At journeys end

This work was the title piece for my show - Keep Calm and Carry On, a slogan from a British World War II poster. It was inspired by the stories of some of the women in my family and their experiences of war time (mostly the Second World War). One aspect of the stories that really interested me was what it was like for the women who stayed home, the women who had to carry on their daily lives while their husbands and sons and fathers and brothers were fighting. I was drawn into this subject by a show I was involved in a couple of years ago and despite my best efforts was not able to let it lie. It just kept coming back to me. I could never attempt to take on this subject in any universal sense, but found myself drawn into it in the context of my own family story. One way I explored this was by taking objects and symbols related to these stories about the war and recasting them in (or having them cut from) old, and sometimes iconic, domestic objects, some of which belonged to members of my family. It was a fascinating and confronting and puzzling and often unresolvable process that had some unexpected resonances and conflicts for me in the context of todays political climate.

I always get really nervous before an exhibition when people want to know what my work is about, or you're asked to write an artist statement or press release. I usually don't know what to say and get myself all tongue tied and ramble on a bit incoherently! Its not until its up and I've had some time to reflect on it and get a bit of distance from it that I start to work out where I'm coming from. So i'm still pondering and digesting all of this. Now that I'm feeling remotely human again. Geez, its been a big 4 months!! Oh to sleeeeeeeeep! For more than 5 hours at a stretch!

Narratives at Sabbia

Now here's a show not to be missed. A sweeeeeeeeet line up of some of Australia's best (and some of my favourite) ceramic artists - Julie Bartholomew, Janet DeBoos, Honor Freeman, Patsy Hely, Ruth McMillan and Angela Valmanesh. The show Narratives runs from August 7th - September 6th at Sabbia Gallery, and there's an opening event and floor talk by some of the artists on August the 8th. More info here. Should be a ripper!

Gun Love 2

A few more images of the work in my show. This piece above almost didn't make it in. Something about it just wasn't sitting right with me and I umm'd and ah'd for weeks about whether to include it. I set it up in my lounge room and walked past it every day, and every time I walked past it I changed my mind about it! But after some convincing from the gallery and a few other folks, in it went. And it went down a treat! A big thank you to bum crane for her help and patience in setting this work up. She can roll a mean ball of museum wax i tell ya!

The guns above have been cut from old plates using a water jet process. I'm a tad enamoured by this technique at the moment and have spent the last six months op-shopping like a mad woman and have accrued quite the collection of plates and saucers just awaiting the chop!

Coo Coo

Yep, more pigeons. This is the last of them! All of these were cut from small saucers and I've used both the front and the back of them. I love the back of old plates, the markings, the stamps, the symbols, the text and fonts they use. They're often a lot more interesting than the front of the plates! One of the pigeons has an extract from my grandfather's war service record decal'd onto it, and another a map of PNG where he served in the Second World War.

Coo coo......

Keep Calm and Carry On

Well FINALLY it's here - this show I've been rabbiting on about for months now it seems! The invites are out, the catalogue is ready to go, and most of the works are packed up ready for set-up next week. Time to down a few glasses of much needed champagne - it's been a while between drinks I tell ya! Opening night is Saturday 26th July 5-7pm at Jan Manton Art and the show runs till August 16th. Susan Lincoln (image below) is also exhibiting so it should be a good old shindig! Hope to see some of you there!

Susan Lincoln, The Immaculate Conception, 30 x 22 x 18cm

Art Monthly

Well I'm sure most of you (in Australia at least) are aware of the recent hullaballoo over the latest issue of Art Monthly. But just a few pages on from THAT front cover and THOSE articles is an article by Louise Martin-Chew on me and the work in my upcoming show!

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.

Another sneak peak

Here’s a little sneak peak of some more work in my upcoming show. Yes folks, more pigeons. The text on the vase is from a little gem of a book I found one day whilst randomly wandering around the state library. It’s called “The Flower Garden in Australia” (a gardening book for ladies and amateurs) written by a Mrs Rolf Boldrewood back in the 1890s. It is a delightful little book and the way she writes about the flowers is both beautiful and amusing. This vase is about the Camelia, and I’m currently finishing off another one on Hydrangeas. I’ve always loved hydrangeas. They’re so old fashioned, and they remind me of those funny little swimming caps women used to wear back in the ‘olden days’!

Fun and Games

Well it’s been fun and games around here lately I tell ya!! What a wonderful whirlwind life has become! In between being a mum (it still seems quite surreal!) I have managed a few little bursts in the studio, finishing off work for my solo show and tidying up some other odds and ends. It’s been quite an interesting experience having to work in small fits and bursts. Gone is the luxury of 5 (and sometimes 7) long days a week playing in the studio! So when those rare moments happen and I can steal away for a couple of hours I just turn into a whirling blur…faster than a speeding bullet! Its amazing how quickly you can work when you have to. And how much time I used to spend faffing around! There'll be no faffing for a while now. I’m faff-free.

