketing and photography. 

The push for more conceptual content in the course came from the students themselves. The first 

DCA students were mostly ASP members with reasonable skill levels who wanted to develop further 

than they cou ld in night classes. From this beginning, the conceptual development of ideas has been 

part of the program . However, there are some challenges w ith this. After the first wave of diplomaready 

students from the ASP membership, subsequent cohorts have had a greater number of entering 

students with little or no background in clay. W ith students at all levels taking the same studio modules 

together, the range of experience and understanding is vast - a challenge for the tutors, as well as 

Above: Annie Mdver (DCA 2008, DCA level 7 2009), Testing the Waters, 20 12, stoneware, glaze. paint, black styrene 

h.3 1cm, w.62cm, d.31 cm; photo: John Mciver 

Rathel Carter (DCA 2006), Breakfast Set in Blue, 2012, thrown, glazed porcelain, teacup, h.9cm; photo: artist 


Above: Suzy Ounser (DCA 2011 ), Teapots, 2012, thrown earthenware 

lead glaze, tallest h,23cm; photo: artist 

left: Elena Renker (DCA 2007), Woodfired Shino Tea Bowl, 2012 

thrown woodfired stoneware, shino glaze, h.9cm w.13cm; photo: artist 

new students who often feel they've been dropped in the deep end of the pool. The increased range of 

subject matter has also meant that some technical skills get less coverage. 

It is important to ensure that the skills associated with traditional clay work aren't lost. This is not just a 

nostalgic view. If you believe that well-crafted handmade objects add richness to everyday life, it's stating 

the obvious. But even if you believe that ceramic art has to moved on from the era of the studio potter, 

unless clay is to be abandoned as an artistic medium, people need to know how it works. Understanding 

the medium is a prerequisite for using it effectively as a means of expression. (Pause here for a two-day 

debate on outsourcing.) Artists who end up working in clay often don't have the technical knowledge 

to manage the material. Statements about their work may include rationalisations for cracks and other 

visible indications that things may not have turned out according to the original intention. 

Despite the assertion earlier that the heyday of the craft era is over, there does, thankfully, still seem 

to be a place in the world for well-designed handmade objects. At the same time, anyone looking at the 

work being shown in exhibitions and galleries in New Zealand and elsewhere will be aware that much of 

what falls under the heading 'craft' these days is closer to fine art, using ceramics to convey ideas that 

mayor may not reference traditional use of materials. How can we ensure that students have access 

to learning both the technical and conceptual skills they need to have a chance to succeed as ceramic 

artists? A few of the DCA graduates doing sculptural work have gone on to complete arts degrees. 

Conversely, degree students working in ceramics have occasionally shown up in classes at the ASp, 

seeking to improve their technical abilities, but neither of these is a common occurrence. 

l1Z THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APRil 2013

Education 

Susan St lawrence (DCA 2010, BA 2011), M en, 2010 

slipcast from original sculpture, earthenware, engobe 

h.3Ocm w.IOcm, d.IOcm; photo: artist 

Below: Ann O'Sullivan (DCA 2012), Whiskey Flasks, thrown 

altered, porcelain, underglaze and glaze. soda and woodfired 

tallest: h. 16cm; photo: artist 

Ideally, there would be a range of options to 

choose from, but the chances of new programs 

starting up are not good when there are barely 

enough ceramics students to keep one program 

up and running nationwide. Rather than 

stretch further what the ASP offers, it would 

be constructive to form partnerships with art 

and design schools so students could shape 

their own courses depending on where they 

find themselves on the functional-conceptual 

spectrum. There are currently ways to crosscredit 

classes between institutions, but it can 

be confusing, and lays the burden of initiative 

on the students. With co-operation between 

schools, standard programs could be developed 

that could be available - and marketed - to 

incoming students. W ith most academic funding 

in New Zealand dependent on the number 

of full-time students an institution can claim, 

this would be challenging. There may be other 

options as well. Creative thinking and sharing of 

ideas (with people facing similar issues in other 

countries, as well as in our own) are called for 

to keep ceramics education not only alive, but 

relevant. 

http://suzydunser.com 

www.ceramics.co.nz

Co llection 

Jeff Mincham's Sea of Grass 

Patsy Hely discusses a work recently acquired by the National Gallery of Australia 

When the lift opens on the second floor of the NGA, a group of objects from the Decorative Arts 

collection is revealed directly opposite. On the right, Jeff Mincham's Sea of Grass sits between a sodafire 

work by Gail Nichols and a ceramic and mixed media work by Neil Hoffman. The three have a 

strong material presence and each also has in its surface or matrix, metallic substances that glint and 

shift differently as you move towards them. 

Sea of Grass, gifted to the Gallery in 2011, is a large elliptical, glazed, stoneware work and it bears 

a family resemblance to midfire works shown at Beaver Gallery, Canberra in 2009, a different Sea of 

Grass and Windswept Hillside. The 2011 work is a step on from these, with the surface treatment 

more sophisticated, the working of material and organisation of imagery more fluid. In this current 

iteration, the work is much more directly and vigorously expressive. 

A boat-shaped foot ra ises the form and the covering glaze is opaque green with copper black 

patches. Here and there in the deeper recesses of the form metallic areas shine out. The surface is 

heavily worked and the striations are less organised than in the earlier works and so appear more 

naturalistic and less pattern-like. Overall, the form and surface oscillate between abstraction and 

representation in both form and surface. The form is a vessel and so representational in this sense, but it 

slips to the abstract because no function is evident. The surface is not directly representational, more an 

abstracted rendition perhaps, but what is very clearly represented is the experiencing of the interaction 

of matter and movement - of grass and wind. This is conveyed so well that the work's title is hardly 

needed at all. 

The 'sea' of the title refers to the large swathes of grass around the Coorong in South Australia 

where Mincham grew up, a land-based 'sea' in his conception. But that word in the title and the 

cool green-ness of the glaze also suggest the sea grass beds of the Coorong and that particularly 

mesmerising and destabilising sensation of watching as the current swirls tufts of sea grass this way and 

that. Either way - land or sea - ideas about bodily experience and the senses are, for me, uppermost in 

the work. 

In the photograph of the work there might be seen echoes of the work of Gloria Petyarre, the rich 

shimmer of her repeated marks and undulating fields of pattern; though in the presence of the object, 

this correspondence is less marked. Mincham's oeuvre is often discussed in terms of its relationship to 

Japanese Oribe ware, and stylistically those links are clear though less apparent here. Oribe has been 

referred to as 'robust, tough, magnanimous" and this I think is a fitting description of Sea of Grass. 

In his notes on the work, Sen ior Curator Robert Bell relates how Mincham is 'continually returning to 

the environment of his youth'2, a familiar trope for a mature artist. suggesting this has 'engendered in 

him an enduring respect for its visual spectacle and subtle ecology .. .' and this respect is on show here. 


