Water Eddies series, 2010. Wheel thrown Glacier porcelain with volcanic glaze

I have often been fascinated by the amusing nature of ceramics terminology. It always seemed to me  like the language of ceramics had adopted english words of completely different meaning with sometimes quite amusing results.

It seems, however, that after reading this article, it is the other way round. Often words in ceramics are ancient, retaining the archaic meaning, and it is the english language that has ‘moved on’ as the meaning of words has changed over time.

Why on Earth Do They Call It Throwing? by Dennis Krueger.

Hold Vessel 1

I’ve been mesmerized by the work of Lynette Wallworth. A solo show of hers opens today at the Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum. I would love to be able to attend.

Lynette’s work is about the complexities of human interconnection with our environment. She produces interactive installations. In this one, pictured above, the viewer activates space by capturing an image “inside” a glass bowl. (Bowls made by Emma Varga, Australia).

Why is this so fascinating to me? It’s a combination of the virtual and the haptic experience. A crossing over between the two dimensional and three dimensional worlds that includes allusions to containment and space.

Follow this link to the Forma website to see what it’s all about.

Here is Hold: Vessel 2 on YouTube.

Here is Lynette Wallford talking about her work, on the. Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, NY, USA Website

I’ve previously travelled very far to go to ceramics conferences. This one, ironically, is right on my old door step. It promises to be a good one. Marek Cecula, one of my favourite artists is a speaker.

Linda Davy, hand built porcelain, terra sigillata 

Opening night reception: Wednesday 5th March, 6pm

If you happen to find yourself in sunny Canberra, Australia, this week, please join the artists, Linda Davy (Graduate Diploma) and Margaret Carlin (Master of Visual Art) for the opening night reception of their graduating exhibition!

This exhibition is the third in the series of the graduate season 2008. It will be held at the ANU School of Art Gallery. The Gallery is located on the ground floor of the ANU School of Art, just next to the cafe, on Ellery Crescent, Acton, ACT, 2601.

If you don’t manage to make it for the drinks and festivities, the exhibition will continue until Friday 14th March, and the opening hours are: Tue-Fri 10.30 – 5pm, Saturdays Noon – 5pm or by appointment, closed public holidays. Phone: 02 6125 5841.

Hope to see you there!

Linda Davy, hand built porcelain, terra sigillata 

My supervisor, and the head of the Ceramics Department at the ANU School of Art, Janet DeBoos, has just had some of her work included in a beautiful new publication from Lark Books: “Masters: Porcelain: Major Works by Leading Ceramists”. Here is a link to it on Amazon UK.

Eucalyptus Tree, burnt during the Canberra bush fires, in January 2003, at Kambah Pool by the Murrumbidgee River.

It is wonderful to catch up with my friends, whom I’ve been missing so much. I’m also really pleased to see my teachers and supervisors, it’s truly amazing to be able to speak with them face to face. So many questions that I’ve been grappling and struggling with all semester, finally answered, in some cases in the space of two minutes flat.

Also, many obligations discovered, like, my WIPs, which are part of every graduate student’s yearly ritual. I’ll be presenting mine on Thursday 6th of March at 3pm. These are the very first ones in the graduate season this year. I’ll be presenting both my theory and studio work in progress on Thursday. The working title is:

Interpreting the reality of the virtual
from an art practice perspective.

The WIPs will be held in the CSA lecture theater and are open to all ANU School of Art staff and students. Here is a little blurb pertaining to the direction of my new, planned work:

In ceramics, we speak about the internal space of objects in terms of containment – the empty negative space inside the walls of an object, whether it is functional or sculptural. A space that is ready to receive something – be it something physical such as a liquid, or a concept such as feelings or memories – something metaphorical.

Rachel Whiteread, Untitled (Nine Tables), 1998
Concrete and polystyrene.

It is internal space which mostly makes up the volume that pushes out against the external world, for instance your fingers, as you hold something, like a tea bowl.

There are interesting physical characteristics that ceramic objects can take on – such as two objects of the same volume can appear like one holds more volume than another, or one can seem lighter than another, despite being the same weight.

When talking about the virtual, we also talk about space – cyberspace, virtual space. Yet what is it? It isn’t space as we understand it, in a physical sense. You can’t fill it up with tea. Yet you can, as a conceptual space, fill it up with a representation of yourself, your knowledge, feelings or memories, your fantasies – or a representation of tea, if you so desire.

“Just because something is not material does not mean it is unreal” writes Margaret Wertheim in “The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace”

Virtual space doesn’t take up any actual space in our world. You might say it takes up space in the cables that connect our routers to each other, or on a server, or, more specifically, on a hard disk. Yet when you examine the hard disk, there doesn’t appear to be any space on it to take up.

Marek Cecula, Interface Set III, 2001.
Vitreous China, gold and wood. 23 x 20 x 11cm

All the time, hard disks are getting smaller, yet somehow they have more of this space available. The thin hard disk in my computer doesn’t seem nearly voluminous enough to carry the masses of letters and photographs, music and videos that make up my research and entertainment, the documentation of my life, for the last several years. Yet it is.

The machine itself (a bunch of small, rather uninteresting little black things with legs, a bit like insects, packaged in a white box with a screen and keyboard) somehow works as a translator, an interface that converts my life archives into something that I can understand and process with my senses. Into something that I can interact with.

In my new work, I’m interested in the concept of containment of virtual space. More precisely, I’m interested in the edge of this space, like the lip of the bowl. What happens where the virtual space and the real space interface? Can we touch it? Can it touch us? How is virtual reality REAL?

Firstly, I would like to say a HUGE thank you to my husband, Campbell Brown and my brother, Filip Radlinski, who took it upon themselves over the last few weeks to devote much of their spare time in order to wrestle with and tame the technology behind this blog and website, including spending hours waiting in a telephone queue to speak to my hosting company.

Writing here is all very fun and easy but when it comes to things like backups, software updates or migrating to a new platform… (that’s nothing to do with trains, shoes or birds), dns pointers, etc, it’s all just a whole lot of incomprehensible gobblygook to me – or however that may be spelled, but you get the idea.

The website hopefully doesn’t look any different, but it’s all brand spanking new and shiny in the background, I assure you, and I NEVER would have been able to tackle it by my lonesome.

However, if you do come across a link that no longer works, please email me and let me know, so that I can fix it. There conceivably could be a few that have slipped through the very fine teeth of the virtual comb we used. AND if you have book marked any part of this blog or my gallery pages, it might be a good idea to make a new bookmark, as your old one may no longer work.

As a result of the changes I haven’t been able to make any updates to the site for a while – even though I’ve been here, and working hard in the studio (with a little break for the festive season, I must admit).

John Maguire, 2001. Tall Vase in studio courtyard. Thrown stoneware with cobalt wood ash glaze and white slip.

So apart from loud and wild Christmas parties, three day long Hogmanay (New Year’s) celebrations and my madly feverish preparation for my trip and forthcoming WIP in Oz, I’d like to announce that the first thing I’ve tackled this year website-wise is a new album full of images from John Maguire’s portfolio. Click here to view them.