It has been a while.

I don’t think I can do a couple of posts then abandon it all for a year or two. I will try harder.

Since 2008 I have been sharing the tutoring in ceramics at www.campcreative.com.au with my friend and fellow potter Tamasin Pepper.

Camp Creative is a huge arts based summer school in Bellingen NSW. Bellingen is not such a big town so the Camp takes over. Initially it would all fit into the high school but now it has moved on to have some course or other in every available hall or meeting room in the town.

It is not truly possible to run any sort of ceramics programme in 5 days so each year we cycle the finished pots through the school kilns for a bisc firing before taking all the work to my workshop.

We leave it for a few weeks then reassemble all of the campers who can make it for a glaze workshop day. We are still at the cycling pots through the school kilns stage and it is flooding in Bellingen.
Ideally we need to be finished with the bisc firings before school goes back next Tuesday. Tamasin and I both (of course) live on the other side of the river to the school.
Flooding is common enough in this part of NSW at this time of year so I don’t suppose we should be too surprised but it does get tedious. Last year we had a little flood during the Camp.

It seems that setting up a blog is an invitation for spammers to drive the poor blogger mad.
A couple of months back I had this blog altered so that it no longer accepts feedback.
It is not that I’m particularly anti social just that the real comments were outnumbered by the spam at about a rate worse than 50 to 1
I would love to hear from all non spammers. To do so go to the main website  johntuckwell.com.au and look for the contact page.
john

My friend Reanne Brewin Is having her first solo exhibition at Nexus gallery at the Old Butter factory in Bellingen.

This show will have both Reanne’s well made functional vessels and some newly developed sculptural work.

I’m looking forward to this.  Reanne has been working towards just this show for months so we should be happy.

Luscious, Juicy Delicate is showing at Infusions. Infusions is at the top of town near the memorial in Bellingen.

Jen Chadwick, Beth Gibbings, Annette Rogers and Nicole Stenson are exhibiting together for the first time.

Three of the women are exhibiting ceramics and Beth, who also makes ceramics, is showing her oil paintings.

From what I have seen this is all lovely stuff. Lots of love heart and sweat in these works.

… and the classy photographs are by Jack Meagher

After not having much for us potters to look at lately Bellingen
has two new Ceramic shows opening on the same weekend!
Be around on the weekend of the 3rd and 4th of July, next weekend
I have seen a lot of the work for both shows and they will be good.

I have been taking my time getting to write a little on Gulgong
Every three years there is a big ceramics conference in the NSW central west town of Gulgong. This years one was called Clay Energy 2010. It ran from the 28th of April for 5 days.
The visiting clay gods for this one were mostly from Finland and Hungary with additions from USA,NZ, Norway and a group of locals.
Gulgong is a tiny town so the potters took over. Every shop window had a mini exhibition and every available larger space had a proper exhibition. It is not a hands on sort of thing more a demonstration and talk sort of thing.
A mob drove over from around the Coffs Harbour/Bellingen area and most of stayed together at a big rented farmhouse a few km out of town. Every night was party night. We should be past all of that.
The central west of NSW is big in wood fired pots and therefore I have avoided going to one of these things previously but I probably should have. There are too many crusty brown pots around but it is still a lot of fun.
I made a couple of things for the Australian Ceramics Association exhibition.
The competition was limited by weight to 340gms. It is in my area of work a bit. There was a market place as well so perhaps next time I might take a few extra nice things.

I promised to load some photos of the Ted Hillyer work, and specifically the opening of Ted’s major survey.

Ted’s fabulous paintings produced over many years filled the Coffs Harbour regional gallery.

The pots which I made and which Ted decorated worked as a quiet balance to the colour in the room.

There were a few of my pots quietly sitting just inside the door.

The opening was filled with the Coffs Harbour arts community so I felt particularly happy to be a part of it all.

The photo of the two smiling chaps is Ted on the right and me on the left.

April looks like being a bit busy.
I have been making some large pieces for someone else.
Ted Hillyer is a artist of some substance who has been working for more than four decades painting the bush and coastal areas of the NSW mid north coast. He has a major exhibition opening on the 16th April at the Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery.
The show has a lot of his work going back over the four decades and also some more recent work.
The newest work will be the ceramics. Ted is not a potter so we have been through several generations of form and decoration to get to something which suits Ted’s painting style. In the end we have some of Ted’s simple drawings in black on white. There is a mix of majolica and stoneware.
Making work to suit someone else has been a bit of a shock. I have rarely done it. My normal practise is to work an idea around in my head for a while before opening a bag of clay. This job has required me to come from a different direction and on a much larger scale.
Not all the work is out of the kiln. When it is I will put some images on the web site.

Later in the month we are going to Clay Energy 2010. Clay energy will be in Gulgong in the central west of NSW.
This will be a love in for potters. There are invited ceramicists from Europe and North America with a few big names from Australia too.
I have not been before but expect there will be lots of demonstrations and chats. Every empty space will have an exhibition of some sort.
In the past these Gulgong events have had a big leaning towards wood fired work. Wood is not really where my ceramic interests are but I will try to learn something from it all.
In any case the Gulgong Mudgee area is a food and wine paradise so
I should manage to find something to keep me interested.

Year zero. Day one.

I must start somewhere.

I’m a potter not a writer and I have this blog as an addition to my nice new web site, johntuckwell.com.au

Thank you Michael.

My home and studio is on the NSW mid north coast in Australia.
Every now and then I have some time off but most of the time I am down stairs in the workshop.

This space is to talk about what I might be doing and more broadly what is happening in ceramics in this region.

My ceramics started in the early nineties and I have been specialising in Porcelain since 2003. For me Porcelain is enough to satisfy my cravings.
Sometimes I make some big chunky work as a bit of relief.

The web site will have a bit more work to get images how I want them. (whatever that is)
The idea then is to add a new gallery when I have something new.

I am not particularly secretive about process. Post here and I will do my best to describe what I do.

John