Hello Dolly

I am thinking of doing a regular update of Dolly, the mannequin from our local charity shop. I know it has very little to do with ceramics, but funny little things like this inspire me, and just give me a good laugh! And I think that's really important! The manager is very excited about the prospect of having his weekly efforts documented, and is putting in a whole lot of effort, as is evidenced by this latest get up! I have never seen a blanket look quite so elegant! And that headpiece...

And seeing as today is Friday the 13th, Dolly has taken a little walk over to the dark side....

Darth Vader Dolly! The headset even has a little electric box attached to it that booms out Darth's voice! I'm thinking of buying it. One can never have too many outfits in the dress-up box. And it's all for a good cause...

The Quivering

There is a wonderful piece of theatre starting next week in Melbourne that all of you Melbournians really should get along to. It's moving, it's funny, it's thought provoking, it raises all kinds of philosophical questions, it will have you laughing your head off and crying your eyes out all at the same time. But best of all...you'll get to see my incredibly talented sister doing her thing! (Oh shameless plug!)

"The Quivering is an irreverent meditation on death and beyond.

Three co(s)mic waitresses - Shazza the dazzler, more-Maureen-more, and Singrid the poet - inhabit what appears to be an outback Australian roadhouse. Alongside this world exists another level, a limbo, where bodies are washed, moved and mourned, where souls are sung onward. As sirens serving up a seductive, monstrous and blissful hypothesis on dying, these waitresses create a lament for the inevitable journey we all must make."

It's on at La Mama Theatre (Carlton Courthouse) from July 11-22nd. More info here! Now go!

Love a list

I’m a chronic list writer. Every morning I start my day by writing a list. Unfinished things from the previous day get moved to the new list each morning. I’m one of those people. There is nothing more satisfying to me than scrawling big lines through items on my list (hanging out with me is always a lot of fun), and today is one of those special days when I get to scrawl a few of those nice big lines. Public art install finally finished yesterday (I sank into a relief and exhaustion induced coma about 4pm yesterday afternoon, not to stir until 7am this morning), a big box of work sent off to a beautiful shop in the USA called FINCH, and some (very late) orders and commissions posted off.

The down side is that as a result of this recent frenzy of activity my house and my studio look like they’ve been hit by a bomb - bubble wrap, boxes, stray pieces of work strewn everywhere. In the midst of the mayhem of the last few weeks I also decided it would be a good time to start sanding back my bedroom floor....which happens to be above my studio. Mmmmm. I really thought that one through...nice veil of sawdust… slipped down through the cracks… covering my entire studio….I'm just full of good ideas! So today is all about spring cleaning. It’s a daunting thought, but I know the satisfaction of having things “organised” again will be soooooo worth it....

Introducing Dolly

Every morning we wander down to our local coffee shop for a kickstart coffee before heading off (well, home, in my case) to our respective jobs. Next door to the coffee shop is the Life Line charity store, and the manager takes great pride in his weekly window displays. They have become somewhat of a local attraction and Dolly, the mannequin, is a bit of local celebrity. We look forward to the weekly changes with such anticipation! Last week the manager was looking particularly happy with himself when we arrived for our morning coffee. I glanced next door and immediately understood why. He had really outdone himself with this little get up!

Marks and Gardner Exhibition

Kenji, Pru and I bundled up our work this morning and sent it off to Marks and Gardner Gallery up on Mt. Tambourine for the Ceramics and Glass 2007 exhibition, opening this weekend. Other exhibitors include Amanda Joe-Assare, Joanna Bone, Mollie Bosworth, Chris Pantano, Michaela Klockner, Jonathon Westacott and Cathy Keys. It should be a lovely show, and is a good excuse to get out of town and spend a day on the mountain! It opens July 8th (this Sunday) at 3pm. We'll all be there with bells - and a warm cardy - on. It gets cold up on that there mountain!

(Not quite) done and dusted

Well not much blogging going on of late. It’s been a hectic few weeks with lots of deadlines looming all at once and a few new (super exciting) projects getting underway. I feel like a whirling dervish as I spin around in circles flying from one thing to the next. But me no complain. It’s all good. In fact, I kind of thrive on that frenetic pace, and twiddle my thumbs and don’t know what to do with myself when it eases.

Friday was install day for my public art project. The never ending public art project. It only took me a few months to actually make the work, but the whole process has been unbelievably long - over 18 months from start to finish - with all the hoops that need to be jumped through, the meetings, the approvals, the coordination between construction companies, government, architects, artists…and my commission was a fairly straight forward, small, simple one compared to most!

