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The Regional Ceramics Gallery, part of Cudgegong Gallery, features the ongoing exhibition of the Ceramic Focus Group, a diverse collection of Central Tablelands potters.

The Ceramic Focus Group is the brainchild of local councilor Jenny Bennett & was formed in 2001. A State Ministry of Arts grant enabled the establishment of  the Regional Ceramics Gallery in the Gulgong Tourist Information Centre. The gallery ran with some success at this venue until 2007 when the group was invited by Lyn Cole to move to the premises of Cudgegong Gallery. At present there are 16 members of the group producing a diverse range of ceramics from sculptural to functional.

Artists

Susan Bridgford

Susan is a member of the regional Ceramic Focus Group and has been creating ceramic art for ten years.  In 2008 she attained Certificate IV in Ceramics and in 2009 Certificate III in Visual Arts.  Currently she is working at Cudgegong Gallery part time.

Receiving a Country Arts Programme Grant from Regional Arts NSW in 2009, Susan worked with gifted and talented visual arts’ students from Gulgong High School.  In this interactive ceramics workshop ‘Hands on Clay’, students worked in clay using a variety of hand building and decorating techniques and were involved in a group raku firing.

Susan lives on a property on the outskirts of Gulgong, enjoying the peaceful serenity of the countryside and hospitality of the local people.

Clays infinite diversity keeps Susan inspired.  Limitless imaginable form and the variety of techniques and materials drive her passion.  She enjoys hand building forms in stoneware and throwing in porcelain clays.  Currently is enjoying experimenting with glazes.  Her work is fired in a gas kiln in her ever expanding studio.  Susan has a love for ceramic books, art and her natural surroundings.  Artists' whose work she admires are that of the late Lex Dickson, Peter Lane and Joanna Howells.

Sue Foldhazy

I have worked with clay approximately for 11 years, having gained Certificate III and   Ceramics at Mudgee Tafe. I enjoy all aspects of ceramics from functional work to the one off sculptural pieces

I have a well set up studio in the garden of my home at Rylstone, about 45 minutes from Mudgee. I have a 10cu ft gas kiln. I prefer using stoneware and porcelain clay for throwing and groggy clay for hand building. . I work mainly in stoneware, fired in both reduction and oxidation to 1300 degrees Celsius.

I have been exploring sculptural concepts with my work.  I want people to want to handle my pots and feel the textured surfaces. At present my work is primarily handbuilt using a combination of slab work, coil and some throwing. I use a variety of glazes and firing techniques to achieve the desired effect.

Helen Swords

I am inspired by most things organic – animals and plants - seed pods, flowers, the bark of the gums with their fascinating markings and different textures.  I have been fortunate to have had two trips to China and am very inspired by most Chinese art and especially pots and techniques from the Sung Dynasty.

I have a Certificate III and IV in ceramics and am presently enrolled in a distance education course with ANU for Diploma of Ceramics.  I also have a Diploma of Horticulture, which is where my interest in organic things stems from.

My studio, which overlooks the garden, is in a corner of one of the many sheds on our vast sheep and cattle property.  When I’m not potting I am helping my husband on the property.  My materials of choice are stoneware and porcelain, but for sculptural pieces I prefer groggy clay.  My kiln is gas and mostly fire to 1280 deg in oxidation and reduction.

My favourite pieces I like making are tree and floral sculptural forms and black on white carved designs on thrown ware.

Rosalie Swords

I graduated from the National Art School and Alexander-Mackie College with a degree in Visual Arts Education in 1970 and with a brief break to have a family taught mostly part-time for the next 30 years. Combining this with helping to develop our farm here at Coolah meant a very busy life until with the children launched there was a window of opportunity to go back to my passion which was pottery. I juggled this with farm and teaching until happy retirement 2 years ago when I could really devote myself to potting virtually full time.

I have a small studio here on the farm with an old T.A.F.E. electric kiln which has served me faithfully. I work in stoneware making platters, vases and mugs, often with a hand modelled feature using glaze on glaze or slips and underglazes. I have also developed a range of slip cast ‘cubed animals’ using barium glazes, these can be seen on the Orana Arts website. My real interest is sculptural and I have a love affair with the Australian bush, it’s colours, the shapes of trees, the amazing root formations, not unusual really as I have lived surrounded by the bush for most of my life. I express this in one off pieces based on organic forms all hand built and using terracotta or red-raku clays, oxides, underglazes, slips and matt or dry glazes.

Recently I have returned to another love which is oil painting and in 2009 joined with a friend to hold an exhibition at Hornsby Art Gallery where I combined my oil painting and ceramics with her acrylics and print making.

Over the last ten years I have expanded my skills, attending various summer schools at the National Art School and Ku-ring-gai Art Centre. My plan for the future is to delve further into the sculptural aspect of ceramics and continue to offset this with the 2D discipline of oil painting.

Pam Welsh

Pam has a degree in Visual Arts and teaches the subject at Gulgong High School. She produces sculptural ceramic work, mostly intended for use in small gardens. She is currently interested in working with the idea of anthropomorphism – that human beings project their own feelings, ideas and understandings onto the behaviour of the animals around them.

Pam works from a studio attached to her house using trestle tables, banding wheels, chairs, aerated cement blocks, stools and all kinds of implements and found objects to hand build all the ‘women under water’. They are fired in a gas fired, top hat fibre kiln built by friends in a specially designed shed.

