Australian pottery blogs

A recent comment on one of my posts from a Turin-based potter, inviting readers to visit his new blog, comes at an interesting time, with the Australian Ceramics discussion list talking about a web presence as one of the ways for potters to promote themselves and their works to potential buyers. The discussion list is till talking mainly about websites, but blogs are now emerging as an effective way of bringing work to new markets. The start-up cost and effort is much less and it is a nice, informal way of building up relationships with fellow makers and potential buyers on the Internet, even for potters who already have a website.

Shannon Garson, who is writing a blog for the Australian Ceramics Triennale to be held in Sydney next month, has recently posted an entry on her own blog encouraging artists to blog, and  another on how to get started.  There will also be a panel on this subject at the Triennale.  I’ve been bookmarking Australian pottery blogs in my delicious account as I find them. The numbers are still not large,  but I expect that there will be a burgeoning of new blogs over the next twelve months, and a need to make sure that these are described and safekept as part of the artistic record.

For my bookmarks, I’m single-minded in my pursuit of Australian pottery blogs, but the blogosphere is full of interesting blogs by overseas potters and by artists working in other media. I feel surprisingly connected to this larger world when an artist comments on my blog, or adds it to their blog roll. While it is not entirely good behaviour to comment on another blog solely to promote your own, I was pleased to be visited by the Turin potter, and have just paid a visit in return.

 

New website

We have been in our new house for five months now, and we are enjoying the benefits of north-facing windows and double-glazing as winter sets in. While initially we had hoped to have the gallery open by March, we now plan to do so in September. This will give us three months more to set all the things in place that are needed to open a working gallery, including a counter, payment facilities, flyers and signage.

David assigned to me the task of setting up a new website for the gallery and this is now done. (I have added a link to it in the sidebar.) The aim of the website is to help people find the gallery and to see what is currently on exhibition there. I will continue to post entries here about known and mystery potters, and musings on other pottery-related matters that come to mind.

Our next priority is to decide what to display first from among the many thousands of pieces we have stockpiled over the last four years. Some of the themes that are starting to emerge are identified on the  exhibitions page on the website. The ‘tag cloud’ of names on this page is designed to reflect the diversity of makers in our collection, and the numbers of items we hold by each potter. I must admit to increasing the font size of some of the  names! We may only have a few pieces by Hiroe Swen, for instance, but they have a significant place in our collection.

The image shows two hand-made bottles with flattened profiles by Swen that we bought last year from Gallery East in North Fremantle. The one on the left (2o cm high) is called ‘Fluidity of movement’ and the one on the right (17 cm high)  ‘Ocean dwellers’. They are both marked Hiroe Swen (painted) and also impressed with her English and Japanese  seals.

 

Mystery potter #26: FJM

This 44 cm high bottle is thrown from three-and-a-half kilos of brown stoneware clay.  The ribbed and grogged body is glazed in two layers. The reduction overglaze speckles to reveal the oxide  layer underneath, breaks to rust The ribbed and grogged body is glazed in two overlapping layers. The first is a thin layer of brown. The second is a speckled grey glaze that opens to a wide underskirt on one side. Several finger widths at the base have been left unglazed, making a feature of the curved and overlapping glaze layers.  The potter has impressed his initials – FJM – in a large square on the unglazed surface.

I know nothing about this potter and my database has given me no clues. I only have a handful of potters with the initials FM and they all have their own distinctive marks or styles. I am guessing that this piece was made in the  1970s by someone sourcing their clays and glazes from local materials, as many did at that time. The finish is not perfect. There is a curious circular indentation in the base which must have occurred before firing as it is chiselled and scored. The size and weight would have made it a challenging piece to throw.  These are also what lends it its appeal. The large bottle shape makes for a good decorator item and the weight lends it stability on the floor.

 

Known potter #26: Frank Rock

This set of six harlequin ramekins shaped like fish was made by Frank Rock in the 1950s. Ford (1) tells us that Rock was a retired Dutch ceramic engineer who set up a studio in Balmoral, Sydney in 1950 and continued working there until the late 1950s, making a small range of slipcast functional ware, using brilliant glazes and foliage decoration reminiscent of Javanese art .

The  fish-shaped ramekins must have been his most popular line, given how many are still around. These are 4 cm high, 17 cm long and 12.5 cm wide and there is a narrow coloured rim around the bowl. Sets turn up from time to time made from a larger and shallower mould without the rim – 3 cm high, 19.5 cm long and 14 cm wide. Of Rock’s other designs, I’ve only seen two ashtrays so far, but I’m keeping my eyes out for more.