The project itself is part of the Art Built-In Policy we have here in QLD, where 2% of the cost of public buildings is spent on artworks. We like that policy! I have had a fairly nice, easy introduction into this world, with this first commission being part of a series of “integrated showcases” (architect speak for a display case built into the wall!) throughout the fancy new Southbank Institute of Technology complex . But the whole process has given me a great insight into what else is possible in this area, and I’d love to get into something a little juicier next time.

I was looking forward to having the whole thing done and dusted on Friday. But after 5 hours of installing (most of which involved sitting around waiting on a plastic covered chair wearing a hard hat in a half-finished library with a freezing wind blowing a gale through an unfinished doorway) a little oversight in the cleaning of the roof of the showcase was discovered…as the last piece of glass was being fitted, as we all had one foot out the door ready to go to the pub, down came a shower of sawdust all over my work. Not a good look! So back I go tomorrow to take it all out, wait for it to be cleaned properly and all the glass to be re-installed, and put it back in again! But I didn’t really mind. I had such a fun day sitting in there just listening to the hilarious banter between all the tradies. What a bunch of sweet lovely hilarious characters they were. I kept getting Village People songs stuck in my head! And watching their reaction to my work was an added bonus - these big macho fellas going all wide-eyed at my fragile little pieces, working so softly and carefully around them!

So, almost done and dusted....and not a minute too soon i tell ya.

(personally I think this would make for a more interesting art work....)

R.I.P

I was giving the house a bit of a spruce up, as I am want to do on a Sunday morning, vacuuming away and humming along merrily, when a quick flick of the vaccuum cleaner cord brought my world crashing down on me…literally. It was like one of those slow motion shots in a movie as, realising the cord had somehow flicked up onto the bench and knocked my all-time favourite teapot off, I threw myself across the room to try and save it. I sailed through the air - it was one of those super human moves people do in times of emergency, desperation and stress - and did manage to grasp the bottom of it, but alas, not in time to save it from smashing into a million (well ok,about 9) pieces on the floor.

Devastated is an understatement. I stood there for about 20 seconds in absolute stunned disbelief… and then burst into tears! Yes, I know that might seem a bit pathetic, a bit melodramatic even, over a teapot, but I have had that teapot for SIXTEEN years - I don’t think I’ve owned anything for 16 years! And it was given to me by two of my oldest and dearest friends. It was the first thing that piqued my interest in ceramics, the first ceramic object I ever really loved and cherished. And it’s not even about the teapot necessarily. Sure, it’s a nice enough teapot, but it’s about all the stories embedded in it. That teapot has moved with me from country to country, house to house, studio to studio, and I have drunk tea with just about every person I know from that teapot! Working with ceramics you have to develop a fairly philosophical approach to breakages. They’re inevitable, and I don’t normally get too upset about it. But not this one…this one was baaaaad. I was meant to grow old with this teapot. A sad and sorry Sunday it was indeed...

THE teapot, on the left...back in the glory days...

Lost and Found

After my talk at GoMA yesterday (which despite my nerves and jitters went really well and was actually lots of fun!), I got chatting to a man who had bought a few of my pieces. A lover and collector of glass and ceramics I was excited to discover that he owned my all time favourite piece!! I made this little tape measure vessel (pictured above, about 4cm high) a couple of years ago and it still remains one of my favs. I like the way the imagery works with the form, how it wraps around the cylindrical shape. But there is also an element of nostalgia for me in this piece, memories of being a teenager in the 80s learning how to sew drop waist dresses (oh yes, I was very fashionable) with my mum, most of them ending up half-finished, shoved in my sewing box never to be seen again! My mum remembers me having a very short attention span for sewing and she can’t quite believe I have the patience to make the work I make now! But even though I may not be very good at sewing and I may not have a lot of patience for it, I absolutely love it. I’m a total sucker for anything to do with textiles and this is reflected in a lot of my work. I use old sewing patterns as imagery on some of my pieces, pattern wheels to make lines of perforations in my vessels and wall pieces, old crochet patterns and knitting instructions.

Visually I’m really drawn to the dotted lines, the dashes, the sweeping arcs and angles in sewing patterns, the tea colour of the old tracing paper they were printed on. It all reminds me of hot summers in our beautiful old house in Murwillumbah sewing with my mum. Although if you ask her I don’t think she’d remember it quite as fondly….a tantrum throwing huffy little teenager frustrated by how DUMB the sewing machine was!! Anyway, I’ve been hankering lately to do something with textiles. I’m very curious to see if my attention span and patience threshold has increased from when I was 14. I’ll keep you posted!

