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| Bob Connery |
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Bob Connery became a fulltime potter in 1978 when he established Stokers Siding Pottery and gallery with Sydney potter Laine Langridge. He has produced domestic ware and one -off pieces in a variety of styles both plain and highly decorated. In 1990 he began research into the ancient Arab technique of clay paste reduction lustre. This involves painting with clay pastes(slips) on pots already glazed and fired with specialised glazes. The slips contain salts of copper, silver, tin and bismuth in various mixes. The decorated pots are then re-fired to approximately 700C and subjected to cycles of heavy reduction (smoking) and oxidation. After each cycle, draw trials painted with 3 different slips are removed and these indicate the development of the lustre and the progress of vapour effects.
In 2001 Bob went on a cultural exchange visit to Koishiwara, a potters village near Fukuoka in Japan, dating from the 1600`s. He gave demonstrations there and had an exhibition of the reduced lustre work. After this visit potters from Koishiwara came to work with him in Australia. His work has since received the highly regarded “box signing” award in Japan resulting in his work being formally accepted for use in the traditional Tea Ceremony.
He works in reduced lustre because of the unique effects obtainable with this technique. Currently he is seeking to emphasize the play of flames over the pieces as displayed by the vapour and reduction effects on the glaze surface. These surface variations, regarded as undesirable by ancient practitioners, he feels, aid the integration of the lustre design with the glaze surface and the form.
Even after years of experience a degree of uncertainty adheres to the firing of reduced lustre. This uncertainty produces both heartbreaks and outpourings of great joy, however fleeting, for Bob, and maintain his excitement and desire to go on producing new work. His ultimate hope is to make objects that possess an inner glow.
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