Reading the pattern of wind on water, was a large part of my childhood. Sailing dinghies on Pittwater, north of Sydney, walking home from school along a bush track.
Feeling the spirit of the natural world was like breathing.
I think a good pot, a spirited pot, can evoke the same feeling.
I am an artist who works with clay that I dig up and rocks I collect.
I live on the Atherton Tablelands, surrounded by granite hills, one thousand metres above the Great Barrier Reef, in Tropical Highland Forest .
My work holds tacit and bodily knowledge of this special place, expressed through the rich character of the raw materials, wonderous flame paths and deposits of wood ash, laid down during four days of firing in my ‘Tiny-Train’ wood kiln. There is a mysterious blend of forces at play; those ancient which created the granite, sand and felspathic quartzite, with my modern tactile, intuitive manipulations of clay and fire.
My way of making and living are intentional, connecting me to the natural world. Our home and studio are designed with every room leading onto the garden and surrounding highland forest. Boundaries between modern comforts and wild living blur. There are no screens, doors are flung open. Inside blends with outside. The tropical highland climate gives us long growing seasons with extended daylight and the high altitude cools the evenings and brings a short ‘winter’ when we light the fires and snuggle under handmade quilts. We understand the worth of handmade and take responsibility for stewardship of the land.
“Behind the work of the potter is a search for truth and beauty, through form, glaze and function, and in rare cases, the work of the individual potter may express spiritual value.”
Peter Rushforth quoted in the S. H. Ervin e-catalogue Peter Rushforth: All Fired Up (2013)
When I wasn’t sailing as a child, I was making things: drawing and firing pinch pots in a sawdust kiln down in the backyard. I studied science at Macquarie University and then enrolled at East Sydney Technical College to study pottery where I had wonderful teachers: Steve Harrison, Bill Samuels, Gillian Grigg, Graham Oldroyd, Diogenes Farri and Ian McKay. How grateful I am for that early training in glaze and clay technology, kiln building and studio practice.
I took flight after art school, following my clay heroes, Lucie Rie and Hans Coper. Young, full of confidence with a one-way ticket to London and a few hundred dollars in the bank. Leaving art school was like ‘falling off a cliff’, I was totally unprepared for life as a potter. Working a variety of seedy jobs and living in Brixton squats, I finally landed a job as a thrower for Chelsea Pottery, off Kings Road. I was paid ‘piece work’ to throw simple forms: cylinders, bowls, plates, which were passed down the production line to a team of decorators. I learnt to throw with speed and accuracy, minimising my physical movements so that I could earn enough money to eat! England was in recession, in the grips of the ‘Thatcher era’ and I had an intense longing for the blue skies of home. My throwing skills are a treasured possession from this time.
Returning to Sydney, I completed post-graduate study in Ceramics at East Sydney Technical College. The Victorian Albert Museum had been a bolt hole for me in London, its fabulous ceramic collection was the inspiration for my post-graduate exploration into Kuan Glazes. This was a pivotal year, continuous clay and glaze testing with quick turn-around firings, meant I learnt from my failures (so many) and gained understanding on how a body of work evolves. After graduating and years of travelling, living out of a backpack, it was an easy decision to follow a suggestion from fellow student, Peter Thompson, and catch the train ‘Up North’ to work as a thrower for Kairi Pottery in Far North Queensland. I was back on ‘piece work’. The day I arrived I met the pottery technician, Michael McMaster, and that changed everything!
Together, Michael and I founded and built two of our own production pottery studios, earning a living while raising our three children. By the end of the 1990’s, the production pottery market was in sharp decline, and the reality for a production pottery, in the remote ‘Far North’ of Australia, was tough. We did a reality check and decided that while the children were growing Michael would focus on handcrafting our home and gardens, while I would return to more study, this time as a primary school teacher. Decades in a passionate career have followed, teaching at many of the local schools.
Today, we enjoy enormous creative freedom, alongside the energy and drive to experiment with local clays, firing with wood in our Train kiln, which we built in 2022.
Making pots is a way of being, of thinking about what it means to be, in this beautiful place. Now, in this immensely enjoyable chapter of my life, I strive to create something that moves the human spirit. Looking out across the landscapes of my home, I experience beauty that just ‘sings’ – some pots do that, they fill you with joy. The idea that this act can be passed through time, in a pot, is truly wonderous to me. What a privilege it is, to lead this intentional life, creating my wood fired pots, feeling the spirit of the natural world, like breathing.
