Articles - 29 June 2006
Impact
There have been many jibes at, and jokes about Canberra - "city without a heart", "dead after ten", and "all the roads go in circles - you are always lost!" Now whilst the roads still go in circles, and visitors are still 'always lost' if they travel by car, Canberra now has a secret - it has become a lively, diverse, cosmopolitan city about which political commentator Mungo McCallum said "I wouldn't want to visit - but I'd really like to live there ..." And that's the secret - you really need to have a friend who lives in Canberra to tap into the arts scene that exists behind all those splendid national institutions - the National Gallery of Australia, the Museum of Australia, the National Library ... and all the others.
This survey exhibition of the ceramics of the Canberra region, Impact, is just such a friend - here is your introduction to the wealth of high quality ceramics that is produced in the national capital.
It would be easy to say that the Australian National University School of Art is the engine of excellence in this area, and it is true that the majority of artists represented in the exhibition have either been students or faculty (or both) at the institution. But there are other absolutely crucial elements. The first is Hiroe Swen, a Kyoto artist who settled near Queanbeyan in the sixties and established with her graphic designer husband Cornel, a studio - Pastoral Gallery. Swen brought with her standards of artistic practice and a professionalism that was unknown in the Australian mainstream ceramic world. She taught a small group of women - the Bimbimbi group for many years, and later was a long serving lecturer and then Visiting Fellow at the School of Art.
Another important factor was the establishment of the Canberra Potters' Society (CPS) in the early 1970's. This was always a strong association, but it has reached a new level of activity since it took over the management of Watson Arts Centre after that site was vacated by CraftACT several years ago. The Society runs regular classes, holds specialist workshops, offers access to kilns, mounts regular exhibitions of its members' work and most importantly provides strong links between the community, the university and practitioners. Most artists in this exhibition are members of the Society.
There are many other factors in the development and more importantly - maintenance - of a strong ceramics presence in the ACT. There was the establishment of Strathnairn Arts - a not for profit access centre for ceramics and other art forms (with a residency program, studios and various facilities including wood and salt kilns) that was initially a redevelopment of a moribund 'arts farm' in association with the ANU ceramic workshop and the ACT government. There is the extraordinarily active craftsACT and there are the individual enterprises such as Jane Crick's regular Hot to Pot workshops and the public ones such as the hosting of national ceramic conferences and symposia (8th National Ceramics Conference, Gundaroo Woodfire 2005 and the Australian woodfire survey 2005 exhibition).
Work produced in the Canberra area is as varied as ceramics can be and every mode of practice can be seen.
In this exhibition there is the strong woodfired work of Ian Jones, Yuri Weidenhofer, Daniel Lafferty and Ian Hodgson, all except Jones - graduates of the School. Ian Jones apprenticed with highly respected potter Doug Alexander in the days of traineeships, and is largely self taught having built the first 'dragon' kiln in Australia. If the woodfiring seems a bit of a boys' club - Moraig McKenna (who works with Jones) breaks the rule. Her porcelain woodfired work is singular in its pleasurable use, and has luscious wet glazed surfaces. Gail Nichols - whilst not a wood firer, appropriates the aesthetics of that technology in her soda glazed work. Her teaching has been influential in stimulating interest in this technique whilst encouraging individual exploration. The very different soda glaze styles of Maryke Henderson and Robyn Gough testify to this.
Domestic practice is well represented with the porcelain 'sets' of Janet DeBoos and Kaye Pemberton's soft, inviting teaware, the cheeky nested bowls of Cathy Franzi (current president of the CPS), and the Japanese influenced plates of Sally Howes. Industrial processes are utilised in the modernist designer ware of Anna Gianakis and the quirky and ambiguous vessels of Amanda Schultz. Jiang Yanze's sculptural assemblages are composed of her own factory produced teapot designs which reference Chinese traditional rituals and their figurative representation- particularly the act of giving.
