The Journal of Australian Ceramics Vol 53 No 2 July 2014

Charlotte Le Brocque, Put Your Paws Up And Drop the Carrots and You Can Dig But You Can't Hide, 2013, raku clay
and glazes. approx. h.3Ocm. w.l Scm. d.20cm; photo: Stephen Bird
navigate our way through the complexities of the arVpottery maze. Charlotte was looking for a simple
engagement with a material through which she could communicate and understand countenance from
within herself and from those around her. She didn't want apparatus or machines to come between
herself and her creations - tools would dull the sensation she ekes out of the clay with her fingers. I
have seen Charlotte scrutinising a lump of clay for many hours. I have then left the room for a short
time to return to a fully formed clay character sitting on the table with Charlotte nowhere to be seen.
I now real ise she is an artist who needs to be totally alone to produce her works. Charlotte's early
works were glazed with the most unctuous fritted glazes (containing copper, iron, cadmium and cobalt)
which she mixed, and then applied in private after class had finished for the day. I remember seeing a
whole table covered with these heads the day they came out of the kiln and they stopped me in my
tracks. Having gained self-confidence and self-awareness in the preceding years, Charlotte had found
a language that really worked for her, and it was interesting to see that develop into a menagerie of
expressive animals.
Charlotte's works expose something about her emotional state. They reveal her feelings about herself
and her relationship to those around her. A clear influence on Charlotte'S work is her favourite childhood
film by Walt Disney, The Lion King. She admits to strongly identifying with the carefree warthog
Pumbaa who, with his motto 'hakuna matata' (no worries), has a peculiarly Australian persona.
26 THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS IUl Y 2014