Collection 

The once rich sea grass meadows of the Coorong are sadly depleted and the river systems are under 

threat. A sense of nostalgia, of longing, is discernible in Jeff Mincham's work over past years and a love 

of place can almost be felt in the way the landscape is rendered in some of his more recent works, 

In Sea of Grass, the side edges and base are worked as if tracing out t he contours - the bays and 

peninsulas - of the Coorong river and coast system. An entire area then, described in object form, 

1 Ryoji Kuroda, Takeshi Murayama, Classic Stoneware of Japan: Shine and Or;be. Kodansha International. Tokyo, 2002. 37 

2 Robert Bell, Arronview 71. Spring 2012, 29 

Jeff Mincham, Sea of Grass, 201 1, stonewa re, glazed, h.52cm, w,67cm, d,19cm 

National Gal/ery of Austra lia, Canberra, Gift of Susan Armitage 201 1

Collection 

The Secondary Market for 

Applied Arts 

Simon Manchester shares his experi ences 

success. 

The history of the secondary market for 

ceramics in New Zealand, other than private 

sales, really started in the early- to mid-1990s 

with the Albany Potters Collective annual 

Collectables Show run by Margaret Symes. 

Selling mostly Auckland artists, they showed 

there was a ready made market for historic 

rather than cu rrent work. Following the 

success of ceramics included in the Bruce 

Gall art sale of October 1996, the auction 

house Dunbar Sloane in Wellington (DSW), 

under Andrew Grigg, launched applied arts 

sales in August 1997 featuring mostly local and 

international ceramic artists addended as a third 

day of a three-day sale. Based around the disposal 

of local and eccentric collector Gordon Smart's massive 

collection of New Zealand ceramics, this was an immediate 

Since then, with a few gaps, D5W has had three dedicated sales 

per annum. Although underpinned for the first few sales by the Smart Collection, this auction quickly 

attracted a steady stream of both buyers and sellers. 

An early highlight was the Juliet Peter and Roy Cowan Collection in September 1999, which also 

included a large collection of Leach's work from 5t Ives, sourced from a vendor who had worked there 

as an assistant for Barbara Hepworth. This growing wave quickly attracted the interest of the other 

major auction house in New Zealand, the Peter Webb's Galleries (Webb's). Ross Miller and James 

Parkinson held irregular but important ceramics auctions at Webb's from c.2000 until they both left 

to found rival auction house Art and Object (A+O) in late 2006. From 2007, A+O has held bi-annual 

sales featuring ceramics combined with contemporary art, and latterly, Modern Design (mid-century 

furniture object d'arts). Important sales have been the Martin Hill Collection in May 2011 and the Len 

Castle Collection in November 2012, amongst others. 

Andrew Grigg, having moved from DSW to Cordys Auction House in Auckland, also ran ceramicsbased 

applied art auctions from late 2006. These no longer run, but there is still a strong presence 

in their monthly antique auctions, with a distinct ceramics section backed by an excellent knowledge 

base. The author replaced Grigg at DSW in June 2006 and has continued to run tri-annual ceramicsbased 

applied auctions, the highlight being the Dame Doreen Blumhardt Collection sale in July 2010 

and the Hill and Castle sales, the biggest ceramics sales ever at around the 200K each. 


Collection 

And there, perhaps, is the rub. The top prices ever reached for ceramic works are 20K for an Ann 

Verdcourt work at A+O in an art sale, w ith various other sales at the 10-12K mark at DSW, Webbs 

and A+O, mainly for Jim Grieg and Len Castle works. Some Lucie Rie and Hans Coper pieces have sold 

in the 1 0-15K range, hardly big money in art world terms and a long way from the heights reached by 

the likes of Voulkos and Coper etc. in the international market. The local top sellers are Len Castle, Roy 

Cowan, Chester Nealie, Dame Doreen Blumhardt, Barry Brickell, Warren Tippett, Richard Parker, Denis 

O'Connor and a few unusual artists like Peter Hawkesby (for whom there is very little material available 

or made for that matter). There is also a small but important market for works from the 19th century 

from brick works like George Boyd, P Hutson and Co. and Milton Potteries, but works are rare and there 

are few if any new collectors. 

There is also the issue, as I perceive it, that the 'buzz', apart from the highlight sales alone, seems to 

have peaked in the mid- to late-2000s and there is a feel ing that interest and prices have peaked. The 

secondary market is in no way democratic and there is a fairly strict hierarchy of people who command 

good prices, with some exceptions - a Helen Mason recently sold at DSW for c. 7K 

(usually a few hundred). There is some disgruntlement in 

the ceramic community that many good artists 

are not appreciated. Jim Greig, for example, 

OpPOSite page: 

Len Castle. Sulphur Bowl, diam.55cm; $8000 

Right: 

Jim Greig, Solid and Void Series Vase 

h.51cm; $6000 

Photos: Jo Whelan DSW 

THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APRIL 2013 

tt7

Collectio n 

Dame Doreen Blumhardt. Floor Vase 

h.65cm; S2500; photo: Jo Whelan OSW 

who, while he sells well, only gains 

prices equivalent to or less than 

what his pieces sold for in the late 

'80s. Where are the newer artists 

to replace these old Masters, to keep sales vital and to attract new collectors7 Does this relatively wellorganised 

market that is a world leader in the way ceramics are presented to the public (we note the 

first dedicated ceramic auction of substance in the USA, organised by Garth Clark, only took place in 

November 2011), simply reflect an historic interest in an arena that faded badly in the primary market 

in the late '80s? We will see. There is renewed vigor in the ceramics field here and internationally, but 

this seems embedded in the general art market and not so much concerned with 'a ceramics field' to be 

seen separately. 

The current position really seems to be that big names, led by Castle, do well, but, increasingly, many 

do not. Ultimately this is market-driven and not dictated by the auction houses. Internet sales on auction 

sites seem strong by volume but not on price and I am doubtful of a significant future for sales in this 

arena for such a tactile art-form. 

Simon Manchester is a Wellington-based independent Applied Arts consultant specialising in 

ceramics as well as craft objects. 


Potters Marks 

Potters Marks 

Todd Douglas 


C; .. -- 

Chester Nealie 

Christopher Plumridge 

Sue Scobie 

Richard Parker 

Aaron Scythe 

Aaron Scythe: "I use a lot of stamps. In Japan, the 

one I used most was a screw head becau~ anyone 

can copy the stamp jf you go to a hardware store 

... but they cannot copy the pot ... kinda a laugh 

at stamps and also a poke in the ribs of Mingei, 

and the non-stamping thing. as they sure liked 

stamping and signing the boxes for their exhibition 

pots. Since coming back to New Zealand I use a 

lot more stamps: Aotearoa: 18402.6 (the day the 

Waitangi Treaty was signed); hip hop (also used in 

Japan); god inc (my pottery name); Te riti (the treaty 

... another laugh at stamps). 

I really do feel that there is no need for stamps. I 

use them as decoration on pots, not as a makers 

mark. They co .... er up cracks in the clay, mishaps. 

etc. and are used for handles to grip better etc. 

