Formargruppen

Formargruppen is an arts & crafts collective in Malmö, Sweden and they are currently holding an exhibition of functional cups by makers from around the world, including me. I’m exhibiting alongside some wonderful makers, including Karin Eriksson (image left), Ayumi Hori, Scott Rench, Anne Linneman (I swoon over her work), Kenji Uranishi, Virginia Jones and lots more good folk too numerous to name here! So if you happen to be living in or passing through the area go and check it out. Wish I could! The show runs until August 28th.

Ceramics and Print

Well it seems that ‘ceramics and print’ is like so hot right now. There's a lot of activity going on in this field at the moment, from workshops, conferences and symposiums to books and exhibitions. And why not, it’s a damn fine way to make art/craft/design!

I spent most of last week freezing my ass off in Canberra at a ceramics and print symposium held at the ANU School of Art (that fantastic building pictured above). My talk/demo was up first so I was footloose and fancy free after that to watch other workshops, talks and demonstrations, to catch up with lots of my nearests and dearests who call Canberra home, and to show off my latest work. A fine (albeit exhausting) week indeed!

Sydney based artist Petra Svoboda (image above) is also running a 'Printing on Clay' workshop at Sturt from July 7th to 11th. Sorry for the late notice with this one…it has been in my inbox for weeks but I just haven’t had a chance to get it up here…should be a goody though - she works with a pretty extensive range of techniques. More info here.

But wait…there’s more!!! I’m off to Hungary in September for a month to take part in an international symposium on ceramics and print called Hot Off The Press. Can’t WAIT!!! I was very excited to receive an invitation a few months back from the International Ceramics Studio in Hungary to be part of the symposium. I’ll be working alongside some super folks - Paul Scott, Scott Rench, Maria Gesler and Antal Andras. You can check out more details on the symposium and the artists involved here...

Ceramics and print-a-rama.

Fragile Environments

Dawn Stetzel Between Two of Us (porcelain, carved twigs, felted wool)

A few years ago when I was a visiting artist at the University of Massachusetts, I met a woman called Dawn Stetzel (sounds like pretzel). Her studio was directly across from mine and every day I would watch amused as she would scoot in on her bicycle laden with all kinds of weird and wonderful things she had found down by the waterside….pieces of worn styrofoam, nets and little plants, samples of murky water....her studio was like a science laboratory with things growing out of tubes and pipes and fermenting in trays and buckets. It was most curious! So I was pretty excited to see the outcome of all this, which she has recently posted on her blog. Her work is about noticing, paying attention and taking care and shows a beautiful sensitivity towards both the fragile nature of ceramics and our relationship with the natural world. She is currently gallavanting around this wide brown land of ours having all kinds of adventures, slowly making her way up here to Brisvegas. Check out more of her work here.

Dawn Stetzel Drip Bird (polluted water, porcelain pipes, bird)

Rice Boy Sleeps

My friend Jo (she of the beautiful ceramic twigs) sent me this link. Nothing to do with ceramics, but make yourself a cup of tea/coffee/gin and tonic and put your feet up and listen/watch this. Beautiful.

Madonna Del Rosario

I went to the opening of Madonna Del Rosario last week at Artisan, a collection of objects and jewellery inspired by the rosary. Love a good religious theme I do! There’s some interesting work in this show, but the opening was so jam packed I only got the briefest of looks at everything. So I’ll have to get back in for a quieter look another time. A few pieces particularly caught my eye though - Gerry Wedd’s crown of roses (image above), Julia Moretti's giant rosary made from uncooked pasta shells, Madeline Brown’s beautifully “tatted” rosary, and local ceramicist Ky Curran’s Madonna tile installation…definitely worth a look if you're in the neighbourhood.