There is something about fish-shaped ramekins that must have appealed to the 1950s housewife. The Sydney commercial pottery Diana made a fish-shaped ramekin with a master dish in the same shape. I have a full set of these inherited from my mother. I like the Rock ones better though. They have a weight and muscularity that appeals to me, and I like the spiral of colour on the base and the flourished monogam.

About a year ago we bought a set of fish-shaped ramekins made by Jan Gluch  that were identical in shape and size to the set pictured here. Dorothy Johnston (2) tells us that Gluch migrated to Australia with his family in 1957. Polish by birth, he trained in Danish ceramic factories, and was an experienced potter by the time he arrived in Australia. He worked for Pates while living at the Villawood Detention Centre, then rented Easton’s Pottery at Willoughby, and spent time at Kalmar in 1959, before setting up his own pottery and pottery school at Brookvale in 1960.  So I’m guessing that he either worked for Frank Rock for a while in the late 1950s, or took over some of his moulds.

Gluck was one of many potters in Australia who worked in commercial potteries then made the transition to studio pottery in the 1960s and 1970s. His work has a presence in early issues of Pottery in Australia. He passed his interest in pottery on to his son, the  potter Ivan Gluch, who is now based on the south-east coast. He  was exhibiting some recent work at the Spiral Gallery in Bega. when we visited there yesterday.

The joys of making small connections…

1. Encyclopedia of Australian Potters’ Marks, 2nd ed., 2002, p.191)
2. The People’s Potteries, 2002, pp. 33-34.

 

Mystery potter #25: Asterisk

This platter made of an unusual brown stoneware is 4.5 cm high and 37.5 cm in diameter. The sand-coloured glaze applied over an iron oxide base, breaks to brown at the edges, and to a brown shadow where it has been thinly applied. Incised lines define the rim and base, on which a stylised gum tree has been painted in oxides, giving an overall sepia effect.

On the side is a small high-relief medallion with an impressed asterisk or eight-spoked wheel. The seller, who lives in Melbourne, acquired it in the 1980s but couldn’t remember the maker.

Buyers of contemporary Australian pottery on eBay will know this seller well as pdubooks. He has been gradually disposing of a large collection of commercial and studio pottery amassed mainly from Victorian sources in the 1970s, 80s and 90s, and salted down in tea chests.  He sold us one of the first items we bought on eBay in 2004, a little Les Blakebrough jug from 1973,  and we have been regular customers ever since.

His listings often contain small snippets of knowledge which I have been assiduously recording in my database. He is also the source of quite a few of my mystery potters.  He must have visited a large number of outlets selling pottery during his collecting years, buying pieces that pleased him, not necessarily by well-known makers.

I was glad to handle this platter again when I unpacked it, and wondered again who was using such a distinctive mark. Perhaps I will know by the time we open the gallery in the Spring…

 

Known potter #25: Ian Drummond

Among the pots that we put to work in our home is a large (11 cm high and 39 cm in diameter) bowl made by Ian Drummond. We use this as our fruit bowl and it does a fine job, sometimes decorating the dining table, sometimes set within easy reach under the kitchen window.

This morning I emptied it to give it a wash and took a moment to appreciate the abstract swirl of colours and the fine craquelature of the glaze. The outside of the bowl is a very intense ultramarine and the rim is gilded. The white stoneware foot ring and base are unglazed and the potter’s mark – Drummond – has been painted on the base in brown oxide.

We first saw Drummond’s work at Beaver Galleries in the 1990s, then noticed pieces starting to appear on the secondary market in the same distinctive style. The artist page on the Herons Gallery Castlemaine website is the only published source of information about him that we have been able to find. This says that he has a degree in architecture, a diploma of art, and training in sumi-e painting; that he set up the Greenhill Pottery in 1980; and that he makes stoneware  decorated with feldspathic glazes coloured with oxides of chrome, cobalt, copper and iron.

The broad semi-transparent brush strokes and vibrant colours applied to our bowl are particularly suited to the finely made hemispherical form. We have a smaller bowl where the brush strokes have been applied to the outside of the form and the inside is monochrome and it works equally well.

 

The beauty of small pots

As we unpack pottery and find places for each piece in our new work room, I keep being surprised by the beauty of small pots. Here is a sample that I’ve gathered from the shelves. The tallest, at 13 cm high, is the Taggerty Pottery spill vase on the left, with its characteristic landscape decoration and surprisingly monumental form. The richly-lustred Andrew Gibson vase third from the left is also monumentally conceived. The baluster form is usually reserved for a much larger vase. I find both vases to be disarmingly small and like the way in which they can be cupped in one hand.

The Phillip McConnell vase second from the right doesn’t invoke the same response. Although it has McConnell’s impressed mark and some fine sgraffito decoration, it looks like a sample, with the clay too thick, the glaze too thin and the mark too large, for a fully-conceived form. It is only 7 cm high but the Chris Sanders vase next to it on the right is even smaller and yet seems to me to work better as a finished piece, or as a model for a larger one.

