from: 'Turn, Turn, Turn: 50 years of ceramics at the National Art School', National Art School Gallery, Sydney (curator: Glen Barkeley).
Porcelain tiles with overglaze ceramic media.
Photography: National Art School.
Part of the joy of being a student at the NAS was the opportunity to inhabit those beautiful old solid stone buildings whose ex-jail history seemed to me to float around in the ether. So these two things, solid architecture and virtual presence were ideas I pursued. For the higher of the two works I painted images of fellow students and our teachers onto an architectural 'construction' while for the shorter work I attempted to give concrete form to a virtual presence, the blog of one of my ex-teachers Stephen Harrison. Stephen's blog documents his and partner Janine King's ideas about sustainability in work and in life and I've drawn on postings he has made for imagery: his making of bowls, their growing, harvesting and cooking of produce, kiln firing, preparation of both clay and of meals, travels to see ceramics, etc. It is interesting to me that both of the 'ether-born' narratives (prison/blog) unfold over time; colonial prison life being continually unpicked by contemporary scholarship while Stephen's blog - to my mind -records an ongoing reassessment and updating of ideas about living and working ethically in a changing world.