The Journal of Australian Ceramics
VOL 60 NO 2 | JULY 2021 | $20
australianceramics.com
9 771449 275007
VOL 60 NO 2 | JULY 2021 | $20
ISSN 1449-275X 02
FOCUS: CERAMICS IS LOCAL STEVE WILLIAMS DOOMADGEE POTTERS NATIONAL EDUCATION SURVEY OBVARA: JACQUI SOSNOWSKI
CALLING FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST
Open your studio doors and invite your community in for a sneak peek of your creative space. Give a demo, sell your work, share a cuppa! Whether you have a newly established or well-known studio, if you are an inner-city group, a regional potter or in the suburbs, everyone is welcome to apply. TACA will provide guidance about how to prepare your studio, regional/state maps for you to distribute, your own listing on australianceramicscommunity.com, along with state and national promotion of the event. To participate, you (or your incorporated group) must be a member of The Australian Ceramics Association, and have liability insurance cover.
CALLING FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST ABSOLUTE DEADLINE TO BE ON YOUR REGIONAL OR STATE ACOS MAP FRIDAY 3 SEPTEMBER 2021
ABSOLUTE DEADLINE TO BE ON YOUR ACOS MAP FRIDAY 3 SEPTEMBER 2021
$50 individual TACA member* * For incorporated group TACA members, please see the ACOS EOI form or call TACA office, 1300 720 124. For all details, please go to australianceramicscommunity.com/submit/ The Australian Ceramics Association, T: 1300 720 124; 0419 250 282 E: mail@australianceramics.com; australianceramics.com
The Australian Ceramics Association (TACA) works within a generous grass-roots ceramics community, drawing our membership from all states and territories. Foremost to our Strategic Plan are our members, the aim being to provide services for the benefit of their ceramics practice and to create connections between them and the broader arts community. Membership is open to everyone interested in Australian ceramics including professional ceramicists and potters, hobbyists, teachers, students, curators, collectors, writers and enthusiasts.
We value and support those who provide services and opportunities to ceramics practitioners, such as suppliers, competition organisers, artist residencies, workshops, classes and tertiary ceramics education. We advocate for and on behalf of our members, and our community, to strengthen ceramics in Australia. We reach out to the broader public to inspire, inform and connect people with Australian ceramics. We work to spread the excitement and passion of ceramics throughout Australia so that everyone has the opportunity to recognise, experience and value ceramics in their daily lives.
We aim to connect with established ceramics groups such as societies, clubs, study groups and associations and to those who exhibit ceramics such as galleries, artist-run spaces, retail shops, online stores and public institutions.
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T: +61 (0)2 9698 0230 (outside Australia) T: 1300 720 124 E: mail@australianceramics.com australianceramics.com
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The Journal of Australian Ceramics (JAC) is published by The Australian Ceramics Association with the aim being to feature and promote professional ceramic artists at all levels of experience, to support writers in the field of ceramics, and to serve as an historical record of Australian ceramics. We seek to inspire, educate, address current issues, expose readers to new points of view and help readers to feel connected to the broader ceramics community. The JAC draws on written content from ceramicists and potters, professional writers, curators, educators, gallery owners, collectors and reviewers. The JAC is published three times per year – 1 April, 17 July and 20 November. PRINT SUBSCRIPTIONS Australia (inc.GST) 3 issues AU $60 6 issues AU $115 New Zealand 3 issues AU $105 6 issues AU $200 Overseas 3 issues AU $138 6 issues AU $270 SUBSCRIBE HERE australianceramics.com DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTIONS shop.exacteditions.com/au/thejournal-of-australian-ceramics
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VOL 60 No 3 20 November 2021 CERAMICS IS COLLECTED
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Publisher The Australian Ceramics Association
ABN 14 001 535 502 ISSN 1449-275X
Editor Vicki Grima,
OAM
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CONTENTS
6
18
54
UPFRONT
FOCUS: CERAMICS IS LOCAL
PEOPLE & PLACES
6 Editorial
56 Robyn Phelan in Quarantine
7 Arthur and Carol Rosser
20 Steve Williams in conversation with Tess Kerbel
12 In The Spotlight
28 Nien Schwarz
16 Shards
32 Claire Ellis 37 111 Days by Bridget Mason 40 Doomadgee Potters by Heather Law
60 Potters Croft by Penny Smith