I feel my work should be recognised by the work. 

without having to turn it upside down and look 

whose it is." 

THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APRil 2013 "9

Australia Wide 

act 

Satoru Hoshino, internationally acclaimed 

ceramic artist from Japan, will be resident artist 

in the ANU Ceramics Workshop in early 2013 . 

To coincide with this residency there will be an 

exh ibition of his recent work at Watson Arts 

Centre from 9 May to 2 June. 

Canberra Potters' Society made use of the 

holiday period to refit its main workshop to 

improve the facilities offered to students. The 

greater space, more shelving and increased 

number of si nks will be appreciated by students 

and teachers alike . Many thanks to president 

Maryke Henderson and the volunteers who 

cleaned the workshop and installed new 

equipment in time for the start of classes. 

The annual CPS StudentfTeacher exhibition is 

scheduled to take place at the end of June. 

Japanese artist Ryozo Shibata has been 

confirmed as a 2013 artist in residence at CPSI 

WAC later in the year. Opportunities exist year 

round for applications for residencies at the 

Watson Arts Centre and interested ceramicists 

are invited to access information at www. 

canberrapotters. com.au 

Following the resounding success of this year's 

Summer School, CPS workshop convenor Fran 

Romano is proposing to offer a week-long 

Winter School in July. Details will be available on 

the Canberra Potters' website. 

In this year of the centenary of Canberra, 

Strathnairn Arts Association will be heavily 

involved in community adivities of celebration. 

From 5 to 28 April the group exhibition Artist 

in the House will be showing in the Homestead 

Ga llery. This will coincide with the launch on 

19 April of the projed Strathnairn a Place for 

People celebrating the rich and varied history 

of Strathnairn . From 3 to 26 May, Terrain will 

involve community groups, led by artist Gabriella 

Hegyes, construding and installing outdoor 

artworks at sites 'from the woolshed to the 

dam'. More information can be found at www. 

strathnairn .com.au. Come to Canberra to 

celebrate your capital and enjoy major exhibitions 

at your national institutions and at many local 

galleries. 

Cheers, Jane 

E: janecrick@dodo.com.au 

nsw 

W ith the sweeping changes to TAFE in NSW, 

2013 is shaping up to be an interesting year. 

How it will play out is still a vast unknown, and 

ironically it is happening at a time when the 

interest in clay is surging. New private classes are 

opening up and quickly filling and most students, 

once they join, are staying on to increase their 

knowledge. A new clay supply shop is opening 

in Newcastle with proposed classes and a gallery. 

This is, of course, positive, but without TAFE a lot 

of deep ceramic knowledge may not be passed 

on. 

Congratulations to Lynda Stone, Megan Puis 

and Susan Myerson on their winning bowls in 

Bowled Over Again at Back to Back Galleries. 

Gosford Art prize, ceramic sedion, was won by 

Keiko Matsui with Chrysanthemum Vase, a fullbodied 

porcelain vase with cobalt brushwork. 

Julia Meyerowitz-Katz's exhibition, Holding 

Spaces was held in November at the Frances 

Keevil Gallery, Double Bay. The 15 ceramic 

handbags, seemingly everyday objects that 

we keep close by to help us through our daily 

transadions, were re-contextualised. The bags 

symbolically represent a memory space. Being 

a migrant, Meyerowitz-Katz has given different 

handbags a sense of place w ith specific textures 

suggesting migrations and memories of places 

from her own and ancestral travels. 

In January 2013, Sandra Black from Perth 

gave another very informative slipcasting and 

decorating workshop at Newcastle Studio 

Potters. Once again she was highly organised and 

generous and we hope to have her back again. 

Entries for Art Unlimited competition at 

Dunedoo are due on 26 April for exhibition 

from 24 to 26 May. Situated on the Fitzroy River, 

Dunedoo is now part of the Coonabarabran 

Shire, and w ith the Warrumbungle mountain 

range close by it's a great place for wa lks and 

climbs. 

In 2013, both Central Coast Potters and 

Newcastle Studio Potters w ill celebrate 45 years 

anniversaries. Endeavouring to keep viable and 

running smoothly is a constant challenge for our 

groups. Exchanging exhibitions with other similar 

groups is one way of bringing fresh work to the 

region. Sharing Facebook pages is another way 


Aus tralia Wall 

of linking up. Newcastle Studio Potters now has 

a Facebook page; please 'like' and send them 

your links. 

Sue Stewart 

E: sue@ceramicartist.com.au 

qld south east 

In 2008, 20 11 , then again in 20 12, I wrote 

about the devastating floods in OLD and other 

states. Well, here we go again. After many years 

of drought, now we have a run of devastating 

floods. Our hearts and best wishes go out to all 

our potty friends affected by floods or fires. 

The Gold Coast Potters Association Annual 

Members Exhibition held in November 2012 

was a resounding success. The overall winner 

was Leisa Russell with her beautiful porcelain 

figures. The exhibition culminated in an Art and 

Crafters Market Day on the final day with almost 

60 stall holders in all craft mediums. It was a 

fabulous day with live entertainment, 'Play with 

Clay' tables, demonstrations, and loads more. 

The first market day for 2013 will be held on 

Sunday 5 May. 

The Stefan Jacob Raku Building and Firing 

workshop was held at the Gold Coast Potters' 

Mudgeeraba studio in October. We experienced 

firsthand why Stefan Jacob is called the Raku 

Papst (Raku Pope) in Europe. Michaela Kloeckner 

reported that" after building more than 2000 

IKEA rubbish bin raku kilns all over the world, 

Stefan has the preparation and the process of his 

workshop fine-tuned like a Swiss precision clock 

work. Every part of the kiln building process, 

including the raku tongs, had been prepared in 

meticulous order, ready for us to use". 

To view the Stefan Jacob raku kiln building 

workshop, go to www.goldcoastpotters.com or 

their Facebook page. Clay Art Benowa can also 

be viewed at their website and Facebook page. 

As usual, if any groups in SE OLD have news 

they would like to include in the upcoming 2013 

issues, please contact me directly. 

Happy potting, 

Lynette Rogers 

E: romeo-whisky@bigpond.com 

sa 

The early part of each year in South Australia 

is dominated by the arty buzz of the Adelaide 

Festival and the accompanying Fringe. This year 

Fringe will feature exhibitions from established 

ceramic artists Liz Williams at BMG Art with 

Bride Series, 19 April - 11 May, and Neville 

Assad-Salha's Between Two Spaces at the Bay 

Discovery Centre in Glenelg. Also holding the 

ceramic flag during Fringe is a group exhibition 

from Studio Potters SA, Fringe Dwellers, and an 

exhibition by emerging artist Lauren Abineri who 

presented work at Tooth and Nail Gallery in her 

show Battlestar Ero tica in which she explored 

the hidden and sometimes deviant truths behind 

everyday objects. 

lauren Abineri 

Tender Pink 

handbuilt porcelain 

found objects 

h.Z5cm, w.15cm 

2013 signifies a very important birthday for the 

one and only JamFactory. Established by Don 

Dunstan way back in 1973 in an old jam factory 

in St Peters, the ceramics studio began its life 

as a training institution in 1979, run by Living 

Treasure Jeff Mincham until 1982. Bronwyn 

Kemp went on to head the studio in 1983, 

followed by Peter Anderson, Stephen Bowers, 

Neville Assad-Salha, Phil Hart, Robin Best and, 

most recently, Prue Venables, who has resigned 

from the role to focus on other projects. 

