The Journal of Australian Ceramics
VOL 57 NO 3 | NOVEMBER 2018 | $16
www.australianceramics.com
9 771449 275007
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VOL 57 NO 3 | NOVEMBER 2018 | $16
ISSN 1449-275X
EXPLORING SURFACE | JACKIE MASTERS | NIKKI DOWDELL AVI AMESBURY | NERIKOMI | CERAMICS ELDERS
THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS VOL 57 NO 3 | NOVEMBER 2018 | $16
Publication dates 1 April, 17 July, 20 November
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FOCUS & PUBLICATION DATES DEADLINE: 2 MONTHS PRIOR TO PUBLICATION 2019 VOL 58 NO 1 1 April 2019 Australian Ceramics Triennale & Manifest VOL 58 NO 2 17 July 2019 Focus: Sculpture VOL 58 NO 3 20 November 2019 Focus: Porcelain
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CONTENT
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18
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UPFRONT
FOCUS: EXPLORING SURFACE
PEOPLE & PLACES
6 Editorial
20 Jackie Masters
62 Ceramics Elders by Geoff Cripspin
7 Obituaries
26 Kevin Boyd
12 Shards
30 Helen Fuller and Nerida Bell
14 In the Spotlight 38 On Iconoplastic by Richard Morecroft 40 Shino by Geoff Thomas and Su Hanna 42 Slip Inlay by Bronwyn Kemp
74 Avi Amesbury by Peter Haynes 80 In the Storeroom – MAG&M’s Ceramics Collection by Katherine Roberts 82 Flower and Vessel by Naoko Yehenara 84 CLAD by Damon Moon
46 Surface by Nikki Dowdell 51 Luke O’Connor by Jan Guy 57 Ernabella Arts
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ART & OBJECTS
MATERIALS & PROCESS
COMMUNITY & CONVERSATION
90 Confluence Pippin Drysdale and Warrick Palmateer by Chris Malcolm
104 Nerikomi by Anne Mossman
116 The Australian Ceramics Triennale 2019
95 Vipoo Srivilasa’s fellowship by Emily Wubben 98 Fluid State by Andrea Vinkovic
20 Exploring Surface 1 @noticingceramics 122 Australian Ceramics Open Studios 2018 124 Low Fire Surfaces Inspire School Students by Steve Collins
102 Potters Marks 128 Around Australia
Front cover: Simone Fraser, Font Series II dry glaze, midfired, h.51cm, w.22cm Photo: Greg Piper; Iconoplastic, Sabbia Gallery, 27 June – 21 July 2018
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FOCUS: EXPLORING SURFACE
An Obsession Comes to the Surface by Jackie Masters Each time I enter my studio I encounter the delight of shelves overflowing with glaze tests. With their myriad of colours and textures, these varying shapes and forms provide infinite inspiration and maybe also reveal a little of my obsession with glaze-making. They are there to be touched, inspected and investigated. Each one holds clues that will guide me when I sit down, facing the quiet nakedness of a bisque-fired pot. My journey of exploration started in 1994. Pottery called to me; it sang a wonderful tune of a soft malleable substance called clay, of slip-covered hands and of the sheer and simple delight of creation. It was on my first encounter with the pottery wheel, at a night class at Perth Studio Potters, that I simply fell in love. A few weeks later, I had purchased my own wheel and was determined to learn all that I could about what pottery had to offer. Books were my go-to resource. The internet wasn’t something I had access to at that time, but lucky for me my local library had a substantial pottery section. The shelves held titles like Daniel Rhodes’ Clay and Glazes for the Potter and of course the great Handbook for Australian Potters by Janet DeBoos. It was however the book Lucie Rie by Tony Birks that really introduced me to form and how glazes can enhance a pot, even though it didn’t offer any recipes or technical guidance to speak of. It was this book, filled with delightful images of pots with a multitude of different forms, that made me wonder if I would ever be able to make anything so beautiful. Within those pages were several pots adorned with volcanic glazes that really inspired me. The textures were enchanting, the glazes different and modern. Researching Lucie Rie’s work led me to discover the work of Gertrud and Otto Natzler, who also produced contemporary, volcanic glazed work. Otto was something of a glaze alchemist and he would use his glazes to decorate the pots thrown by his wife Gertrud. I look back on these studio potters and wonder where we would be without them. I certainly would not have begun my journey in search of the perfect volcanic glaze without their influence. The critical element of volcanic glazes is silicon carbide. It is a sooty, black substance that is used in a great deal of industrial techniques, including car brakes and clutches and ceramic plates in bullet-proof vests. So, really, it was quite surprising to find that it could also be used in glazes to produce a wonderful bubbly volcanic effect. My experimentation began with a 200g bag purchased from the local pottery supply store. My research suggested I only needed around 3% of silicon carbide to create an effect, so I based my first tests on this theory. The results showed some success, but also several failures.
