Season 8: Fifty Shades of Brown

Our eighth season in Bemboka will open on Friday 30 September with a new exhibition called “Fifty Shades of Brown”.

Brown is a warm colour ranging in tone from beige, straw and light tan through copper and bronze to deep, rich siennas and umbers. The exhibition draws on these tones with works that are raw-glazed (some woodfired), or coloured with slips, understains and glazes. Many are from the 1960s and 1970s but we have also bought new pieces for the exhibition, including recent work by Robert Barron, Owen Rye and Julie Shepherd.

Each season we think that the new exhibition is the best so far and this is no exception. We have been living with it for several weeks now and it has been giving us much pleasure. The labels are almost done, the new cards have been printed and our next major task before the new exhibiton opens will be to work on our spring garden so that it will be neat and tidy on 30 September.

Illustrated above: Helen Gulliver, Decanter; Noel Blue, Floor Jug.

Season 7 wrap up

Our Season 7 exhibition, held from October 2015 to June 2016, was entitled “Pale and interesting” and continued our exploration of glazes and decorative techniques, with an emphasis on pastels and lighter shades. We really enjoyed putting this exhibition together and living with it during the year. Amongst new works we bought for the exhibition were salt-glazed vases by John Dermer, bowls by Shannon Garson and Marina Pribaz  and a handsome installation piece called “Pilgrimage” by Kim Anh Nguyen (illustrated). A number of visitors made their way down our gravel road to see the exhibition and we had a steady flow of sales through our online shop.

We opened the season as one of three gardens hosting a progressive lunch for the Bemboka Garden Club. Blessed with another year of wonderful rain, our garden thrived and David and I grew fit mowing the lawns in tandem with our push mowers. In March we welcolmed our first grandson, Thomas James, into the world. Now on our winter break, I am about to begin the task of packing up the current exhibition. Visitors are till welcome by appointment and we will let you know more about what we are planning for Season 8 in a few week’s time.

Container finds

I came across the work of Western Australian ceramic artist Jenny Dawson this week while browsing through Ceramics in Western Australia, 1970-1999, a video published by Edith Cowan University in 1999. It turned out that we had a coffee set of hers in our own collection. Here it is, unwrapped and displayed on our gallery counter.

This summer in the garden

For a second summer we are having bounteous rain and David and I have been spending many hours in the garden – between visitors to the gallery – mowing, edging and weeding. This year I joined the five silver birches along the fenceline in this photograph into two long beds and planted  some Ajuga Reptans to form a future dense groundcover. Other beds showing good form this season can be seen in this Flickr album.

 

A pair of steamers

Over the years we’ve acquired a number of pottery steamers made by Ian Sprague. They look like lidded pots but have a central chimney. By placing the steamer above a pot of boiling water, you can use it to cook rice, meat, fish or vegetables. This style of steamer is said to have originated in China where it has been in use for many centuries.

The two steamers in the picture above are both recent acquisitions. The steamer on the left  has Ian Sprague’s personal and Mungeribar Pottery marks. The one on the right has a mark that we haven’t seen before; however, the style is so close to Ian Sprague’s early work that we are almost certain it was made at Mungeribar.

Sprague’s personal mark is a capital I over a horizontal separator and the Morse code for S—three dots. This mark has a similar form and may be a precursor.

This video shows a contemporary potter making a steamer in the same design.

New acquisitions

Pineapple vase by Andrew Cope and ash glazed vase by Geoff Crispin, both  33  cm tall.

Christmas greetings

Christmas greetings to all our friends and visitors to our gallery and online shop. We are just three months into our seventh season and really enjoying living with our current “Pale and Interesting” exhibition.  In the weeks leading up to Christmas most of our sales have been through the Internet but we are looking forward to a steady flow of visitors during January. We will be closed on Christmas Day and Boxing Day morning but open during the rest of the holiday period. Don’t hesitate to call ahead if you need to come outside our regular opening hours.

Our Marvin Hurnall purchase

We were unable to resist bidding on this lot in Mossgreen’s recent auction of works from the Marvin Hurnall collection. It is a very large earthenware vase (55 cm high) thrown by Mark Heidenreich  in 1992 and decorated with Australian flora and fauna by Stephen Bowers. It is now on display on our gallery counter and very nice it looks too.

Another mystery potter solved

Mystery potter #9: Tricuspid turns out to be Robert Mair.

Jeff Mincham. “First Rains”

David and I have at last safely received the Jeff Mincham piece that we bought from Mossgreen Auctions in July. It is dated c. 2006 and, at 76 cm high, is one of our largest pieces. (Only our Ian Sprague bullet form is taller, with a height of 110 cm.) With a bit of a stretch, our new Jeff Mincham fits into our “Pale and Interesting” theme for this season with its cream, tan and pale viridian colours and our main issue at the moment is to find the best place to display it. With a very narrow profile, it is probably best set against a wall but it also needs to be seen in the round. Moving it from one place to another will keep us happily engaged over the weekend when not entertaining visitors.