Euan Craig
Artist Statement 2026
There is beauty in the world which we all understand, because we are all part of it and it is part of us. And it doesn’t matter how much melanin you have, or what side of some imaginary line you were born, or what shape body your soul was born into, or who you choose to love…if we can find that beauty, in the world around us, in ourselves, in each other, then there is still hope. As a potter, working with natural materials and universal forces, I have come to understand that my greatest challenge is to not get in the way. My task is to understand the nature of those materials, their potential to interact with those forces, and to help them, guide them, facilitate their becoming. If I am successful in this endeavour, then a new expression of that natural beauty may come into being. One which also expresses my unique perspective as a fragment of nature gazing in wonder upon itself.
When I make my pots I am not making beauty but discovering it, finding it in the nature of the clay and how it dances with gravity and centripetal force. How it tells the story of the passing of my finger tips, or water, or fire over its surface. I make functional art, because it is the most immediate and intimate of all the arts. When you hold the handle it is my hand you hold, and when you lift it to your mouth to drink it is my lip that touches yours. I am always conscientious of the user, aware that they have agency, and the vessel only truly reaches a point of completion when it is in use. My pots are the result of a simple, traditional lifestyle and work process. I blend my own clay by hand, throw on a wooden kick wheel by the light of day, with water drawn form our well. The pots are bound with Igusa, the rush used to make tatami mats, and single fired from raw to 1320 celcius, with responsibly sourced local wood, and the wood and rush ash melt with the kiln and form natural glazes. The entire process can be completed without the use of electricity or fossil fuels. It is a collaboration with the forces of nature, an expression of the human in nature, and the vessels tell the story of their own creation, part of a conversation which has continued for ten thousand years. And they will endure for thousands of years to come, communicating my love of life across cultures and across time.
Biography
Euan Craig, born 1964 in Melbourne Australia, grew up in the historic pottery town of Bendigo in Central Victoria. Due to family illness, his own asthma and wide exposure to the disabled, from an early age Euan addressed questions of existence and social values. As a result, at the age of fourteen he chose Pottery as a career path, not because of what he wanted to do, but because of who he wanted to be. While working part time at local potteries to earn tuition fees, he pursued an education in pottery, finally graduating from the Latrobe University with a BA in Ceramic Design in 1985. Three days after graduation he opened his first Studio Pottery in the Northern Victorian town of Swan Hill.
Influenced by the “Mingei” philosophy from his early career, in particular the healthy and natural beauty of functional art and the life style of potters like Shoji Hamada, Euan sold his pottery in Swan Hill to take up a position as production manager in a pottery in Mashiko, Japan in 1990. During that year he studied Japanese language intensively in his private time. In 1991 he was accepted as an apprentice “Deshi” by Tatsuzo Shimaoka, National Living Treasure. His time there studying the traditional process and the heart of Mingei has influenced his work philosophy ever since. After graduating from Shimaoka’s in 1992, he rented studios in Mashiko until establishing his own pottery there in 1994.
Dedicated to a wholesome and environmentally responsible lifestyle and work process, he developed a 1 cubic metre fast fire “eco” wood kiln practical for a single person production pottery. In 2000 he moved his home and studio to a traditional farmhouse in the neighbouring town of Ichikai, where he lived with his wife and four children until the earthquake and nuclear disaster of 2011. He has now established a new studio and earthquake resistant kiln in a 140 year old farm house in Minakami, Japan.
Euan has held numerous solo and group exhibitions, taught workshops and summer schools and presented at art conferences and forums in Japan, Australia, the United Kingdom and Denmark. He has also written and been featured in many articles for magazines, newspapers, radio and television in Japan, Australia, the United States and Europe. He is a member of the Japan Mingei Association and is recognized internationally as a master of Mashiko Mingei.
Concerning the New Works Exhibition of Euan Craig
Thirteen years have passed since Euan studied under me. I have always been impressed by the devoted bearing with which he tackles his work, and since becoming independent and establishing his own kiln he has developed a variety of innovations, currently concentrating on creating wood fired porcelaineous stoneware with natural ash glazing. The brightness of his fired finish and above all his concentration on ceramics for food, his stance in pursuit of the beauty of function which is useful to people in their everyday lives is superb.
Tatsuzou Shimaoka (Japanese National Living Treasure) May. 2003