To celebrate JamFactory is holding numerous 

exhibitions and events, including an in-house 

exhibition Designing Craft/Crafting Design 

which shows the work of forty artists, 

craftspeople and deSigners who have been 


Aust ralia Wide 

associated with JamFactory during the past forty 

years including Kirsten Coelho, Jeff M incham and 

Prue Venables . In Gallery Two is ReCollections 

bringing together past JamFactory products, 

commissions and gifts. 

It's a good time to visit and muse upon the 

achievement that Dunstan initiated and is 

continued by a dedicated staff, volunteers, and 

the heartbeat of the place - the associates being 

vigorously trained in the internationally renowned 

two-year traineeship program. Jam Factory is 

definitely a different place to 40-odd years ago, 

or even 20, but the fact that it is up and running 

at all is an incredible achievement of which we 

are very proud. 

Sophie Phillips 

E: Sophia@sophiaphillips.net 

tas 

The Tasmanian Ceramic Association's 40th 

birthday celebrations started in 2012 with 

the annual exhibition Forty Years in the 

Making. Carolyn Audet took out the Award 

for Overall Excellence with her vessel Fish 

Monger Dreaming; John Watson won both 

The ACA Award for Innovative Use of the 

Clay Medium, and the People's Choice, for 

Ridgetop Retreat 11 ; Anna Williams won the 

Non-Functional Award for Marsupials; and I 

(Jude Maisch) took out the Functional Award 

with a platter triptych Deloraine Dreaming. 

Grace Cochrane gave an inspiring opening 

speech, following a packed house attendance 

the previous Friday at her University's Art Forum. 

Other 2012 events included a potters lunch, 

a talk w ith Barbara Cauvin at her Tasman ian 

Traces exhibition, and an inspirational workshop 

with Sandy Brown. 

TCA life member Lilia Weatherly passed 

away peacefully on 3 December. Lilia was for 

many years an active committee member and 

instrumental in many of the activities of the early 

years of the Potters Society. Thank you Lilia . 

lin the January bushfire at Dunalley, Tim and 

Tammy Holmes lost their home and possessions, 

including Tim's collection of ea rly Tasmanian 

woodfired pottery (displayed at Woodfire 

Tasmania 2011). Tim said that he is now 

planning to get back into pottery. We are happy 

that all the family is safe and wish them all the 

best. 

Dawn Oakford's Promenade at the Sidespace 

Gallery in February was an exhibition of an array 

of colourful ceramic creatures, strolling along 

in a world of their own. In late February, Sallee 

Warner exhibited her beautiful tea bowls, made 

with local clays and ash, in To Hold. 

The annual Benchmarking Birchs Bay 

Sculpture Exhibition, from 29 March to 30 

June, includes work from TeA's Richard Whitaker 

and Anna W illiams. 

The Tin Shed in Launceston is celebrating its 10th 

anniversary on 1 July with an exhibition called 

Decade at the Mill Providore and Gallery from 8 

June to 2 July. 

The first workshop for the year was with 

2solt Faludi at Glen Huon in March. It was an 

opportunity to see a master potter at work in his 

home studio and use his pizza oven. 

The 2013 TCA Annual Exhibition will be held 3 

to 26 May at Rosny Schoolhouse Gallery. 

The TeA is always keen to hear from ceramicists 

who do workshops and who would like to visit 

Tasmania. Please send an email. Also have a 

look at our website under construction, www. 

tasmanianceramics .com. 

Jude Maisch; E: jude@judemaisch.com.au 

vic 

Many Victorians will be making their 3-yearly 

pilgrimage to Gulgong for Clay Push. It is with 

great sadness we heard of the recent passing 

of Janet Mansfield. Janet w as the guiding force 

behind the Gulgong clay events and she will be 

missed. She had a great memory for names and 

faces and made everyone feel welcome. 

The Valley Potters are celebrating their 35 year 

anniversary with a personalised tour in May of 

the Kenneth Hood Bequest Exhibition at the 

Ian Potter Museum and Gallery, followed by High 

Tea at the NGV At their 2012 Annual Exhibition, 

ClayScape, judged by Jane Sawyer, the 

Acquisition Award went to Jill Anderson. Other 

Award winners were Juliet Widdows, Sharon 

Dingeldei, Glenn England and Lynda Kent. 

Their first event for 2013 will be a Sculpture 

Workshop with Jenny Rowe on 20 April at 

Waverley Community Learning Centre. For more 


Austra lia Wide 

information email olgamaxwell@bigpond.com. 

Ceramics Victoria have organised an exciting 

workshops program starting with Greg Daly in 

May, followed by David Pottinger in July and 

Stephen Bowers in September. The closing date 

for the Decal Award is 15 May. Up to 3 works 

may be entered. For further information, go to 

www.ceramicsvictoria.org.au. 

Stonehouse Gallery hosted their 4th Annual 

Ceramic Student Encouragement Award in 

February. The students, chosen by their college, 

each presented a small body of work on a 

600mm square plinth. The award was judged by 

Dawna Richardson-Hyde who gave each student 

a detailed report and comments on their work, 

a great experience for all the students involved. 

The winner of the Stonehouse Award was Yuso 

Lee from Holmesglen TAFE . Other award winners 

were Jeannine Hendy, Kate Jones, Sue Lawson, 

Lynne Lindsay, Alexander Macklary, Nishar 

Neale and Lyndon Sendeckij. Victorian Ceramic 

Suppliers generously donated these awards. 

The Dandenong Ranges Open Studios will take 

place on 27 and 2B April with an associated 

exhibition, Tension , to be held at the Burrinja 

Gallery from 6 April to 5 May. This year thirtyfive 

artists, including five ceramic artists, will be 

taking part. 

For more details, visit www.openstudios.org.au. 

Glenn England 

Editor's note: Glenn is retiring from her 

position as state representative for Victoria. 

Her reports over the past seven years have 

kept us up to date with workshop and 

exhibition news. Thanks Glenn! 

wa 

We've recovered from post Christmas exhaustion 

and are hitting the studios with renewed vigour. 

The big end-of-year sales push saw a flurry of 

activity at Fremantle Art Centre's 'Bazaar', and 

many successful open studios throughout Perth 

and at various markets. From all accounts the 

effort was worthwhile. 

In November the Ceramic Arts Associat ion of 

WA invited UK potter Sandy Brown, who was 

here on holiday, to give a talk on her work to its 

members. CAAWA members are preparing work 

for the Members Selective Exhibition in April 

2013. 