After the talk we went and had a (much needed) drink and I was talking to some other artists about how nice it is to know where your work ends up, and to meet the people who own it. I keep track of certain pieces, mostly my exhibition works, but I had somehow lost track of that little tape measure vessel and had actually wondered a few times where it got to! And now I know! So you can all stop worrying...

A bit of housekeeping

Just a reminder that I'm going to be speaking at the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) this Sunday at 1.30pm so if anyone is in the Brisvegas area feel free to come along for a chat! More details here and here.

We've also just posted some brand new Little People over at Sandwich Mountain.

Cloth and Wrap

Last night Kenji, Pru and I went to listen to Julie Patterson of CLOTH (images above) give an artist talk in at Deka Furniture . Great talk, great work and a great find in a rubbish bin on the way home...we love bubble wrap we do! So all in all a very successful mission!

The more the merrier!

Well the list of ceramic artists blogging is slowly but surely getting longer and longer. The more the merrier I say, especially when they are of the ilk of Carol Epp and Pru Morrison! And yes, perhaps I am just a little biased because they are both very good friends of mine, but I like to think that I can still make objective judgements regardless of that! These two covergirls wow me with their work, their ideas and their sense of humour and compassion. All rolled up together it makes for two super artists whose brand new blogs will no doubt be good reading! Make sure you go and visit and pop them on your little lists of bumper blogs.

Little Uns

I made these little uns last year. I was inspired after a trip to Korea and thought I’d experiment with a technique called inlay, which I had never done much of. And might not do much of again! Talk about time consuming and finicky! Each little dot was drilled in and then filled with a different coloured clay. It then gets scraped back and sanded before being fired. A glutton for punishment I was (still am?). Each little cup is just 4cm high. I held on to these. There's very few pieces of my work i absolutely refuse to part with. But there was just something about these ones that i really loved. So now they all live on a sunny little window ledge in my sleepout.

Blooming beautiful!

It is the most beautiful day here today! Cool, crisp, clear and so so blue....with just a little splash of red!

ETSY

Well it's been a while in the coming but I have finally started my ETSY shop. Gosh, I'm feeling so high-tec! And after setting it up I don't care if I never sit in front of a computer again for as long as I live!! I tell ya, it seems so long since I've had a day in the studio, a full, uninterrupted day of making....it's been a good learning curve though, muddling my way through all of this, so I won't complain! I am only selling a few ranges of work through the etsy shop, but feel free to email me if you're interested in any other pieces that aren't up there.

So time to go and clear my head and have a wander in the rain...yes, RAIN!!! I couldn't quite believe it when I heard it hammering down on my roof last night! Yippee!! My garden is so so so so happy! For those of you who aren't aware, we're in the middle of a serious drought here in Brisbane...

You can visit my ETSY shop HERE!

Meet the Makers

“The Gallery formerly known as Craft QLD” is having another Meet the Artists session Friday June 1 from 10:30am till 12pm. Local ceramicist Cathy Keys is going to be speaking about her work, along with jewellers Roz Fenson and Emily Burke, and knitter/quilter/cushion maker/jeweller Leigh Hamilton Park. Worth dropping in if you're around.

(Cathy’s work pictured above)

Shakin in my boots

Yesterday was a big day for me. After I shook off my nasty dream of broken pots, I headed off to GOMA to have a cup of tea and a chat and a wander around the gallery with someone whose work I really admire and who has had a huge influence on me, particularly when I first started out in ceramics. I have wanted to meet her for so long, so it was pretty special to spend the afternoon sipping coffee with Gwyn Hanssen Pigott (image above and below left) chatting about this and that and having a fine old dandy time!

The reason we hooked up is that I’ve been asked by GOMA to give a talk on some work from their collection. Yep, can you hear my knees knocking from wherever you are?? Yikes, nothing like a bit of public speaking to make me wanna go and hurl in the nearest bathroom! But nerves, random muscle spasms and inferiority complexes aside, the gallery is running a great program where artists are invited to choose works from the collection to speak about - a favourite work, how they might have influenced their practice etc - the idea being that people might get a different insight or a new perspective on the works on display or in the collection. So of course, there was never any question as to whose work I would choose. But I’m also going to be talking about another amazing work (conveniently located right next to Gwyn’s) by LIU Xiao Xian (brother of Ah) called The Way We Eat, (image below) a series of 33 incredible porcelain cutlery pieces. Yep, right up my alley!