ANNUAL EDUCATION SURVEY
46 Foreign Land by Kate Jones
67 Tracie Bertram on ceramics in Newcastle
53 Sassy Park
71 Clay Play by Jan Downes 76 In The (Education) Spotlight 78 National Education Pictorial Survey
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108
120
ART & OBJECTS
MATERIALS & PROCESS
COMMUNITY & CONVERSATION
94 Budjari Mudjingaal by Emily Rolfe
110 Judith Roberts
122 @LOCAL
114 The Potter’s Pledge
124 ANU MakerSpace, ACT
116 Mastering Obvara by Jacqui Sosnowski
126 Scott Duncan, NSW
98 Ceramix by Neha Kale 103 Continuity, Collaboration and Recomposition Robin Gurr talks with Belinda Pigott
128 Sally Krutsch, NT 118 The Obvara Process by Jacqui Sosnowski
130 Leigh Fish, QLD 132 Kerryn Levy, SA
108 Potters Marks 134 Christie Lange, TAS 136 Ann Ferguson by Ilka White, VIC 138 Alina Kar, WA
Front cover: Steve Williams, platters, 2021 wheelthrown, ash and shino glazes, twice-fired 1330ºC, each plate approx. diam.36cm Back cover: View to Steve Williams’ kiln shed with unpacked pieces, 2021; photos: Tess Kerbel
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UPFRONT
EDITORIAL
Vicki with Suzanne Davey at Eramboo, Raw Clay Lab open weekend, June 2021
I write this as Sydney enters lockdown. As we know, lockdown restricts where we can physically be, forces us to stay at home, or perhaps stay where we are. This sense of staying local seems particularly poignant as I consider this issue of The JAC. We hear how Steve Williams’ kiln is built with local Lincoln bricks then skinned up with local mud. Claire Ellis uses an abundant material available locally, plastic waste, to make unique lids and inserts for her clay vessels. Whoever thought precious and plastic would appear in the same sentence? And Robyn Phelan shares how she recently made work in hotel quarantine – a local art residency with a difference. Stories about the importance and richness of local communities appear here too. The community of Doomadgee in NW Queensland realised a few years back that the lack of a thriving arts scene and outlets for creativity were major contributors to their loss of culture. This has been turned around through the vision of Yolonde Entsch and Felicity Bury, the support of Doomadgee Aboriginal Shire Council, and the efforts of many hundreds of Doomadgee residents who have taken part in workshops at the Doomadgee Potters Studio over the past two years. The Empowering Women Empowering Communities (EWEC) project also includes an outreach program which has also been instrumental in reaching those who can’t make it to the studio. Our annual National Education Pictorial Survey shines a light on the tertiary education sector, recording an abundance of work done during the difficult 2020 year. The availability and cost of tertiary ceramics education and training continues to be an area of concern for The Australian Ceramics Association (TACA) and our members. The recurring cuts to TAFEs and universities continue to have a huge impact on the availability of quality ceramics education throughout Australia. The private sector is flourishing and growing in new and impressive ways, and TACA is wholeheartedly in support. Of concern however is that some of those running community classes have only basic levels of skill (having perhaps only done a beginner’s class themselves) and minimal awareness of safety issues. Please be in touch with TACA if you have thoughts on this issue. And finally, the price of The Journal of Australian Ceramics (JAC) is now $20 (up from $16), with a subsequent increase in a JAC subscription or TACA membership. The last price increase for The JAC was 14 years ago in 2007. In 2022 we will be celebrating 60 years of our print publication with a touring exhibition, SIXTY, in partnership with the Australian Design Centre (ADC). The exhibition will launch at ADC in Sydney in March 2022 before heading off on a four-year tour, starting with the Araluen Arts Centre in Alice Springs to coincide with the Australian Ceramics Triennale. Your ongoing support of The JAC print publication has made this special celebration possible. Support local. Stay well.
Vicki Grima, Editor 6 | THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS | JULY 2021
TRIBUTE
The pool on the Rosser property near Eungella, Queensland, 2018
CUPS OF TEA AND MISTY MOUNTAINS A DAUGHTER’S TRIBUTE TO HER PARENTS, WOODFIRE POTTERS ARTHUR AND CAROL ROSSER by Zoe Judge The heartbreaking events of Arthur’s sudden and unexpected passing last year (1 August 2020), and Carol’s need to go into full-time care soon afterwards, have meant the end of an era for this husband-and-wife team who have contributed so much to Australian and international ceramics. Arthur is survived by wife Carol, son Matthew, and daughter Zoe.