In January, WA potter Sandra Black presented 

a workshop for the Newcastle Potters in NSW 

and she's been invited again to participate in 

the Year of the Snake Teapot Exhibition at 

the Noble Seafood Restaurants in Shanghai, an 

amazing and rewarding experience. 

Fremantle Arts Centre offers popular courses 

such as porcelain jewellery, raku and sculpture 

taught by Stewart Scambler, Sandra Black, Dee 

Jaegar, Robin Varpins and Graham Hay. Central 

Institute of Technology, Northbridge's spacious 

modern studios, continue to offer ceramics units 

to Diploma of Visual Art and Craft students, 

along with the popular evening and school 

holiday classes. Cher Shackleton also offers clay 

lessons in her O'Connor Studio. 

In May, Fleur Schell launches her visionary 

endeavour, a clay-oriented venue SODA Wet Clay 

Centre in North Fremantle. Together with local 

and international talent she'll provide clay lessons 

for people of all ages and abilities, professional 

development courses, parties and corporate 

events. 

In February, emerging artists Natalie Acton, 

Danica W ichtermann and Sarah Hannah 

exhibited new work together in A Porcelain 

Perspective, From the Land to the Sea at the 

ZigZag Cultural Centre, Kalamunda. 

Gomboc Gallery's Sculpture Survey and 30th 

Annual Outdoor Exhibition will be held in June 

featuring distinguished invited artists through a 

cultural exchange from Japan, South Korea and 

USA. Many Australian artists are participating 

along with students from Curtin and Edith 

Cowan Universities, Polytechnic West. 

Stewart Scambler and Trisha D'arcy are travelling 

to India where Stewart will give a talk at a 

pottery workshop. 

On 1 January, we lost Japanese Australian potter 

Michiko Love, a highly respected member of the 

WA ceramics community and a major influence 

on Stewart Scambler's work. 

We share with potters worldwide the sense of 

loss at the passing of the inimitable and dynamic 

Janet Mansfield whose influence has been far 

reaching and enduring. Vale. 

Elaine Bradley; E: lalab@iinet.net.au 

THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS NOVEMBER 2012 123

Stockists 

ACT 

canberra potters society 

1 aspmal st watson 

national gallery of australia 

bookshop parke

On the Shelf 

On the Shelf 

More books are available on www.australianceramics.com 

Lustre 

NEW 

NEW 

1. Lustre by Greg Daly 

This handbook arms to 

explain and Simplify the 

process of creating various 

types of lustre. The book 

covers recipes for lustres and 

te

Saturday 17 & 

Sunday 18 August 2013 

We want to link as many ceramic studios as we can muster 

around the country for OSCAS, a national weekend of ceramics 

sampllnc. sales and mayhem I 

Before we are overrun with spring fairs, we will warm our 

studios (for those down south), open the doors and welcome 

t he locals in to see what we make. 

The Australian Ceramics Association will create an online 

flier for you to distribute via your local networks, while also 

supporting the event with a comprehensive list in The Journal 0/ 

Australian Ceramics, 52/ 2, July 2013, and a special events listing 

page on www.australianceramics.com. 

Open 

Studio 

Ceramics 

Australia 

Showcase 

To participate, you (or your group) need to be a financial 

member ofThe Australian Ceramics Association and have public 

liability insurance cover for the weekend of the event . Your 

liability cover may be through TACA or, if not through TACA, 

we will ask that you provide a Certificate of Currency for your 

alternative cover. There is no fee to participate. 

To submit your OSCAS Expression of Interest, please email 

mall@australianceramics.com wit h the subject line OSCAS 

EOI. Please give your name (and/or your studio name), your 

location, a contact number and your website, blog or facebook 

page, and an Image of your work or your studio. Deadline for 

EOI : 17 May 2013. This event is open to individuals and groups. 

2013 Focus & 

Deadline Dates 

52/2 

Publication: 

17 July 2013 

Studio Ceramics & 

Education 

Deadline for copy: 

6 May 2013 

52/3 

Publication: 

20 November 2013 

Ceramics & Ecology 

Deadline for copy 

9 September 2013 


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' PLEASE INCLUDE YOUR NAME IN THE DEPOSIT DETAILS 

Signature / Date 

Fax or mail to The Australian Ceramics Association, PO Box 274 Waverley NSW 2024 Australia 

T: 1300 720 124 F: +61 (2) 9369 3742 E: mail@australianceramics.com www.australianceramics.com 


Classifieds 

CERAMIC SUPPLIES 

CUSTOM DECALS 

By using state of the art digital printing technology, Decal 

Specialists can produce high quality Custom Ceramic Decals 

from origInal artwork. The decorative possibilities with 

Custom Decals are only limIted by your imagination! 

Check out our website: WNW.decalspecialists.com.au 

T: 1300 132 771 ; E: enquiries@decalspecialists.com.au 

KERRIE LOWE GALLERY 

Sydney inner city pottery supplies: Keane 's Clay - dIscount 

on 5 bagS/l0+ bags; Southern Ice Porcelain; Museum Gel 

Chinese Decals; Wide range of tools. glazes, underglazes 

Kerrie Lowe Gallery, 49 King St, Newtown 2042 

T: 02 95504433 E: lowekerrie@gmail.com 

Mon to Sat, lOam - 5.30 pm; Thurs until 7 pm. 

KIln 

KILNWEST 

Manufacturing Kilns in Australia since 1972. 

We offer a full range of electric kilns, glass ovens and fur· 

naces to suit your requirements . Over 100 different styles are 

available or we (an custom design one to your needs. (·Tick 

compliant and Department of Education approved designs. 

125 Broadway, Bassendean WA 6054; T: 08 9377 1222 

E: sales@kilnwest.com.au; WNW.kilnwest.com.au 

NORTHCOTE POTTERY SUPPU ES 

Northcote Pottery Supplies sells a range of quality pottery 

materials induding clay, glaze, tools and equipment for 

the student, hobbyist and professional. We run a range 

of classes and workshops for those interested in further· 

ing their skill and knowledge in ceramics. We offer a firing 

service, studio access and residency program, as well as 

housing SMAllpieces, a space showcasing contemporary 

Au stralian ceramics. 142·144 Weston Street Brunswick East 

3057; T: 03 93B7 3911; F: 03 9387 4011 

WNW.northcotepottery.com.au 

OXYGEN PROBE 

The CP probe is a very simple, low cost oxygen probe with 

an easy· to· read digital meter displaying oxidation/reduction. 

This probe is ideal to control both gas and wood-fired kilns. 

Type CP oxygen probe - the simple, low-cost potters' probe. 

See www.cof.com.au/AOS or call Australian Oxytrol Systems 

on 03 5446 1530. 

POTTERS EQUIPMENT PTY lTD 

Quality supplies and friendly service; A wide range of clays 

and colours, kilns, wheels, slab rollers, pug mills, extruders, 

all sorts of accessories. materials, glazes and tools. 

