Wallum Vessels- deeper water

"It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child. "
Pablo Picasso

The "vessel" is a form of enormous significance in ceramics. What distinguishes a vessel is its ability to contain something. These vessels are embryonic, they are carriers for an idea about the wallum. Prototypes, fragile, ugly, often contain a germ of an idea that continues, untouched through the creative process.

Picasso said we should all learn to draw like children, by this he meant let go of learned, technical skill and capture the joy of sensation, colour, form and wild imagination. It is really hard to do, I take refuge in skill, feeling that if something doesn't quite capture the fleeting, glimpse I had in the original inspiration then at least it will be beautiful because of the skill. I keep letting go "just a little bit" - which is an oxymoron. I have to trust that these funny little vessels will be able to carry me beyond the safety of technical skill and into the wild blue sea.

wallum "hatpins" impression

This is the first wallum work out of the kiln. This works directly from wallum impressions- in this case of a small plant called "Hatpins" and a tiny banksia with roots. I pressed the plant directly into the clay and fired it , the plant matter was burnt off in the firing. The glaze is an oxidized celadon.

I've always loved those old- fashioned museums where there are row upon row of pressed, dried and stuffed specimens. Collecting wallum impressions makes me think of those enormous, dusty collections. The thing that galvanised the Victorians to create such collections was curiosity. The collection was just a representation of the unknowable mystery and greatness of the world. I think that's what I like most about this crazy collecting. Instead of illuminating the world and making everything clear, a collection of dried flowers or stuffed birds illuminates the mystery in human beings as well as the mystery in Nature.

wallum "hatpins" impression
Originally uploaded by shannongarson

Goenpul - People of the Pearl Shell

We spent the weekend at Stradbroke Island.
Words cannot encompass how beautiful and inspiring this was. We did a cultural/archeological/botanical tour with Shane Coghill of the Goenpul tribe- the People of the Pearl Shell. Shane took us right into the wallum on the narrow tracks made by wallabies. All around us was the stiff tangle of leucopogon, leptospernums, sedges and Dianella. As we looked into the heart of a clump of reeds for lizard eggs I noticed a Forked Sundew on it's long spindly stalk reaching through the blades towards the sun.
Shane took us along an old road shaded by the huge Bloodwood trees, there was an eagles nest , big enough to house human children balanced high up.
We took a lot of impressions in clay and our weird resin products. We took a lot of impressions in our impressionable brains, ancient stories, vegetation, dried leaves stippled shadows , in that strange, filtering, creative, process.