When I reflect on the life of my parents, who for the majority of their working life, were potters, I am greatly inspired by the life they created. They followed their passion to become full-time potters, while at the same time creating a lifestyle that was carefully considered and full of meaning to them both. It was full of challenges and financial hardship, and often physically demanding, but also with deep personal rewards of contentment and satisfaction of a good life, truly lived.
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UPFRONT
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
1 Kirsten Coelho, Ithaca, 2020, 39 parts, porcelain satin white glaze; photo: courtesy artist and Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney, and Philip Bacon Galleries Brisbane 2 Kirsten Coelho, The Return, 2021, installation view UNSW Galleries, photo: Zan Wimberley
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FOCUS: CERAMICS IS LOCAL
MOSTLY USEFUL … AND A CONVERSATION WITH STEVE WILLIAMS by Tess Kerbel “My approach where forms are not concentric and mechanical and tight is a true response to the environment,” says Steve Williams, woodfire potter. “Nature gives you a licence to just relax and trust and engage in a playful way.” At his place, Dollys Flat Studio, I find bush poetry – wheelthrown, woodfired, ash-glazed – scattered in the grass like sheets of bark, like fallen stones, like rocks gathering rain; vessels arranged by type on the rise to the kiln, in a circle I can stand within, become part of. In some of the bowls, the Chun glaze has run off the rim, forming droplets that fall up. The kiln stands on the highest rise of the clearing, with a view over Bobin Valley to Mount Coxcomb, two thirds sky. It’s surrounded by more than 100 acres of woodland, mostly white mahogany and spotted gum. Steve and Deb only fire when it rains and alert the neighbours and RFS in advance; anxiety is high on the Mid-North Coast in the year following the Black Summer Bushfires, although this area, in the rolling country just north of Wingham, is untouched. I go up to talk about the Fire Revival workshops they’ve been running with bushfire-affected families, supported by Manning Valley Neighbourhood Services – reframing fire as a force that creates – and Steve’s upcoming show, Mostly Useful and a Conversation with a Brick, a collaboration with printmaker-educator Ali Haigh. Also, to witness a woodfiring, my first. I go up nervous. I get inspired. Steve stretches our imaginations. I’ve seen him making pots where instead of cutting and lifting it off, he gets his fingers and slides them underneath, and they dig into the pot, and he leaves behind the hands, the making of hands, the mark of the maker. There’s this freedom lift in the pieces, just from the way he handles the clay, and they become pretty organic, you know, he loves the nature around him, and that flows with them … His energy is what appears in the pots. You can see the movement. Chester Nealie
In 1991, when Steve was head teacher at TAFE Wagga Wagga and heard that Chester had migrated from New Zealand, he invited him in as a guest lecturer. They were a force. For the Trans-Tasman Clay Challenge, they rolled the longest coil of clay on the footpath outside ABC Studio and assembled a teapot in competition. “His teaching was stunning,” Chester says. “He gives back enormously.”
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Steve Williams, cup, 2021 wheelthrown, ash glaze 1300ºC, h.12cm, diam.9cm Photo: Tess Kerbel
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FOCUS: CERAMICS IS LOCAL
DOOMADGEE POTTERS by Heather Law The First Peoples of Doomadgee in remote North-West Queensland have had a close cultural connection with goannas (also known as monitor lizards) for thousands of years. Not a totem animal, goanna tails have long been a staple food source, with the local Ganggalida language having nine different words for the various species found in the region. Today, goanna may not be on the menu as often for the 1200 or so residents of Doomadgee, but this hardy and adaptable reptile is again playing a prominent role in the community. Recently, visitors arriving at Doomadgee Airport have been surprised by a colourful, vibrant ‘wave’ of goanna-shaped ceramic tiles that flows across the otherwise stark airport walls. The Goanna Wave continues around the community – at the entrance to the Dumaji Children and Family Centre (Save the Children), at Ngooderi House Aged Care, and at the Doomadgee Potters Studio. This unique public art installation is due to the vision of two women, Yolonde Entsch and Felicity Bury, the support of Doomadgee Aboriginal Shire Council, and the efforts of many hundreds of Doomadgee residents who have taken part in workshops at the Doomadgee Potters Studio over the past two years. Yolonde, a Cairns-based social entrepreneur and founder of Empowering Women Empowering Communities (EWEC), began working in Doomadgee in February 2017. She soon discovered that community members were very worried about the loss of their culture. People felt that the lack of a thriving arts scene and outlets for creativity were major contributors. Learning that Doomadgee once had a pottery studio run by locals, Yolonde was inspired to run a pilot program in early 2018 – and it was an outstanding success. In four and a half days, 120 ceramic pieces were handmade and glazed by more than 100 people. Almost 10 per cent of the Doomadgee population participated in a class – grandmothers with their grandchildren, men, women, youth and children. Armed with this evidence and a letter of support signed by 78 local Aboriginal people, EWEC secured Australian Government ‘Indigenous Arts and Languages Program’ funding to establish a pottery studio in Doomadgee. To make the program possible, Yolonde partnered with passionate potter Felicity, owner of Cairns’ Kettle Black Pottery, and in 2019 the pair set up the Doomadgee Potters Studio. “In the early days, the kiln could hardly keep up with the volume of items created because everybody in the community wanted to try this new activity,” Felicity recalls. Needing a project that would focus people’s creative energies and better utilise resources, Felicity was inspired by a painting of a goanna that she saw at Doomadgee High School.