Shop 13/42 New St, Ringwood VIC 3134 

T: 03 9870 7533; F: 03 9847 0793 

TETLOW KILNS & FURNACES PTY LTD 

One of Australia 'S most experienced kiln and furnace 

manu-facturers; Australia's largest range with 40 standard 

sizes. custom sizes on request; Clean, efficient electric and 

gas kilns and furnaces; made in Australia, environmentally 

friendly. 12 George St, Blackburn VIC 3 130 

T: +61 (0)39877 4188; F: +61 (0)398941974 

E: infoCtetiow.com.au; www.tetlow.com.au 

VENCO PRODUCTS 

Manufacturers and exporters of high quality 

pottery equipment. Venco manufacture a range of pugmiUs 

with output capacities, suitable for schools and studiOS 

through to high capacity industrial units. Venco pottery 

wheels are world regarded for quality and reliability. 

T: +61 (0)89399 5265; F: +61 (O)B 9497 1335 

'MNW.venco.com.au 

WALKERS CERAMICSI FEENEYS CLAY ICESCO 

Factory outlet is now open at 1121 Research Drive Croydon 

South with a full range of ceramic supplies - clays, glazes, 

colours, raw materials, tools, brushes, equipment. kilns, 

wheels, books and kiln furniture. We are manufadurers 

of Walker Ceramics, Feeney> Clay and Cesco clays, glazes 

and colou rs. Great parcel and pallet rates Australia wide. 

Please see our website for full product information mclud· 

ing methods of use, application and faults and remedies. 

Download our Pottery & Ceramic Handbook, Melbourne 

price list, Canberra price list and Feeneys Clay price list. At 

Walker Ceramics and Feeneys Clay, our aim is to use, from 

Australian sources, the best quality raw materials to produce 

our own range of bodies, glazes and colours for all aspects 

at ceramic production. 

Walker Ceramics and Feeneys Clay. 2121 Research Drive, 

Croydon South VIC 3136; T: 03 87616322 F: 03 8761 

6344; Toll free: 1 BOO 692 529118000ZCLAY 

E: sales@INalkerceramics.(om.au; orders@Walkerceramics. 

com.au or david@Walkerceramics.com.au 

www.walkerceramics.com.au 

WOODROW KILNS 

Offering a complete range of electric and gas kilns, aU 

Australian made; featuring aluminium frame with 10 year 

warranty, fibre board lining - up to 60% cheaper to run; 

easy to use automatic multi-stage controller; failsafe backup 

circuit: backed by friendly phone support, after sales service 

and a 3 yearfactory warranty; T: 02 9790 2717 

www.kilns.com.au 

FOR SALE 

AS NEW 21 cubic It Co.co Ga. Kiln 

Twin pilot, 4 main burner, multiple shelvps and props, digital 

pyrometer, stainless canopy and flu. Paid total of $ 15,500 

on del feb 09; fired less than a dozen times. As new 

condition, currently in storage. Moved properties and won't 

fit new studio. A regretful sale, $10,750 neg. 

Contact Nadine on 0417 688 642 or email 

nadine.wilson l@bigpond.com 

GROUPS 

CERAMIC STUDY GROUP Inc CELEBRATES ITS 

50TH YEAR 

We invite you to join us at our monthly meetings where we 

invite guest demonstrators from Australia and sometimes 

overseas, covering a range of aspects relating to day. Being 

a member gives you access to OUf library offering up-to-date 

books, magazines and DVDs. plus our wood fired kiln at 

Oxford Falls. We publish a monthly newsletter and offer an 

ideal forum for experienced potters as well as beginners and 

students wishing to learn more and network. 

T: 02 9630 3363; E: Csgsecretary@hotmail.com 

WNVV.ceramicstudygroup.org 

THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APR IL 20t3 129

Classifieds 

MOULD/ MODEL MAKER 

SPECIALIST IN PROTOTYPE AND MOULD-MAKING for 

ceramic mass production and artworks. Ceramic design 

service also available. Contact Somchai, T: 02 9703 2557 

M : 0401 359 126; E: eatandclay@gmail.com 

OPPORTUNITIES 

1 

S2000 Acquisitive Decal Ceramic Award 

Entries close 25 May 2013. Held every 3 years, this joint 

project involves the development and use of original artwork 

decals on original ceramic objects both functional and 

sculptural in nature using Australian Clay. S2.aOO first prize 

with S 1200 in 4 other categories. 

See www.ceramiC5victoria.org.au for details and entry form . 

PHOTOGRAPHY 

GREG PIPER IMAGING SOLUTIONS 

Providing ceramic artists with digital and traditional 

photographic imagery, as well as graphic design to print or 

electronic media: an Associate AIPP (Australian Institute of 

Professional Photographers) with over 30 years experience 

in various advertising, corporate and government projects; 

previously (for eleven years) inaugural manager of the 

photographidmultimedia unit at the Powerhouse Museum in 

Sydney; Drummoyne NSW 2047; T: 02 9181 1188 

M : 0411 107744; E: greg@gregpiper.com.au 

WW'N.gregpiper.com.au 

PLINTHS 

PLINTHS MADE TO ORDER 

Affordable, designed for structural integrity, lightweight; 

also for hire. Roger Fenton, 5tlves N5W 

T: 02 9488 8628; F: 02 9440 1212; M : 0417 443 4t4 

WORKSHOPS / SEMINARS 

HOT TO POT WORKSHOPS 

at Moonshill, Tarago near Goulburn 

Tutorial Tuesdays are due to recommence after Easter from 

lOam to 2pm each Tuesday; session fee applies. Workshops 

will recommence after 1 July 2013. Please view website for 

latest information: 'NW'W.janecrick.netfirms.com or contact 

Jane, T: 02 61610806 or E: janecrick@dodo.com.au 

AUSTRALIAN GALLERY DIRECTORY 

INNER CITY CLAYWORKERS GALLERY CO-OP LTD 

Come along to this unique gallery, run by ceramic artists, for 

handmade ceramics - functional, sculptural and decorative. 

Cnr 5t Johns Rd and Darghan St Glebe NSW 2037 

T: 02 9698 9717; www.clayworkers.com.au 

KERRIE LOWE GALLERY 

Contemporary Australian ceramics and pottery supplies 

located in inner city Sydney. The gallery features functional 

ware, vessels, sculpture and j€'Neliery by emerging and 

professional ceramic artists; 49-51 King St, Newtown NSW 

2042; E: Iowekerrie@gmai\.com, VMIW.kerrielowe.com 

SHEPPARTON ART MUSEUM (SAM) 

Shepparton Art Museum is the premier public museum 

servicing North Central Victoria and undertook a major 

redevelopment in 2012 . lt is renowned for its comprehensive 

collection of Australian ceramics, historical landscape 

paintings and works on paper and its important collection 

of contemporary art in all media; Free Entry; Open 7 days, 

10am-4pm; PH, 1-4pm; closed Good Friday and Christmas 

Day; 70 Welsford S1. Shepparton VIC 3630 

T: 03 5832 9861; E: art.museum@Shepparton.vic.gov.au 

IN'NW.sheppartonartmuseurn.com.au 

NATIONAL EDUCATION DIRECTORY 

CERAMIC DESIGN STUDIO - TAFE NSW 

SYDNEY INSTITUTE, GYMEA 

9 & 18 week short courses plus Certificate, Diploma and 

Advanced Diploma qualifications in ceramics - full and parttime 

attendance. 

