The Journal of Australian Ceramics Vol 52 No 2 July 2013

Tri bute
form, her lugs are wild, expressive and full of movement - an "opportunity for ash and salt to sit. Some
people think they are over the top. I don't - I love handles and lugs!"
Janet's sgraffito decoration was another individual characteristic - " ... the fun part," she said. A broad
brush of white slip was casually daubed around the surface, " ... a nice place to play" . Then, with the
speed of a conductor's baton, she scored the slip, most often using her signature Morning Glory flowers
motif. Her movement was instinctive, lively and confident; all done in twenty seconds and giving a rich
edge for salt glazing to define decoration.
Wood flame was a big part of Janet's life. She used it for cooking, for heating and in firing her pots.
She first built a kiln on the Gulgong property in 1977 - now there are eight. The initial, large anagama
has been retired - " it takes six people to fire it". The smaller anagama, Fred Olsen's 'Gulgong Racer' kiln
was fired four times a year while the new trolley salt kiln was fired twice a year. Janet salt-fired her first
trolley kiln for many years, and when it could no longer be repaired she replaced it with another.
Judy Soydell was Janet's main firing partner over many years. In the past, potters from the region
formed the anagama firing team, but in more recent years she fired with Judy, Wang, Fan and me.
Janet liked to get to top temperature in twenty four hours, then for the next twenty hours "play"
with reduction using the "trick brick" opening in the chimney and side-stOking. Firing with eucalyptus
timber from the farm, such as grey box and old ironbark fence posts, gave her the preferred dry grass
colours of matt yellows balanced against the carbon-included blacks and reduction reds. "Forty hours
of firing is the optimum, otherwise it's too hot and pots are glued up and stuck. I do, however, enjoy
honourable scars. "
Janet has left a legacy of unique pots, distinctively her own. She said she "learned from everybody",
yet her work is immediately recognisable from her freedom in throwing, her wonderful wild and
confident sgraffito, her cheeky lugs and handles, and a salted or wood ash surface, unsurpassed. There
is joy in her creations, a happy life force. She said to us many times, "This is fun!"
Chester Nealie is a woodfire/salt glaze potter who worked closely with Janet as a fellow
potter and neighbour for twenty years.
All quotations are from Janet Mansfield speaking in Janet Mansfield,
a film by Jocelyn Stenson, 2009, produced by Mansfield Press.