In Vogue (living)

A fancy little page in the latest Vogue Living - Margie Fraser has written a lovely article on both mine and Andrea Higgin's work. We've both been dabbling with crystal and glass platters of late - Andrea photographing it and me casting it. Andrea makes beautiful images of domestic objects called photograms - no camera involved, just the object, a dark room and sensitised paper. We're about to embark on a collaborative piece which I am very excited about - crystal guns and photograms...can't WAIT to see the results. Hopefully not too far away.

This Coat of Arms piece featured in the article is part of my upcoming solo show Keep Calm and Carry On (as in the World War 2 poster) in July at Jan Manton Art.

A very nice cup of tea

A cup of tea never tasted so good....from my new Kirsten Coelho cup (and bowl). Thank you Kirsten!

8th International Ceramics Competition, Mino, Japan

I’ve just had some work selected for the 8th International Ceramics Competition in Mino, Japan. I have been meaning to enter work in that show for a while now, and kept missing the deadlines. This year I made it with just a couple of hours to spare (thank god for online applications!). I’ve had 2 of my translucent bowls selected for the ceramic art section, one with a recipe for my nana’s pumpkin, pineapple and prune cake on it - I know, sounds kind of gross doesn’t it??! What was it with that generation and prunes? - the other a letter written by my grandmother to my father relaying a story about my uncle almost shooting himself in the foot when he was a kid (image above). Its my favourite letter of my grandmother’s – it just oozes with the characteristic sense of humour and mischief and larrikinism of that side of the family, as well as their knack for story telling. I also had a group of 4 of my patchwork beakers cast in Southern Ice porcelain (below) selected for the ceramic design section. All packed up and posted off today.

In Situ

A few install shots of two of my works in the Australian Ceramic Stories exhibition, compliments of the documenter extraordinaire Vipoo! You can see a clip of a walk-thru of the whole show at Vipoo's Blog.

My latest work....

Australian Ceramic Stories Opening

Just a little reminder that the Australian Ceramic Stories exhibition that I am a part of opens this Friday (April 11th ) at the Western Plains Cultural Centre in Dubbo. The forum is on Saturday 12th of April and is choc full of interesting speakers such as Canadian-based ceramicist and author Matthius Ostermann, Janet Mansfield, Janet DeBoos, Julia Jones (the curator), and Megan Martin (curator of the Caroline Simpson Library and Research Collection of the Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales, which just so happens to be my ALL TIME FAVOURITE Library in which I could happily lose myself - and have done - for days on end)! Some of the exhibiting artists are also speaking – Gerry Wedd, Vipoo Srivilasa, Gudrun Klix and Louise Boscacci. Should be a fine shindig if you can get yourself out to Dubbo.

Vipoo Srivilasa

Vipoo Srivilasa is a Thai-born ceramicist who is now based in Melbourne. He draws on his Thai heritage and his Australian experiences to create work that explores the commonalities of the two cultures. I’m a fan. If you’re in Melbourne you can catch his upcoming show For the FUTURE at Uber Gallery. This new work has evolved from Vipoo’s concern for the coral reefs of both Australia and Thailand and the damage that is being done to them as a result of greed and over consumption. Despite the serious subject matter it looks like Vipoo has brought his usual sense of humour to this work!! The show runs from April 30 - June 1. Vipoo also has a very comprehensive website with lots of great images of his work, as well as a new blog!

Diem Chau

I came across the work of Diem Chau (via bloesem) today. This is a woman after my own heart, combining ceramics and textiles the way she does - embroidering on to ceramic plates and cups. I'm really not quite sure how she does it, but its working for me! You can check out more of her work here.

Race against time

It's a race against time in my studio at the moment - but I think I'm winning! I've just put the final finishing touches on the Ipswich Houses Project and it is all ready to rock! I haven't had a chance to photograph it properly yet though, just a few dodgy home shots, but will post images of the final work once it's all been photographed (by someone who knows what they're doing!!) In the meantime, here's a few little sneak peaks (above).

One of my favourite pieces is a vessel that has an excerpt from the memoirs of Tom Welsby, the son of the original owner and builder of the house. His memoirs begin in 1863 with a vivid (and sensitive) recollection of the local indigenous people, who would congregate for days at a time on a field out the front of the house (now the Ipswich Grammar School). As a four year old child the scenes left a vivid and lasting impression on him. I was riveted by his recollections of life as a young boy in Ipswich in the 1860s, and pored over them for hours, all beautifully handwritten in a big old book in the collection of the Royal Historical Society of QLD.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how the other artists involved in this project - jewellers, photographers, painters - have responded to their houses. A little bit of a wait though - the works won't be exhibited until 2009!

Kenji Uranishi at Spiral

If you happen to be living in or passing through Tokyo in the next couple of weeks (and I know some of you are!) make sure you hunt down Kenji Uranishi’s show at Spiral Market from March 31st to April 13th. It is sure to be a beautiful exhibition - they always are! And if you can read Japanese there’s a little bit more info here!