Cnr The Kingsway and Hotham Road , Gymea NSW 

T: 02 9710 5001 ; www.sit.nsw.edu.auiceramicslgymeaand 

find us on facebook "Ceramic Design Studio - TAFE Sydney 

Institute" . 

HOLMESGLEN 

Holmesglen Chadstone Campus: Diploma of Ceramics 

The scope and vision of our Diploma of Ceramics Course at 

Holmesglen is to prepare students for a career in the ceramic 

arts. We provide a profeSSional, well equipped studio 

environment and the staff are recognized, practiSing artists. 

Our aim is to inspire individual development and encourage 

ongoing levels of inquiry. Kim Martin, Course Coordinator of 

Ceramics and Visual Arts; T: 03 9564 1942; 03 9564 1716 

www.holmesglen.edu.au 

130 THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APR IL 2013

• All In One Mixing PugmiJls 

• Patented Single Auger Design 

• Easy to Mount Extrusion Dies 

• Intellectual Mixing Technology 

• Stores Motit Clay IndefIDitdy 

• Huge Hopper Opening 

• No Vacuum Screens or Ports 

to Plug, Clean or Slow Down 

Cycle Times. 

VPM-9 

CE CERTIFIED 

Peter Pugger Mfg Inc 

3661 Christy Lane, Ukiah, CA 95482 

Phone: (707)463-1333 Fax: (707)462-5578 

www.peterpugger.com

10th-14th Octobl!t 

Alexandta Patk Confetence Centte 

Alexandta Headland Queen~land 

a uniqu{! o~~ottunity to int{!tact 

with th{!~e t{!nown{!d attid~ 

~Iu~ local :ltti~t Catol rOtdBt 

in a ftiendly, telaxed ~etting jud mjnute~ 

ftom beautiful ~un~hjne Coa~t beachM 

a full tangB of attBndancB ~ackag~ availablB 

including fuffy catBtBd on~itB accommodation 

fot mOtB dBtail~: 

www.~uncoadclaywotkBt~.otg.au 

~mail: iackiB-ga~~on@bi~ond.com 

PhonB: 04-g~ 4-50 g4-9 

~t~BntBd by

ICMEA 2013 Conference 

September 08-13, 2013 

Fuping, China 

Theme: Challenge & Innovation of Ceramics 

I. Call for Speakers: 

• Subjects of Speeches: 

critical writing, marketing, education, gallery/museum/Residency Policy and 

other related topics . 

• Speech length 20 minutes 

• No speaker fees and conference fees 

• Free accommodation and meals for speakers 

• Deadline: April 30, 2013 

VIew http://www.lCMEA2004.com for application 

II. Call for Emerging Ceramic Artist Competition: 

Qualifications: 

THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRAliAN CERAMICS APRIL 2013 133

quality pottery supplies and services 

Northcote Pottery Supplies Pty Ltd 

142 - 144 weston Street 

Brunswick East 3057 

(PH) 03 9387 3911 

New web site: 

www.northcotepotterysupplies.co m.o u

(EflAmIH AUSTflALIA 

QUALITY WHEELS. MILLS & KILNS 

SHIMPO Precision Pottery Equipment 

To view our full range of equipment please visit our website 

www.shimpo.com.au 

RoUer 

[IfjjJ 

THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APRil 2013 

13S

BOSTON

RAGLAN 

GALLERY 

RAGLAN GALLERY hos returned to Manly ... 

OUTER MOONS 

DEAN SMITH EXHIBITION 

7 th June - 28 th June 2013 

57 Piltwaler Rd. Monly NSW 2095 

Open Tuesday - Sundoy 10 300m - 61)m Monday by appointmen t 

T 0299770986 M 0420940736 E jun@roCjlongolbY(OmClU WVlW '(Jglunqullcry cornUlJ 

THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMtCS APRIL 2013 137

McGREGOR WINTER SCHOOL 

1- 5 JULY 2013 • TOOWOOMBA 

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN QUEENSLAND 

Learn and create your own masterpieces 

alongside renowned tutors in a stimulating 

creative and social environment at one of 

Australia's most enduring residential art schools. 

Choose from an exciting range of fine and 

creative arts classes including Pierced & 

Translucent Porcelain with Julie Shepherd. 

Other classes 

include painting, 

drawing, 

printmaking, 

perspex sculpture, 

upholstery, 

millinery, hand 

forging, jewellery 

making and digital 

photography. 

Ceramics Design Studio 

www.sit.nsw.edu.au/ceramics/gymea 

We offer a wide range of specialist ceramic studio courses 

Short Courses: 

Qualifications: 

9 Week Introductory Classes, 18 Week Advanced Wheel, 

Mould Making, Handbuilding, Open Studio Practice 

Certificates, Diploma and Advanced Diploma in Ceramics 

VET FEE help available for Diploma & Advanced Diploma 

Photo; Silversalt Pnotography 

Ceramics by Robert Jeffers 

! SYDNEY INSTITUTE / 

mD 

Marian.HoweI12@det.nsw.edu.au 

The Kingsway & Hotham Road, Gymea NSW 2227, Tel: (02) 9710 5001 


CATHY 

KEYS 

CONTEMPORARY ARTIST 

THE BU NYAS 

GALLERY 2 ARTISAN 

381 BRUNSWICK ST FORTITUDE VALLEY a 4006 

8 MARCH- 15 JUNE 2013 

TUESDAY- FRIDAY 1O.30AM-530PM 

SATURDAY lOAM-4PM 

CATHYKEYS COM 

THIS PROJECT HAS BEEN ASSIS TED BY THE QUEENSLAND GOVERNMENT 

CLAYWORKS 


look.$ 

differenF ? 

clever design prevents 

**** water / slip from getting 

under wheel head for 

marine grade aluminium easy cleaning 

wheel head 33cm (13*) 

• bat pins 

marine grade aluminium tray 

• 10 yr warranty on breakage 

• easy clean with large drain hole 

• wooden side trays also available 

easy clean control pad 

• aux. speed control buttons 

• fwd/rev 

• auto turn-off (power saving) 

clip-on seat (optional) 

• padded & adjustable 

• stainless steel frame 

stainless steel body & legs 

• no rusting 

• ergonomic curved design 

• table-top kit included 

low profile footpedal 

• high impact 

powerful direct drive motor 

• stainless steel & 

• no belts - maintenance free polycarbonate , III 

• 3/4hp permanent magnet motor ,'.f' ,$ ... 