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Left: Jackie Masters Charred Eucalypt, 2018 wheelthrown Southern Ice porcelain, 1280– 1300°C, Orton cone 10/11, h.7cm w.16cm Below: Jackie Masters Gum Tree, 2018 wheelthrown, Southern Ice porcelain 1280–1300°C, Orton cone 10/11, h.8cm w.15.5cm Photos: artist
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Clay ready for collection Photo: Ernabella Arts
Sharing our Manta (colour) Story by Lynnette Lewis and Mel George Established in 1948, Ernabella Arts is Australia’s oldest, continuously running Indigenous Art Centre. Ernabella Arts is located within Pukatja Community, at the eastern end of the Musgrave Ranges in the far north west of South Australia. The artists of Ernabella depict their Tjukurp, a (sacred stories of country and dreaming) by carving into the surface of clay. This is reminiscent of traditional milpatjunanyi which translates as “telling stories in the sand”. Customarily, this happened in the evenings before people settled down for sleep. Anangu would sit around a fire and make marks with a stick or their finger in the ground and talk story. A question we are often asked at Ernabella Arts is if we use locally sourced clay. Ernabella uses mostly commercial clays and colours, however we do source colours for terra sigillata and slips, and would like to share our manta (colour) story, written in Pitjantjara with English translations below. Panya nganana nyanganyi manta palunya ruuta tjaitingka. Panya kapingku puyira wiyaringkunyangka piltiriringkunyangka. Panya manta pilti mantjini. Mutuka tyres nyantja wiyatja panya manta katutja. Nyara palulanguru pakitiangka tjunanyi. We can find clay slip after the rain – but long enough after rain for the clay to start drying. The best place is along the edge of the road. To scoop up the manta we go to an area not ruined by car tyres. We scoop up the top layer, then put in the bucket.
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FOCUS: EXPLORING SURFACE
Rachael Lionel with a good piece of shiny clay, 2018 Photo: Ernabella Arts
Rachael-tu manta panya paluya kanyiningi. Wiru mulapa irnyaningi. Manta nyanga paluru wirunya panya potteryku kala wirunya. Nganana kala nyanga paluru pots-paku. Rachael is holding a piece of manta. It is always shiny like that if it is good. This is good manta for pottery because it is a good colour. We use it to colour our pots.
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ART & OBJECTS
Confluence Showcasing the collaboration between master ceramicists Pippin Drysdale and Warrick Palmateer by Chris Malcolm, Curator and Director, John Curtin Gallery The John Curtin Gallery has brought master ceramicists Pippin Drysdale and Warrick Palmateer together for an exhibition of breathtaking new forms that reflect Australia’s inimitable natural landscape. Confluence explores their unique collaboration and common strengths but also celebrates their differences. Both artists have created major new works especially for this exhibition, contrasting their own distinctive aesthetic language and passion for different aspects of Australia’s natural environment. One profoundly important quality that both artists share and which radiates with hypnotic authority from their finished work, is their obsessive pursuit of excellence. Drysdale and Palmateer have each refined their skills relentlessly and their extraordinary capacity to collaborate in a seamless and respectful, almost symbiotic, way to produce Drysdale’s work with such consistently inventive and striking forms over more than twenty-six years, is almost miraculous. In a chance encounter in the late 1980s, Pippin Drysdale was struck by the extraordinary throwing skills of a young potter by the name of Warrick Palmateer. Drysdale readily acknowledges how privileged she is that Palmateer has been so loyally committed to their collaborative enterprise over such a sustained period. The fact that Palmateer has thrown all Drysdale’s vessels over the past twenty-six years is testament to just how quickly their deep bond was forged, and how vitally
Exhibition view of Confluence, 2018, John Curtin Gallery, work by Pippin Drysdale (foreground), Warrick Palmateer (background) Photo: Robert Frith Acorn
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MATERIALS & PROCESS
THE NERIKOMI METHOD The following steps illustrate a method of generating coloured patterns.
1 Stains are weighed to provide a predictable colour result. This is a light green mix made from yellow and blue. Most of my colour palettes are chosen from a library of test tiles that I have developed over time.
2 The measured stain is put into a well of clay and mixed in with a few drops of water. The stain is mixed in until all the water is taken up and it is no longer sticky.
3 The mixture is then blended by rolling between my hands until seamlessly incorporated. If large batches of coloured clay are required, a blender may be used.
4 The colours used for this vessel are shown underneath the fired test tiles. The primary colour ratios and saturation levels are noted on each test tile. As can be seen, fired colours are usually deeper than the raw coloured clay.
5 I roll out pieces of coloured clay, and then paint them with a layer of black slip. Thin black lines defining colour changes are a signature of my work. The black slip is made using the same base clay and water. For black slip, a stain saturation level of a minimum of 15% stain to clay is used.
6 A stack is built from layers of rolled out coloured clay, including uncoloured white clay. The layers vary in thickness to produce a more varied (and interesting) pattern.
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