This act is also an impetus for the vigorously worked platters of Sarah Rice- but she is concerned with the 'giving' of knowledge and the systems that govern what we 'know' rather than any gustatory offering. Sarit Cohen's platters also offer statements- but personal ones that spring from her Jewish faith.
The idea of the vessel as a carrier of meaning is also present in Lia Tajcnar's extraordinary medusa-like structures. The furious 'paddling' below the surface is the knowledge and process that is present in every apparently simple, but thoughtfully produced pot and that thoughtfully produced pot is the essence of Hiroe Swen's work - formal, beautifully finished pieces that are a testament to her long experience and great mastery of the medium. Other sculptural vessel makers are Debra Boyd Goggin with her impossibly graceful families of pots covered with silky, flesh-like glazes that provide readings of a personal landscape and Jacqueline Lewis with strong, expressive workings of the clay surface. This expressiveness of surface is also seen in the rich crusts that protect the sensuous, wet glazed interiors of Chris Harman's strange, pod-like containers.
More overtly sculptural artists are represented by Alan Watt (foundation Head of Ceramics and Visiting Fellow at ANU) with sensitive black fired pieces that talk of the relationship between man and the land and Madeleine Meyer and Bev Hogg who both work figuratively - whether expressed in form, or used in decoration. For Hogg, her concerns are the environment, for Meyer it is the personal and decorative. John Heaney also offers sculptural work that is contemplative, reflecting his understandings of Zen Buddhism.
Watt's interest in the intersection of the cultivated and 'natural' landscapes has resonance in the work of Anita McIntyre (president of Strathnairn Arts) who uses the outback landscape as a vehicle for personal narratives, and Avi Amesbury's more intimate porcelain readings of place and environment that utilise the clays of the region.
Patsy Hely also explores a personal view of nature - creating big stories out of small things in a suburban environment that is typically Canberran. The local bird life, which she insinuates it into the domestic arena is a preoccupation of Hely's.
This response to the immediate qualities of the natural environment also is the impetus for Joanne's Searle's slip pictures that show a kind of 'leaf litter' imagery - which although similar in technique, is vastly different to Maiju Altpere-Woodhead's work which is governed not by the apparent chaos of nature but by the imperative of formal patterning and surface.
If it is the surface that is primary for these two artists, this is also the case in the work of Jane Crick who is known for her cracked and crawled glazes, Chris Harford (Resident and Workshop Coordinator of the CPS) with his splendid control of beautiful glazes on generous functional forms and Greg Daly who has long been synonymous with glaze mastery.
Impact by no means covers all ceramic practice in the ACT, but it does give a clue to the diversity, the excellence and the enthusiasm that characterises use of the medium there at all levels. In this exhibition are winners of major international prizes, there are artists who are represented in all the major public collections in Australia, and three who are members of the International Academy of Ceramics. There are artists who work with the disabled, who work with children, and others who have worked tirelessly to promote the ceramics of the region. There are also artists for whom this is a passionate, but part time, practice. These latter represent the thousands of others who are not in the exhibition - those for whom ceramics is an engrossing hobby and those who are still taking classes. Those who buy and enjoy ceramics, and those who give ceramics as presents. For the ceramic life of a region cannot be served by one group alone - we are all necessary, and the vigour of ACT ceramics is ultimately determined by the nourishment at all levels.
Janet DeBoos
July 2006
Janet DeBoos is Head of Ceramics at the School of Art, The Australian National Univervity. DeBoos has written two best selling books on glazes, Glazes for Australian Potters and More Glazes for Australian Potters, co-authored Handbook for Australian Potters, and has written numerous articles for Australian and international ceramics journals on ceramic art practice, education and glaze technology.
Impact is showing at Watling Galleries in Brisbane from 8 to 18 July, 2006. The exhibition is presented by the Canberra Potters' Society Inc. in association with Verge: 11th National Ceramic Conference.
