The Journal of Australian Ceramics Vol 54 No 1 April 2015
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
<strong>The</strong> Function <strong>of</strong> Art. <strong>The</strong> Art <strong>of</strong> Function<br />
---------- ----<br />
Gay was in Adelaide to work with the avant-garde American theatre director Peter Sellars, who had<br />
been appointed director <strong>of</strong> the 2002 Adelaide Festival <strong>of</strong> the Arts. Sellars had promised a festival that<br />
would truly live up to the rhetoric <strong>of</strong> being cutting edge, innovative and challenging. Much to the<br />
concern <strong>of</strong> all involved it rapidly became apparent that he wasn't just saying this would be a festival<br />
like no other, but that he actually MEANT it. Sellars resigned a few months before the festival opened<br />
leaving a large hole in the budget and a sort <strong>of</strong> anarchic cultural echo which has rendered every<br />
subsequent festival more predictable than the last, not that anybody notices in the midst <strong>of</strong> pop-up<br />
hipster venues and thousands <strong>of</strong> dreadful Fringe comedians.<br />
Food played an important part in Sellars' proposed program, with a mix <strong>of</strong> events from gastronomic<br />
symposiums (rather like writer's week but with balsamic drizzle) to conceptual projects exploring the<br />
intersections <strong>of</strong> food and society. Gay - another person who definitely doesn't conform to expectations<br />
- came up with a project whereby she would supervise some meals for patients at local hospitals. She<br />
was looking for a potter to make work for several <strong>of</strong> these events and she ended up with me.<br />
Two sets <strong>of</strong> work were finally made: some plates for a symposium dinner and a couple <strong>of</strong> hundred<br />
small bowls for the hospital project. In the process <strong>of</strong> making these I found a renewed passion for the<br />
functional, the simple, and the real. <strong>No</strong>t art, not <strong>Ceramics</strong> with a capital C. just bowls and plates for<br />
food . Simple enough, or maybe not?<br />
Thirteen years later I'm working as Creative Director <strong>of</strong> the <strong>Ceramics</strong> Studio at the JamFactory in<br />
Adelaide, where 2014 ended with us having made at least three thousand items for local restaurants<br />
and the domestic table. <strong>The</strong>se were based on our Thrown product range (featured in <strong>The</strong> <strong>Journal</strong> <strong>of</strong><br />
<strong>Australian</strong> <strong>Ceramics</strong> <strong>Vol</strong>. 53 NO. 3 <strong>No</strong>vember 2014, pages 78,79) designed in house and made by<br />
local craftspeople in the JamFactory studios from local clays made by a local company and not, I repeat,<br />
not Made in China .<br />
24 THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APRIL <strong>2015</strong>
Change language