She uses all commercially prepared clays, glazes and underglazes which she modifies to suit her needs. “If I need a particular effect at the time, I make a bit of a spontaneous mix of elements that would be appropriate. I started as a painter and have little patience so I tend to modify as I go to fit my ideas. If something goes horribly wrong, then it has to be discarded.”

Pamela has continued an interest in the ways in which women are stereotyped, labelled, and restricted even in an apparently free society and constantly explores ideals of beauty and desirability.

Each piece takes around 3 days to make, another to decorate and then more to bisque and glaze fire. Often they are fired several times.

Claire Locker

I have spent the past thirty years as a potter travelling Australia and the globe, combining my studio work, exhibitions, lecturing and academic teaching in ceramics.  Before recently moving to Newcastle, I lived for ten years in regional NSW and found my creative spirit expanding and reproducing itself into ‘my dancing ceramic forms’.

The simplicity of country living had translated itself to my ceramic forms, giving them a flowing strength and style.

When I sit at my wheel – my work evolves from moods and thoughts and takes gentle shape flowing softly from my guiding hands.

Tactile, soft and feminine shapes appear – it is the very essence of me, soft edges, balance and form.  I love to make soft slab tableware that will be used and add beauty to everyday living.  I often use the feminine form in my many pieces of functional tableware.  I don’t drink tea, but my forms always seem to have a handle and a spout – making pieces and putting them together – teapots – I have made hundreds of them over the years, feeding my desire for balance and form.

I throw the form and then I mould gentle curve from thin textured “Paper Clay” which lightens the appearance and accentuates the female form.  I texture the slabs by rolling them, pleating them, folding them until I get the shape I want.  I thin the clay sometimes to only 2mm and then I thicken it in parts, stressing it to the limits – a challenge to get the clay to dry and hold.

I look at the piece and by creating light and shade through many applications of glaze and slips.  I create depth and dynamics to the finished form spraying pigments and coloured underglazes.

I enjoy the ruggedness of some of the glaze effects, giving me thin and thicker glaze highlights, firing the glaze – always a surprise – always a delight.

Lue Pottery

Des & Jan Howard have been making pottery fulltime for nearly 40 years, the last 27 years being in the rural village of Lue.

The 300 square metre workshop & showroom are set in 4 ½ ha of native bushland. The workshop is full of Des’s gadgets and machinery, which he has made or acquired over the years.

They make their clay bodies from local materials: white clay from ‘Summervale’ near Gulgong & a grey clay, a cream clay & rhyolite rock from Lue. These materials are used to make a white porcelaneous stoneware, a fine grey stoneware and a gritty stoneware.  The pots are fired up to 1300 degree C under reduction in gas kilns.

Glazes are also made from local materials, limestone from Spring Flat, dolomite from Mt.Knowles, bush sand from Glen Alice & yellow ochre from an old ironstone mine over the hill from the pottery.

The items made by Lue Pottery have function as their raison d’etre & the glazes used tend to the classic Oriental: the black/brown of Temmoku, the pale blue of Jun, the various Copper reds, the pink/purple/blue of Flambe, the orange/white of Shino &, of course, the soft green of Celadon.

Wil Hasaart

I started pottery in 1993 at TAFE. I enjoy hand building but prefer the challenge of wheel throwing. Most of my work so far has been for the pleasure of family and friends. Having my own studio, kiln and being part of the Ceramic Focus Group, it is my intention to show more of my work to the public.

Marianne Johnson

We have lived in Rylstone for 18 years, in an old stone house Circa 1860, Rivendell.

My work is mainly Raku fired, pit fired, sawdust fired or fired to earthenware. These are mainly decorative, sculptural, non-functional pieces.

Inspiration is varied - a love of history, exotic places, archaeology, my garden, a collection of bits and pieces. Pots, bowls, historical 'chalices', lidded vessels are handbuilt using coils.

Candle holders, tiles, mirrors and wall art are built with roller slabs of clay. All surfaces are textured, stamped and/or carved.

Using various malt  and lustre glazes, and then Raku firing, gives me the 'aged' patina that I love for unique sculptural pieces. Firings are spontaneous, exciting and spectacular.

The pieces have been included in the following group exhibitions:
- T.A.F.E Student Exhibitions 2003 - 2007, Mudgee
- No. 47 Gallery, Rylstone
- Bridge View Inn, Rylstone
- Hilltop Arts Streetfeast Art Exhibition, Rylstone

Ian Potter

My clay is earthy, honest, practical and textured.

I began working with clay and making a range of functional ware – especially bowls and large platters using traditional glaze on glaze techniques.  My love of nature has led me to develop my work in sculptural forms using rustic textures with matt and dry glazes.

Through my work as a disability support person in ceramic classes I developed the idea of a clay horse.  I also drew on ancient Chinese and Indian art influences, In particular the warrior horses.  In them I saw values and ideals that resonated within my inner being – proud, strong, fierce, robust and loyal.

Since I was a young child growing up in the rural Riverina region, I have had a deep reverence for the horse and the freedom they symbolise.  My sculptures reflect this, as well as my love of the garden, agriculture and the country.  Whilst travelling around Australia I became entranced by the ruggedness of the western coastline, rock formations and earthy colours.

I use a combination of slab, coil, throwing and altering in my work.  My vision is to try to get my piece to look like they have been dug up out of the earth – very rustic and robust.

The process of firing genuinely excites me.  I love the journey of creating my work, but there is nothing like the feeling of slowly pulling back the door and seeing the finished product revealed for the very first time.  There is a tremendous sense of pride and satisfaction when I see my sculptures bringing movement to a garden, knowing that I have formed “life” from clay.