MY NESTS

You know how you sometimes can't see the forest for the trees?  Well that has been me for the last few months, possibly years.  Someone asked whether I'd completed the Distance Ceramics course at ANU Canberra yet. I finished last December, the work was completed long ago so by graduation time, I was OVER it, and had moved on.  BUT...it seems I had forgotten to share. Odd, I was sure I had posted about it.  So these are some images of my final project work, as displayed at the Grad Show in December at ANU Art school. These photos by Deb Plumb.  Soon, to share with my ANU pals, I will post images from the Grad show.

MAKING HIS MARK - JEFF MINCHAM

MEMBER (AM) IN THE GENERAL DIVISION OF THE ORDER OF AUSTRALIA

Mr Jeffery Dean (Jeff) MINCHAM, Cherryville SA 5134

For service to the visual arts as a ceramic artist, to a range of 

contemporary craft organisations, and to the community of South 

Australia.

Ceramic artist who established, and was Head of, the Ceramics Workshop 

at the Jam Factory in Adelaide for 5 years. Represented in over 100 

public and private collections in Australia and overseas.

77 solo exhibitions since 1976 in Australia, New Zealand and USA. 

Participated in over 200 group shows including invitational, survey 

and touring exhibitions in Australia, USA, New Zealand, Italy, France, 

Japan, China, Taiwan, UK and The Netherlands. Art in South Australia, 

Art Gallery of SA, 1999-2000. Landscape, Memory and Imagination, 

Brisbane City Gallery, 2001. Material Cultures, Australian National 

Gallery, 2002. A Sense of Place, Quadrivium, Sydney, 2003. Jeff 

Mincham Australian Ceramics, Masterworks Gallery, New Zealand, 2004. 

Jeff Mincham Ceramics, National Touring Exhibition, since 2009.

Committee Member, Taxation Incentives for the Arts, since 2010. Board 

Member, Visions of Australia, 2003-2009. Board Member, Country Arts 

South Australia, 2000-2004. Interim Board Member, Craft Australia, 

2002-2003; Senior Vice-President, 1981-1983.   President, Hahndorf 

Academy Foundations; Chair, Board of Management, 1998-2003.   

President, Royal South Australian Society of Arts, 1983-1987.

President, Crafts Council of South Australia, 1978-1981.

Chairman, Regional Development SA, 2002-2006. Member, Regional 

Communities Consultative Council, 2002-2007. Chairman, Adelaide Hills 

Regional Development Board, 1999-2007. Acting Chair, Adelaide Hills 

Tourism, 1998; Committee Member, 1999-2000. Councillor, East Torrens 

District Council, 1993-1997; Deputy Mayor, 1995-1997. Member, 

Cherryville Country Fire Service, 1978-1998; Brigade Officer, 1988-1998.

Awards/recognition include: Named a ?Living Treasure: Master of 

Australian Craft?, Crafts Council of South Australia, 2009.

australianceramicsdiscussionlist@australianceramics.com

http://www.saltmagazine.com.au/articles_web-exclusives_jeff-mincham-art-sunshine-coast.aspx

Ceramics in Western Australia

Several WA potters have work in this show, so I will be making a beeline for it this week, but I hear the opening was GREAT!

If you are interested in knowing what happens in Western Australian Ceramics, just ask me.  I am editor of PYRE, the bi-monthly newsletter for Ceramic Arts Association of WA (CAAWA).  I could send you the latest Feb Edition 3MB PDF and you would realise what a dynamic and busy little lot we are here, so much so, I haven't blogged in ages!

Elaine Bradley at   lalab@iinet.net.au

Patricia's Pretties

I have a pal, Patricia Fernandes, a potter I kept bumping at clay events, and soon we became friends.  We talk 'technical', troubleshooting things that aren't panning out in our work, materials, firings etc. She has been developing her distinctive brand of porcelain brooches and decorative items utilising ornamental elements from her family's culture and contemporary methods of working.  The girl has drive, and it seems to be paying off. She has a humourous, honey'd tongue, as you will see on her website  http://www.patriciafernandes.com.au/ and blog http://prettiesallinarow.blogspot.com/ 

 

Patricia's 'Pretties' as she calls them, are made from Southern Ice - the whitest porcelain you can get in Australia, which she imprints using antique Indian wooden and brass textile printing blocks.  These coloured using ceramic stain and fires to 1280C to translucency.  I am lucky enough to own two of her brooches, they zing up any outfit using magnets to attach them to clothing without leaving any holes or marks. Patricia is also developing a small range of household wares, each as pretty as the next.  This weekend she will be at the Perth UpMarket, at UWA in Nedlands, a remarkable artisan market showcasing the enormous range of design talent in Western Australia.  University of Western Australia, Winthrop Hall.  Sunday 28th November 2010,  open from 10am-4pm.  Free entry, easy access and plenty of free parking.  http://www.perthupmarket.com.au/retailers.html

  This isn't meant to read as an infomercial, but anyone wanting to break from commercialism and support the local creative industry should do their Christmas shopping at the UpMarkets, especially at Patricia's stall. The food at the UpMarkets is always way above the norm too.  

POTober in Perth - GERRY WEDD

The weekend is over, the school hols are over, and reviewing my stash of photos from CAAWA's FABULOUS POTober - I have a lot to share in the coming posts.  CAAWA is the Ceramic Arts Association of Western Australia.  They are on Facebook, so check that out too.

Gerry Wedd attended POTober in Perth last weekend as a demonstrator.  http://weddwould.blogspot.com/  I met him as he unpacked work for the Showcase Exhibition in the smaller Gallery attached to the Central Institute of Technology (formerly TAFE Central).  He was unwrapping large handbuilt elements of The Willow Pattern, with cobalt decorations, and looking despondent but still, kind of sanguine about what he beheld.

They had suffered in transit - blowing the chances of folk in Perth acquiring a Wedd work - at least this time round.  He mended and displayed them, but marked them as sold, rather than sell damaged work - and I witnessed many buyers walk away from his plinths a tad wretched at being pipped by other sellers (they thought). 

 

Gerry gets blogged quite a bit, here is one link - though it is not fully representational of the range of his work http://www.boardcollector.com/2008/04/gerry-wedd.html

 

 

In my work I spend extra time removing evidence of my fingerprints from the porcelain surface.  Here, in a weeping willow tree, Gerry's fingerprints are integral to the feeling of the piece, followed later by sensitive brushwork in cobalt carbonate.

 

Gradually, and slowly, Gerry built up layers of paperclay spheres to echo the trees of the English Willow Pattern. Art imitating craft, imitating art.  A few years ago my friend Ceramist Anna Chicos assisted Gerry at the Gulgong ceramics event, now I see why she enjoyed that so much. 

Roo, drawn on with ceramic pencil

group of some of Gerry Wedd's work