Going to the country

Sophie Milne Wear 2011

I feel fortunate indeed to be included once again in the Clunes Ceramic Award exhibition and am looking forward to a blissful trip to the country this weekend to attend the opening. Hooray! Clunes is about a two hour drive from Melbourne. I'm told it's a beautiful township and of course I encourage all to visit.  

The 55 selected artists (view list here) includes many friends, colleagues and heroes but also names I have not come across before which adds to my anticipation and great eagerness to see new work.  It's going to be big and I will take my camera!

Wear (detail)

Wear is my selected piece and part of Domestic Wear, the recent body of work I discussed in the previous post. A somewhat refined artist statement (it had to be 120 words or less which was a great way to almost stop me rambling) was included with my entry...

Ceramic traditions occupy the periphery of my creative contemplation. Pots I have held or seen in books, exhibitions and museums subconsciously shape and inform my work. As objects that can survive millennium the historical weight of ceramics is heavy but the everyday character of functional pottery inspires me. In Wear I commemorate the functional vessel and the still life tradition and explore concepts associated with the passage of time, such as fading and eroding. I endeavour to express my respect for the longevity of the ceramic object by striving for timeless appeal and a perfection that maintains ‘made by hand’ qualities. Wear is unhurried and quiet, suggestive of the passage of time and the notion that objects become slowly stripped back to beautiful. 

I'm not a big fan of being in the same place as my work and an audience (squirm) but I do feel comforted by the scale of this show and thankfully my desire to see all the work is overriding any apprehension. Well... today anyway.

Wear (side view)

The Clunes Ceramic Award exhibition will be open Thu - Sun 11am - 5pm 11 Sep - 2 Oct 2011