Ceramics: Art and Perception

Magdalene Odundo in Cambridge on display at The Fitzwilliam Museum (UK) until July 2022, seeks to illustrate the inspiration and influence of the city’s museum’s permanent collections on Odundo, when she studied in the Foundation Course at Cambridge School of Art. Co-curated with cultural historian Helen Ritchie, it displays Odundo’s pots, made many years after she left the city. Accompanying Odundo’s work are the works of other British 20th-century studio potters we are told she met at that time, including her teacher Zoe Ellison. The majority of the exhibition is made up of much older pots, lent by the University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography, from as far afield as Papua New Guinea, Peru, New Mexico and sub-Saharan Africa. The exhibition may seem something of a vanity project, but it…

Magdalene Odundo in Cambridge on display at The Fitzwilliam Museum (UK) until July 2022, seeks to illustrate the inspiration and influence of the city’s museum’s permanent collections on Odundo, when she studied in the Foundation Course at Cambridge School of Art. Co-curated with cultural historian Helen Ritchie, it displays Odundo’s pots, made many years after she left the city. Accompanying Odundo’s work are the works of other British 20th-century studio potters we are told she met at that time, including her teacher Zoe Ellison. The majority of the exhibition is made up of much older pots, lent by the University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography, from as far afield as Papua New Guinea, Peru, New Mexico and sub-Saharan Africa. The exhibition may seem something of a vanity project, but it does…

“The passage from the ‘solid’ to ‘liquid’ phase of modernity: that is, into a condition in which social forms […] can no longer (and are not expected to) keep their shape for long, because they decompose and melt faster than the time it takes to cast them, and once they are cast for them to set. Forms, whether already present or only adumbrated, are unlikely to be given enough time to solidify, and cannot serve as frames of reference for human actions and long-term life strategies because of their short life expectation"– Liquid Times: Zygmunt Bauman.1 “Heaven knows where that striving might lead us if our affections had not had a trick of twining round those old inferior things.”– Maggie Tulliver in The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot.2 Following…

“The passage from the ‘solid’ to ‘liquid’ phase of modernity: that is, into a condition in which social forms […] can no longer (and are not expected to) keep their shape for long, because they decompose and melt faster than the time it takes to cast them, and once they are cast for them to set. Forms, whether already present or only adumbrated, are unlikely to be given enough time to solidify, and cannot serve as frames of reference for human actions and long-term life strategies because of their short life expectation"– Liquid Times: Zygmunt Bauman.1“Heaven knows where that striving might lead us if our affections had not had a trick of twining round those old inferior things.”– Maggie Tulliver in The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot.2 Following on from…

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. When successful, such human qualities can bring warmth to the coldness of our high-tech environment. Peter Rushforth (2010) This major exhibition of Geoff Thomas’ wood-fired ceramics was held at the Dubbo Cultural Centre from February to May 2022. Sparingly displayed to maximise viewing, it highlights the results of his explorations of materiality and processes as created in an ash-deposit, anagama style, woodfired kiln. Working as a farmer/potter in the central west of NSW, close to the Warrumbungles National Park, Thomas brings his 40 years of woodfiring experience to this exhibition. His early encounters with clay were through TAFE…

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. When successful, such human qualities can bring warmth to the coldness of our high-tech environment. Peter Rushforth (2010) This major exhibition of Geoff Thomas’ wood-fired ceramics was held at the Dubbo Cultural Centre from February to May 2022. Sparingly displayed to maximise viewing, it highlights the results of his explorations of materiality and processes as created in an ash-deposit, anagama style, woodfired kiln. Working as a farmer/potter in the central west of NSW, close to the Warrumbungles National Park, Thomas brings his 40 years of woodfiring experience to this exhibition. His early encounters with clay were through TAFE and then…