Interview with Les Blakebrough

What have been some of the highlights in your career as an artist and a teacher?

Being offered an apprenticeship at Sturt Pottery, Mittagong after studies at the National Art School. Later becoming the Sturt Pottery Manager in 1960. Time in Japan with Takeichi Kawai in Kyoto was a watershed in my career development.

Returning to Australia and becoming the Director at Sturt. It opened up many opportunities at Sturt and importantly playing a role in the overall development of Craft in Australia through involvement in setting up the Craft Council and the broad reach of influence that had. Closer to home Sue Blakebrough gave me my dearest daughter Cybelle, and eighteen months later my son Ben, these were milestones. Many prominent overseas craftspeople were invited to teach and work at Sturt and those initiatives also had long-term effects in many craft areas. An instance was asking Ragnar Hansen the Gold and Silversmith from Norway to come to work at Sturt. His later influence as a teacher continues to expand throughout that community to day. There were many more and I count myself lucky to have been in a position to use initiative to those ends.

Finally moving to Hobart in '73 to teach and later carry out research all helped in personal development as well as allowing an expanded role in a range of opportunities to enhance the field of craft in Australia. Five years as a member of the Craft Board of the Australia Council. A gold medal win at Faenza Italy, and lattely to establish the Ceramic Research Unit at the University of Tasmania.

How do you see the future of Australian ceramics and craft practice generally?

I am not good at projections for ceramics, and part of that stems from the disastrous decisions across the country to close down ceramics courses in Art Schools everywhere. It has been disappointing to watch. I can only assume it is a cyclical situation and at some time those decisions will be reversed or the field will re invent itself in other forms.

More generally the crafts seem to get more and more sophisticated, and the best in every field becomes very exciting.

You were an important figure in the establishment of Sturt Workshops in Mittagong NSW. How do you see the role of such access spaces for craft people in the future?

It may come to pass that such places will be the only way to train in the conventional way craftspeople have always learnt. The development of skills, understanding raw materials, knowing about process are all a long-term investment and essential for good craftsmanship to flourish.

The research you have undertaken in the development of Southern Ice porcelain has had a major influence on your work. How would you describe your creative response to the Australian landscape through your work and use of materials?

The research of Southern Ice porcelain was a long and time-consuming process. Chasing a vision in the minds eye can be elusive. However we did make some good decisions and eventually had a very beautiful material on our hands. Quite special, very translucent, very white, and easy to work with, in fact unlike any other porcelain clay from anywhere. The support given by the Australian Research Council and the University of Tasmania made that work possible. It now exports all over the world.

The personal benefit has enabled me to create a new body of work, to look more closely at the world I see around me and let my environment play a role in what I make. Mountains and rivers, the Tasmanian bush, the Southern Ocean and beyond, my grandchildren too have an input.

If you were to relive your artistic career over again, what would you do differently and why?

I don't think I would change a thing. I have had a very fortunate life. I lived through a great renaissance in the Australian Craft Movement and had a role in that. It lasted for three decades. All that and more.

What is your next project?

I hope I remain healthy and that I can look forward to another period of work. Difficult to predict where it will go although new and unexplored areas are emerging all the time. Trying to deal with the loss of my partner Sally Sorell has been difficult although in dealing with that some work that has used text from her journal from the last year of her life has emerged that I am pleased to have dealt with. What that will lead to is unknown territory, but the prospect is exciting in itself. Somehow in dealing with tough and emotional things seems to have given me a kind of new freedom.

Craft Australia interviews Les Blakebrough
September 2006

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