conceptual concerns and studio practices

alright - i can't put it off forever - here's the fun bit where i get to tell you WHY?????

what a bloody good question. dirt, dust, long hours, then more hours, breakages, tears, poverty, hair-pulling, nail-biting and did i mention the long hours?

why in god's name would anyone work with clay? surely it is the most contrary and least glamorous of all artistic mediums - hah! and therein lies (at least part of) the answer - contrary and unglamorous - that's me all over!

but seriously, i've just come back to this post (maybe i can't put it off forever but i managed to for a little while longer) from an afternoon spent decorating (yes another eleventh hour task for assessment TOMORROW!!) and i've been having the best time - good light, the place to myself, (just me and radio national) painting / problem solving, in the zone and my goodness where did those four hours go?? - i can't think of a time when four hours in a classroom (or at any of my other places of work) passed in such an enjoyable fashion.

so is that what it's all about then? the purely self-indulgent, sensory pleasure of working alone making pretty things.

yeah.

nah.

sure, i love that bit, but is it enough, really?
[sounds awfully masturbatory to me].

goddamit - i wish it were enough - i'd start keeping sensible hours, stop breaking things and heaven forbid maybe even earn a bit of money - hah!

but i can't. i want more. i want to be moved. i want to make art with a capital A -
and i don't think that's as simple as giving a pot a title and wacking it on a plinth!

the trouble is, i'm not entirely sure what it does mean...
looking to the example of the art world 'proper' offers little in the way of guidance - if i, as a vaguely literate member of the art appreciating audience am left cold by / completely alienated from a lot of contemporary art practice, then what in god's name is it doing for mr and mrs punter on the street?

and what about those pots on plinths? whilst some (wood-fired) pots i've seen lately would bring tears to my eyes if i tried to drink from them, i question their capacity to move / enlighten / inspire...

phew - big statements - bound to get me lynched - and what have i got to back them up?

not a whole hell of a lot really - hah!
but then that's the fun of it hey? make the big call and see who takes the bait...

but you still haven't answered the question dee,
why???

the short answer, because i love ceramics - and more broadly, i love the crafts.
(and no, i'm not going to get into the whole art / craft argument here - it's big and worthy but i'm already doing quite a lovely job of talking myself into a knot thankyou very much)

they're familiar - we're accustomed to touching and holding them - they sit comfortably in our everyday / domestic lives and they're not (immediately) intimidating or threatening. what better way is there to confront / enrol / enrage / delight / provoke / captivate a punter, than to catch them while their defences are down?

more than this though, i believe the power of crafts is that we are so accustomed to relating to one another with / through / around them.

in academic art speak it's relational aesthetics - and from the little bit of reading that i've done - that's where it's at! i want my (capital A) art to reach out and grab people - by the heart, the throat, the balls - (whichever bit's relevant) and drag them into a conversation, with me, with ideas, with each other and with the world at large.

yeah yeah!

so, what does all of this mean in terms of my studio practice?

i guess it means going where the ideas lead.
i work primarily with clay - it's history, it's nature and the culture of ceramics inform every aspect of my work

and then there's all the other stuff, the contextualising information...

think of Mistress Huacca - without the performance and the tent, her ceramic good luck charms would never have been elevated (in the hearts and minds of the punters) to the status of fetiche.

maybe it's about taking the ideas where they need to go.
sound / photography / performance - i have quite a weakness for performance in particular - (which is quite perverse when i think about it, being the person who will never tell a joke for the dread of having all eyes upon her) - like ceramics, it's hard to avoid, sucks you in before it slaps you in the face!

hah!

Mistress Huacca

the mistress and her spruiker
photograph: Peter Holderness
on the left is the promotional flyer for the show

This was absolutely the best fun ever. I was invited to show my fetiches as part of the annual Feast Festival (Adelaide's answer to Mardi Gras) and i came up with the sideshow alley tent as a way of generating a suitably mystical aura around my little porcelain good luck charms. it really worked! About 120 happy punters emerged from their audience with the mistress clutching a fetiche that was just exactly right for them - lots of them had even been brought to tears by the experience (and no - she's not that kind of mistress!)

inside the tent with Mistress Huacca

photograph: Peter Holderness

i'll be back to tell you more but at the moment must forge on - conscious of that eleventh hour tick tick ticking!

lamb dressed as mutton

Before beating a hasty retreat from the studio i managed (via the usual eleventh hour hysteria and crazy all-nighters) to get up my first ever solo show for the art lounge in coogee.

Opening night was tremendously good fun - great food, loads of beer and champagne, dress ups, door prizes, tears and a truck load of red dots!

no questions asked, these guys took home the medals for best dressed lamb!

oh and here's some pictures of the work...

pearls before chickens

2004
handbuilt porcelain w/ inlay decoration and underglaze
set of three plates
20cm, 30cm and 50cm diameter

1997 - Leaving Bris Vegas
2004
porcelain w/ black engobe and sgraffito decoration
set of six plates
25cm diameter each

what now then?

2004
porcelain w/ inlay decoration
50cm diameter

futch

still working on the presumption of interest on your behalf...

futch is my business name - christened me by my friends who were ever disinclined to believe my claims of butchness.