Second from the left, the Sylvia Halpern bud vase with its dry glaze is perfectly proportioned.  The thin neck with its slightly ragged lip completes the ovoid form in a very satisfactory way. A bud vase is small by definition and it is hard to imagine this piece being any other size. Fourth from the left the tiny goblet made by Victor Greenaway, with its peach fuzz glaze and unglazed flanged stem, is one of a set of four meant for use as liqueur glasses. Its size is thus directly related to its function. This is also true of the little Kevin White beaker next to it, which could be used as a shotglass. However, we bought it solely for the beauty of its decoration.

From this sample, it seems that potters make small pots for a variety of reasons: to be fit for purpose; to meet the needs of tourists wanting something that they can take home in their luggage; to give collectors with small budgets an opportunity to own a representative example; to test clays or glazes or ideas for a larger piece. And, of course, some potters simply express their ideas best in small forms.

 

More galleries please

The Guildford Village Potters in Western Australia have let me know that they have a new website, and I have just added the link to my Galleries page. Doing this reminded me that I still don’t have many galleries listed for the Northern Territory, Queensland, South Australia or Tasmania.  I can’t believe that these states don’t have more galleries that specialise in ceramics or represent ceramic artists.  If you have a favourite gallery please let me know.

 

Known potter #24: Chris James

This saggar-fired vessel is 27 cm high (including its ceramic stand) and 22 cm in diameter. The 7 cm thick shell is made up of curved and layered, vertical plates of clay. The jagged top has been left unglazed, as though the ovoid form has been torn asunder. The inside surface is glazed a matt black, the outside is dry glazed with terrasigilata decoration. The maker is Chris James, a potter with a workshop currently based at the Keane Ceramics factory site in Somersby, NSW.

We bought this piece at Solander Gallery in Deakin, ACT, in 1996. Solander is primarily a fine art gallery but the 8th National Ceramics Conference was held in Canberra that year and satellite exhibitions had overflowed into all available spaces. The one at Solander, curated by Leonard Smith, included the work of 7 potters but the series of forms based on Jupiter and its moons Europa and Io by Chris James particularly caught our eye. David has always had an interest in astronomy and we both like science fiction. We were astonished to see clay being used in such an innovative way to depict the power and energy of planetary objects, as well as providing a glimpse of their interiors.

James was born in 1964 in Fiji and spent his early ears there. He obtained a Ceramics Certificate from the National Art School in 1986, and then set up a studio in Wahroonga, NSW, teaching ceramics part time in the Northern Sydney TAFE system.  In his 1996 directory entry he says  that he jumps between many styles, including saggar and wood firing, reduced stoneware and majolica. He moved his studio to the Keane factory in 2001 and, at around the same time, also adopted the trade name of Chris James Ceramic Design and started to market a range of slipcast porcelain and an associated design and manufacturing service.

Our ‘Io’ vessel is unsigned, but other work may be signed with the potter’s full name according to the 1996 directory entry. We have since acquired only one other work attributed to James, a stoneware majolica teaset. The teapot (illustrated) has two impressed marks which I think depict a hand and a paw.

References

• “Chris James,” The Australian Potters Directory (The Potters Society of Australia, 1996).
• “Chris James,” Australian Ceramics Directory (viewed 21 March 2009).
• Keane Ceramics. History (viewed 21 March 2009).
• Leonard Smith, 8th National Ceramic Conference, Australia (CLAYART Archives, 11 July 1996).
• Pottery by Christopher James & Tanya Myers (CV, [1996]).

 

Mystery potter #24: R. Hooper

This handbuilt earthenware vase has an ovoid base from which the rounded body swells, giving it a definite front and back. The  long tapered neck ends in a slightly flared mouth. The high-gloss ivory glaze with fine craquelature is offset by a dark green hand-painted line around the mouth and double circles on both sides containing an abstract foliate design.

The vase is quite tall – 27 cm high. Although it has the form and delicacy of a bud vase, it is a substantial piece, well-balanced on its flat base, with the narrow neck appropriately muscular where it rises from the body.

The glaze covers the base in the style of studio pottery from an earlier period, and underneath the glaze the potter has inscribed a name and date – ‘R. Hooper 1966′.

This is the only piece by this potter that I’ve seen but it has a professional feel and I suspect that more examples will turn up over time.  We bought it on eBay from a South Australian seller. I have checked all the usual sources, including the main South Australian resource for this period [1], with no luck.

1. Ceramics in South Australia 1836-1986 : From Folk to Studio Pottery / by Noris Ioannou, Adelaide: Wakefield Press, 1986.