Two Fat Ladies

Our latest batch of little people have just come out of the kiln. Looks like they’ve been getting up to a bit of mischief while our backs were turned huh!! Actually, the one on the right looks remarkably like me at the moment, with only a couple of weeks to go before having my very own (real life) little person! Yikes! So it might go a little quiet on the blogging front for a while....!!

You can check out a few recent updates of the Little People's adventures here.

Juicy Debate

I jumped on the computer this morning to have a quick look at some blogs, and two and a half hours later I am still glued to the screen by a discussion I found (via Extreme Craft) on alternative craft and the indie craft movement. It all began with a lecture presented by Bruce Metcalfe and Andrew Wagner (editor-in-chief of American Craft Magazine) at the recent SNAG conference in America. A post on this blog led to a much larger discussion, which has since been picked up and fuelled further by Extreme Craft and American Craft , with all kinds of interesting folks weighing in on the discussion. It’s choc-full of interesting observations, arguments and debates - my brain is a-whizzing!

Sew Sophisticated!

My friend Alex (maker of my all time favourite cups) just sent me the best little package from the U.S. of A containing (among other things) this hilarious picture from an old womens magazine...

I bet that little cardigan she’s knitting will smell real nice when she’s done smoking those ciggies!! And don’t you think she looks more like she should be out milking a cow rather than knitting cardigans?? And this little picture below was on the back in the “Pick of the month in smart, artistic needlework” section….this smart little collar and cuff set is really something, and that woman…so sophisticated!!

White Pigeons

A couple of weeks ago I posted a picture of a white porcelain pigeon I made (and here's another little one above). There’s quite a lot of pigeons, in various forms, in this upcoming show of mine. My nana’s second husband was a pigeon fancier, and during the Second World War he served in New Guinea in the Australian Corps of Signals Pigeon Service looking after the messenger pigeons. There are some incredible stories surrounding the feats of these little birds in World War Two, some of them even being awarded medals of bravery after surviving against incredible odds (exhaustion, tropical storms, being shot down by snipers, attacks by hawks and falcons) to deliver messages that sometimes resulted in saving the lives of hundreds of people. Clever little birds.

As kids we used to climb up the wonky narrow steps to his huge pigeon loft and peer in at the cooing (and stinky) birds, and a shelf in my nana's lounge room was packed high with shiny golden pigeon racing trophies that he had won over the years! We always thought his obsession with them was just a little bit strange, but the more I read about these little critters, the more I can understand his fascination!

Kamenendo and I were having a cuppa at Bum Crane’s house a couple of weeks ago when in flew this little beauty.

I’ve never seen a white pigeon before, and it was kind of spooky she flew in just after I’d made one. I’m thinking I might make a big porcelain pot of gold next…you never know what might turn up!!

Australian Ceramic Stories

I’ve just sent off some work to the upcoming exhibition Australian Ceramic Stories that is being held at the Western Plains Cultural Centre (Dubbo Regional Gallery). That’s a nice big red line through my things-to-do list. I’m really excited about being part of this show, not only because of the amazing line up of ceramic artists I’m exhibiting with, but because the whole theme of the show is right up my alley. The curatorial premise was inspired by Matthius Ostermann’s book “The Ceramic Narrative” and looks at the ways in which Australian ceramic artists are using clay to tell their stories. Love a good yarn I do! And Australians really do have such a distinctive and unique way of story telling. Here’s the fancy official blurb:

Australian Ceramic Stories explores the use of narrative in contemporary Australian ceramics. Surveying the work of artists from across the country, the exhibition will include many new works by some of Australia’s most highly regarded ceramic artists. Dubbo Regional Gallery - The Armati Bequest is staging the exhibition from 5 April - 18 May 2008 at Western Plains Cultural Centre. Curated by Dr Julia Jones, the exhibition brings together the work of artists from all parts of Australia, offering a unique view of contemporary ceramic practice. The curatorial concept is inspired by international ceramicist Matthias Ostermann’s research which resulted in the book The Ceramic Narrative in 2006. The exhibition will explore how “stories” are told in Australian ceramics, highlighting the various ways that clay is used to express them. All of the ceramicists tell stories about Australia in ways that stretch the narrative capabilities of clay, and draw our attention to the versatility of the medium. The exhibition will seek to engage with contemporary themes and ideas in the broader visual arts and ceramic practices and examine the various ways in which narrative is a crucial element in their work.

Participating artists are Stephen Benwell, Louise Boscacci, Kris Coad, Patrick Collins, Bern Emmerichs, Gudrun Klix, Pip McManus, Fleur Schell, Vipoo Srivilasa, Thanakupi, Gerry Wedd, and me! There's also a great forum being held in conjunction with the show, and you can read all about that here.

(images above: From left - Gerry Wedd, Pip McManus, Mel Robson)