Having finally extricated myself from the institution, i signed up for a NEIS course (diary free dole money for a year, woo-hoo!) and with the help of a (then) very good friend, set up a truly fabulous studio.

ok - so it doesn't look like much from the outside.

when we started it didn't look like much on the inside either!

Several rubbish skips, a truckload of stuff to reverse garbage, a couple of months of back-breaking, DIRTY work


and a host of tradesmen later, we were in business.

(as soon as i get my scanner working i'll drop a picture in here to show you how truly fabulous it was.)

But how does that saying go? about all good things coming to an end...
This is Sydney after all, and it was only a matter of time before the developers moved in.
Did they come before or after we started throwing pots at each other?

Either way, it was time for me to go.

c.v.

ok. staying focused - assessment task - eleventh hour etc etc
here's my curriculum vitae for your edification / enjoyment

education
2006 – present
Bachelor of Visual Arts
University of Sydney
Sydney College of the Arts

1999 – 2001
Master of Art and Design Education
University of New South Wales
College of Fine Arts

2000
Bachelor of Fine Arts – (incomplete)
University of New South Wales
College of Fine Arts

1992 – 1995
Bachelor of Education
University of Southern Qld

solo exhibitions
2005
Mistress Huacca and her Fabulous Fetiches
performance for Adelaide’s Feast Festival

2004
lamb dressed as mutton
Art Lounge Café

group exhibitions
2006
Utility: Tacit Tactics
Sydney College of the Arts
Sydney Design Week

2002
Black and White
HAP Pottery, Beijing

2001
Mint
College of Fine Arts

2000
Dissonance
Kudos Gallery – College of Fine Arts

awards / prizes
2006
Ceramic Prize
Utility: Tacit Tactics
Sydney College of the Arts
Sydney Design Week

2001
Ceramic Art Award
College of Fine Arts Graduation Show
Ceramic Art and Perception

1995
Deans Commendation for Outstanding Achievement
University of Southern Queensland

journals / publications
2003
Craft Arts International – June / July
Art and Design Education Resource Guide

2002
Pottery in Australia – student supplement
COFA Campus Magazine Issue 4 – Autumn

2001
COFA Campus Magazine Issue 3 – Summer

work
2004 – 2006
Pride March Adelaide
community workshop co-ordinator
workshop artist / designer

June – July 2005
Davoren Park Primary School
artist in residence

2004 - 2006
Knee High Puppeteers
children’s workshop artist
puppet performances

2004
Jam Factory
access tenant – ceramics

2003 – 2004
futch
my very own studio
production ceramics

1999 – 2001
Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras
workshop artist / assistant

2000
St Anne’s Primary School
art teacher

1998 - 1999
St Finbar’s Primary School
art teacher

1996 – 1997
Moreton Bay College Primary School
art teacher /co-ordinator
school photographer
year-book editor

raku is fun

Somehow common sense (or if the truth be told, my mother) prevailed and after one glorious year as a fine arts student, i went back to finish my masters degree - YAWN!
mercifully the powers that be were willing to be a bit flexible and i was able to do all of my master's electives in ceramics - YAY! having no formal classes to join i was given a bit of studio space in the ceramics dungeon and largely left to my own devices - thank goodness for the infinite patience of Grant, the resident technician / helpful person / know-it -all.

During this time i tagged along on an excursion to the Sturt pottery in Mittagong for a day of raku firing - what fun!

i love these two little pots. the first one is a pinch pot that i made and the second one was thrown by Michael Michaels and given to me for decorating. i especially love the red glaze and if i can ever get my hands on the recipe for it, i might be tempted to have another crack at the raku thing.

raku pinch pot
2001
6 x 6 x 4 cm



raku cup
2001
7cm x 7cm diameter

A copy of the image on the left was used for a full-page COFA ad in Craft Arts International - ooooh glossy! (one of these days i'll make it there under my own steam.)

some pictures first

so as not to scare you off with masses of writing - here's a picture (or two)

these are some of the very first things i made after stumbling into the wonderful world of ceramics (no sane person would ever CHOOSE this medium!)

i'm not going to let myself worry too much about what it says of my current practice that i'm showing you old pots first...

i like to think of this as a time of growth (with all of the associated growing pains!)
were i the sort of person who collected pithy sayings i'd have some useful epigram about struggle and growth - at the moment all that springs to mind is (probably misquoted) "that which does not kill us makes us strong."

ah but i promised pictures, not more writing

dragonfly vase
2000
handbuilt earthenware w/ cobalt underglaze decoration
40cm x 15cm diameter

This was quite literally the first thing i ever made in ceramics class - i'd been doing my Masters in Art Education at COFA for a torturous year (the only thing nearly as bad a being a teacher is studying with them!) and finally succumbed to the lure of the studios - i so desperately wanted to get my hands dirty!

The first semester of first year BFA we got to try out a bunch of different things and for some perverse reason it was clay that caught me - hook line and sinker.

sleeping bag people
(my friend Hadas christened them)
2000
hand-built earthenware w/inlay and underglaze decoration
12cm x 7cm diameter

toothbrush cup

2000
handbuilt earthenware w/ stamped decoration and engobe
8cm x 7cm diameter