Gwyn was very gracious and generous to come in and talk to me about the piece I’ve chosen. I'm feeling pretty inspired after that. The talk is on Sunday June 17th at 1:30pm. Up on the second floor of GOMA. And I’m totally cool about it……absolutely relaxed…..can’t wait……only 22 more sleeps…..

In my dreams

When I woke up this morning a huge wave of relief washed over me as I realised it had only been a dream! More like a nightmare actually. I’ve been working on a public art project for the last 18 months and it’s due to be installed sometime over the next couple of months. The closer the installation gets, the more horrible the dreams I have….smashed pieces, no time to make any more, angry architects….you get the idea! Last night I dreamed that I picked up one of the pieces only to see that it had a big crack down the side. And then, when I went to pick up the others I suddenly realised I had forgotten to fire them and they just crumbled in my hands! My 18 months of work was a pile of shards! It’s been a great project to work on - a huge long learning curve – but I will be very VERY glad when it is finally installed and out of my studio!!

Here’s a (teeny tiny barely visible) little sneak peak of the work (above), which is being permanently installed at the new Southbank Institute of TAFE Library. It’s made up of 15 very fine black and white porcelain vessels. The imagery on them is drawn from/inspired by the history of the site and the surrounding environment. One of my favourite pieces is decorated with an excerpt from an old syllabus from the 1920s. The subject was called “housewifery” and taught students “how to clean a living room, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen”. It also taught them how to remove stains – specifically tea, coffee, fruit, mildew and ink, how to dispose of waste, economy in furnishing (I need that course), starching “D’Oyleys” and most importantly - how to crimp and goffer…..huh??

Sandwich Mountain

The Little People's blog is up and running! Check it out here.

Good Friday

slipcast wall pieces 6cm x 5cm and 6cm x 6cm

A nice start to the day today. Not only did I wake to the sound of pattering rain (it's been so long!), but also to a lovely kiln load of work, full of blue bits! And a few new little people too! But I won't be posting those just yet....we've had so much response to those funny little folk that we've decided to start a blog totally devoted to them and their adventures. They've been getting out and about a lot lately too so lots of new pics. Should be up and running soon.

slipcast porcelain with decals 9cm x 5cm

So being a rainy day I guess I don't have to work huh??! That sounds perfectly reasonable to me! It's been so long since we've had a day like this that I think I will have to honour it by reading novels and drinking cups of tea all day! I have been a very lazy and distracted camper this last week (very unlike me), so I figure I'll just go with it and my concentration and focus will come back soon enough. It's this working from home business you see....as much as I am enjoying it there are so many distractions around every corner! Have a nice weekend!

Oh, and here's a good read: Diana Fayt's recent post over at One Black Bird. Here here I say Diana!

Come on Skip!

A few years ago, when I was doing a little sojourn at the Canberra School of Art, I made a cup for a Canadian friend of mine, a white coffee mug with a little kangaroo bouncing around the bottom of it and the words “come on skip” (a quote from the iconic tv show Skippy) printed next to it. It was a joke really, a kitsch little Australiana souvenir for her, but over the years that little kangaroo just keeps popping up in my work. Recently I’ve been developing this series of porcelain wall pieces (above). You can keep adding pieces, and make him jump longer and higher. Go skip go! And it seems I’m not the only one with a kangaroo preoccupation. I keep stumbling across wonderful kangaroo-inspired work lately. While browsing the Craft Victoria website a few months ago I found this very stylish interpretation of the kangaroo by Melbourne jeweller Anna Davern. Florence Forrest (below right) has also been making some lovely creatures based on the kangaroo (see more of them here). And Pru Morrison (below left) whipped up a few nice kanga pieces recently for her show at Ray Hughes Gallery . A kanga here and a kanga there.

So I’m thinking skip's got a message for me.....

What’s that skip?