• super smooth and responsive 

• very quiet and smooth .r IttJF $ VI CA.;'Y' 

toe( A 11$ e y 

_ ' ____ 

___ __.... 

_--------_ Y features 

- 5SOW permanent magnel motor 

- dedicated intelligent control syslem 

- low profile footpedal 

- smooth, powerful and ulira quiet 

- forward I reverse 

- auto turrHlfl & overload protection 

- 11G-240V SO/6Ohz 

- 10 year warranty on tray and frame 

options 

- dip-on marine ply shelves 

- riser bat and standard bats 

- stand-up and tablelfloor kits 

Also dVdlldPle: 

VENCO sldP roller

COLOURS Rockwood Pigments, Cesco, 

Walker Ceramics, Clayworks, Deco, 

Chrysanthos CLAYS 

Bendigo, Bennetts, 

Blackwattie, Clayworks, Feeneys, Keanes, 

Northcote, Walkers EQUIPMENT 

wheels, slab rollers, 

ACCESSORIES Brushes, corks, 

kiln shelves, etc MATERIALS 25g 

and more GLAZES Powder and liq 

Claytools, Kemper, Giffin Grip and 

NEW - Limited supply of Duncan 

Pottery & Ceramics Studio 

(!) Pottery Classes 

(!) Casual Social Sessions 

(!) Casual Studio Access 

(!) Firing Service 

(!) Clay & Materials 


SUNDAY 28 APRIL - SATURDAY 4 MAY 2013 

Clay Push Gulgong 2013 is the ninth in the series of ceramics 

events which have been held every three years (since beginning in 

1989) in Gulgong, NSW, Australia. This small, historic and friendly 

town, at the heart of t he renowned Puggoon clay deposits, will 

become the hub of the ceramic world, welcoming visitors from 

around the world and all parts of Australia. 

Talks, demonstrations, exhibitions and special events await you for 

this unique week in 2013. Chester Nealie, master of ceremonies, will 

welcome you to the event, which culminates wit h a special day at 

Red Hill. 

International artists from Brazil, South Korea, Sweden, Thailand 

and USA, as well as Australian artists, will lead the workshop 

presentations. There will be hands-on activities, experimental 

fi rings and opportunities to display your work. 

Or fill in the form below and post it to: 

Clay Push. PO Box S02 Waverley NSW 2024 Australia 

REGISTRATION FORM 

Name: 

Address: ____ ______ ____________ 

Country: ______________________ _ 

Phone: 

(please include country code if outside Australia) 

Email: 

PAYMENT TYPE: Cash I Cheque I Credit Card I EFT I Paypal 

Cheque: Please make out to Mansfield Press Gulgong 2013; must be in AUS 

Credit Card (please indicate type): Mastercard / Visa 

Card Holder Name: __________________ _ 

Card Number: __ _ _ / _ _ _ _ / _ _ _ _ 

Expiry Date: _ _ / __ 

EFT: · ·use your name to identify the transfe .... 

Account name: Mansfield Press Gulgong 2013 

BSB 062549; Account NO. 1 0096443 

/ ___ _ 

Swift code: CTBAAU2S; Commonwealth Bank, Gulgong NSW 

Master artists Include: 

Frank Boyden, USA 

sponsored by the Mid-Western 

Regional Council 

Naidee Changmoh, THAILAND 

Diana Fay!, USA 

Norma Grinberg, BRAZIL 

Marianne Hallberg, SWEDEN 

Lee Kang Hyo, SOUTH KOREA 

Ane-Kat rine von BUlow 

DENMARK 

Kirsten Coelho, AUSTRALIA 

Greg Daly, AUSTRALIA 

Jeff M incham, AUSTRALIA 

Sunday 4 May 

The BIG PUSH! 

Mud, smoke, music and mayhem 

under the big top! Yuri Wiedenhofer 

and land art Gulgong style! 

Somchai Charoen and mouldmaking 

experiments; Rod Bamford 

will lead the Education Forum and 

Coli Minogue, the Writing Forum; 

the PUSH Pot Market. PoTwiz and 

loads more ... 

AU$ EVENT RATES 

Dlhg_ $ 45O(fuHRate) 

$100 (Day Rate) 

Stuot.nt: 

$ 325 (Fun Rate) 

$7S (Day Rate) 

TeMMr willi. SIt 'nlts: 

$350 (Full Rate) 

$100 (Day Rate) 

0P1'I0NAL EXTRAS 

PIN5e email firs! to check 

availability. lIMn add to your 

payment total 

[ ) DormItDIy add $IS/nlght 

[ ) Bus 11cIret 

$JdMpto GuIgong 

$ 70 -'" way; $140 return

The 

AUSTRALIAN 

CERAMICS 

Association 

Need liability insurance? 

Teaching workshops or demonstrating your skills? 

Renting a studio space or a gallery for an exhibition? 

Selling at a market or other retail outlet? 

Important: This valuable protection is only be extended to TACA members who have 

paid their membership fees and chosen the insurance option. 

Annual fee membership with insurance: $188 

For more information or to join TACA please contact: 

The Australian Ceramics Association; T: 1300720124; mail@australianceramics.com 

www.australianceramics.com 

For insurance information and advice please contact: 

City Rural Insurance Brokers Pty ltd; T: 1300887429; info@crib.com.au; https:/Icityrural.net.au

The Australian Ceramics Association's 

Biennial Exhibition 2014 

Manly Art Gallery & Museum 

28 March - 4 May 2014 

the course of objects; 

the fine lines of inquiry 

Curator: Susan Ostling 

CALL FOR PROPOSALS 

The i ntent of this exhi bi t i on the course of objects: the fine 

lines of inquiry is to map and take the pulse of recent 

cerami c work that pursues particul ar lines of inquiry 

or e xplores o r embodies pertinent i deas . 

Working in the spirit of unraveling the associations between 

things , or discovering constellations in things , I will look 

for possible transient affinities and correspondences when 

making selections for the exhibition . 

Works will be chosen that trigger or extend connections or 

references, or that suggest repetitions, echoes, resemblances, 

distilled moments, or the thick realm of metaphor . 

I am not intending to establish an overall exhibition theme; 

rather to elucidate methodologies of p r actice and inquiry. 

Practitioners (potters, sculptors, ceramicists) are invited to submit proposals 

for the exhibition the course of objects; the fine lines of inquiry. 

Please send an outline of your proposal/rationale (100-150 words), 

a disc with 3- 5 images of related work and a current I-page CV. 

Applications close: 15 April 2013 Artists notified: 31 May 2013 

Exhibition dates: 28 March - 4 May 2014 

Please post proposal packages to: Susan Ostling 

The Australian Ceramics Association, PO Box 274 Waverley NSW 2024 

Artists whose work is selected will receive a $100 participants fee. 

Exhibitors must be financial members of The Australian Ceramics Association.

WALKER 

• 

Feeneys 

Clay 

Proudly "" 

manufacturing 

in Australia 

~ .... .. . 

• 

Cesco 

Glazes & Colours 

Service 

and Supplies

The Journal of Australian Ceramics Vol 52 No 1 April 2013

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