Writing brief biographies for our online catalogue now takes up a lot of the time I previously spent on ‘Known potter’ and ‘Mystery potter’ entries. I will still keep writing these, but will also post regularly from now on about recently added biographies. Here are the most recent twelve:
I am gradually cataloguing items in the current exhibition, hence Danyon Greig and David Williams for crystalline glazes, Peter Ries and Amanda Warner for lustres, Malcolm Greenwood and Virginia Maywold for platters, Steve Sheridan for a woodfired jug and Chris James for a tea set.
Our Joan Campbells are on display in the foyer and needed to be represented in the catalogue. The Ruth Silver vase has gone back into the container but I wanted to list it before packing it away. The Graeme Wilkie dish is an example of a work no sooner acquired than sold. I had to make a post-hoc listing to make a record of the mark.
The Albury Pottery tortoise money box is a new acquisition that quickly found a place for itself on the counter. Albury Pottery pieces turn up fairly frequently on eBay, so I was surprised how little I knew about it. I finally tracked down its former manager through an advertisement for a thrower in the Sydney Morning Herald for 1984. The story makes interesting reading, not least because the tortoise money box has its origins in the animal money boxes made by Cooper Pottery in the UK in the 1970s.
Australian Pottery 