There is just something about the iconic, nostalgic, kitsch Australian-ness of the kangaroo that I love. Now if you (Australians?) want a little trip down memory lane check this out…

The Infinity Room

Ever wondered what it would be like to stand amongst the stars? Well I’ve just discovered a little room where you can at least get a taste of what it might be like. I’ve mentioned the Asia Pacific Triennial a number of times, and it’s drawing to a close soon, so I went back recently to have a final look and discovered I had missed this little gem of an artwork by Yayoi Kusama called Soul Under the Moon (2002). From the outside it looks like a tiny nondescript room with a door. You open the door and walk in to this dark, quiet, never ending reflection of fluorescent balls and mirrors and water – an infinity room! If you happen to get a few minutes to yourself in there (lots of patience required for this, and don’t even bother on a weekend) it is like you are standing amongst the stars – so dark, so quiet, so disorienting, so amazing! A photo just can’t do it justice so you’ll just have to trust me on this one.

Anish Kapoor’s sculptures are fun too. The ambiguity of them, of the spaces within them (or not). It’s more fun looking at the people looking at the work trying to work out what it is they are actually looking at (or not)!

Paul Wood

Paul Wood is a Melbourne based artist who makes wonderful sculptures of found objects. I first met Paul and saw his work at the 3rd World Ceramic Biennale in South Korea a few years ago. I loved his piece Maeshi kromb and mash where after having dinner with his family he picked up the dishrack filled with all the washed up dinner dishes, saucepans and cutlery etc and popped it in the kiln lock stock and barrel and fired it until everything melted and slumped and warped. His exhibition Domestic Slump (above) at Craft Victoria in 2005 was a group of precarious towers of similarly slumped domestic objects, and his latest show (image below) has just opened at the La Trobe University Visual Arts Centre , and looks like a cracker! Someone has been busy raiding the bathroom section of op shops! You can read a bit more about the work here. It's on until May 28. Wish I could go....i like Victoria....and it must be so lovely and chilly there right now....

Tagged again

Righty ho then, I've been a little tardy in my response to my tagging by Florence at Windbag and Thunder - but being the first day of the week (I know its Tuesday but twas a public holiday here yesterday) I'm going through all the things I didn't get around to last week and crossing them off my list before I start on this week's things. Yes, very organised of me. So, seven random facts it is then...

1. I was born in Papua New Guinea and spent the first 2 years of my life in Port Moresby.

2. If I wasn't a ceramic artist I would like to be a carpenter or woodworker and design and make furniture. I still just might.

3. One of my favourite songs ever is Going Up the Country by Canned Heat. I can't help it but that song just makes me smile and involuntarily bounce up and down.

4. I’m a morning person. Which can sometimes be very annoying for those who aren’t......

5. I prefer winter over summer (at least in the part of the world where I live)

6. I recently joined a gym for the first time in my life (except for a surreal and fleeting period when I lived in Japan, but I won't count that). For the last week I have barely been able to walk or raise my arms above my shoulders without wincing. Apparently its good for me.

7. Like Florence, I too am a fan of vegemite on toast. I may not eat it every single morning like she does, but guaranteed the second I set foot out of Australia all I want is vegemite on toast. I don't travel without it. It's a comfort thing. Mmmmm...I'm gonna eat it for breakfast this morning......

(I just found a great You Tube clip here of Canned Heat performing Going Up The Country live at Woodstock. Its not the greatest sound, but the clip is hilarious! Lots of naked hippies. Be warned.)

4th World Ceramic Biennale

The 4th World Ceramic Biennale opened in South Korea this week. I had some work from my Precious Little series (left) selected for it. All these pieces are really really tiny, between 2-4cm tall, and were an absolute and utter nightmare to make!

The Korean Biennale is a bit of a must-see for ceramic lovers. It’s like Disneyland for ceramicists! Apart from the amazing museums and mind-blowing exhibitions (truly some of the best ceramics I have ever seen in my whole life anywhere ever) there are also workshops, juicy conferences with speakers from all over the world, local ceramic markets, rock bands, glamorous women jumping out of life-sized ceramic jars, blindfolded potters throwing pots on the wheel in front of amazed crowds and all kinds of weird, wild and wonderful things going on! I spent 10 days at the 3rd Biennale and wish I was there again for this one! I came home with a suitcase full of beautiful ceramics, all wrapped up in lovely Korean textiles (which I had to buy to wrap the ceramics in my suitcase to stop them from breaking you see)! While there was a lot of fun and games there was also a serious side to it as well - lots of debate and discussion about the state of the ceramic arts, a really big focus on education and engaging the public in the medium, and an awful lot of quality contemporary international and Korean ceramics. It rocked my world! Unfortunately I didn’t take out the US$50,000 prize money. Yeah, a bit of a bummer that. There goes my early retirement plan….(and yes, that is me above pretending to be a Korean potter - how could I resist having a go at that!!!)