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Various artists Goanna Wave tiles, 2021 handbuilt Feeneys terracotta white slip, Cesco underglazes, 1100ºC each h.21cm, w.16cm, d.1cm Photo: Felicity Bury
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MATERIALS & PROCESS
MASTERING OBVARA by Jacqui Sosnowski Maybe it’s my Eastern European heritage, or maybe it’s just because I am an impatient potter, but I was immediately drawn to the 12th Century Baltic technique of obvara when I first read about it online. The fact that this surface decoration uses only organic, natural ingredients and gives an incredibly matte, modern, ‘folksy’ look also attracted me. I was tired of the glassy and shiny surfaces one gets with silica glazes. No-one knows the exact origin story of obvara, however the process most likely developed when a pot sitting near a fire rolled into a bucket of slops. Obvara literally means ‘boiled’ in Russian. The flour in the brew burns into the surface of the clay forming permanent markings which are reminiscent of ferns, lichen, coral and wood. If you are really lucky, and the kiln gods are smiling, you might even get the highly prized ‘obvara eyes’ which are thought to ward off evil spirits. The process is immediate, exciting and addictive! It is perfect for workshops and school ceramics and has many advantages over the more traditional forms of raku firing. On my quest to master the obvara process, my partner and I have developed our own ‘pocket rocket’ kiln which is perfectly suited to both obvara and raku. But, keep in mind, an ordinary raku kiln also does the trick. Jacqui Sosnowski Waterfall, 2020, vase white raku, obvara-fired (dipped and poured) h.23.5cm, w.10cm Photo: Nelly le Comte
I love the fact that the obvara finish is not entirely controllable, although after nearly four years of research and experimentation I am getting a handle on it. It’s precisely this serendipity that attracts me … why keep doing something once you know exactly how it’s going to turn out?
Jacqui Sosnowski has an Advanced Diploma in Ceramics and is a qualified and experienced secondary and tertiary teacher. She welcomes enquiries about facilitating obvara workshops. The custom-designed raku kiln is available for sale. Enquiries welcome. www.sosceramics.com Instagram @jacquisos
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CERAMICS CULTURE CONFERENCE & COUNTRY Apmere Mparntwe, The Australian Ceramics Triennale 2022 will be on Arrernte country and present Australia’s most exciting ceramics conversations in a program of lectures, demonstrations, exhibitions, forums, workshops, cultural tours and marketplaces.
In 2022 Apmere Mparntwe takes place from 19 to 22 July in Alice Springs, and includes satellite events both before and after, the conference. Ampere Mparntwe will be hosted by Central Craft in conjunction with The Australian Ceramics Association. The conference hub is located at the Araluen Cultural Precinct, Alice Springs.
BOOK NOW: www.australianceramicstriennale.com.au Program out soon. Central Craft acknowledge the traditional lands of Mparntwe/Alice Springs in which we live, work and engage. We pay respects to the custodians, the Arrernte people, and recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and culture.
The Journal of Australian Ceramics
VOL 60 NO 2 | JULY 2021 | $20
australianceramics.com
9 771449 275007
VOL 60 NO 2 | JULY 2021 | $20
ISSN 1449-275X 02
FOCUS: CERAMICS IS LOCAL STEVE WILLIAMS DOOMADGEE POTTERS NATIONAL EDUCATION SURVEY OBVARA: JACQUI SOSNOWSKI