When selecting pots for this exhibition, I became aware that vessel forms could somehow become more significant when displayed as pairs. Two objects could, as it were, conduct a visual “conversation” with each other when juxtaposed at just the right distance apart. Also it was not necessary for the individual pots in a pair to be identical. Indeed, as in human relationships, differences in size, shape, colour and texture can, like a good musical duet, relate to each other and complement each other to hopefully result in a combined entity that is greater than the mere sum of its parts.
This exhibition is a summary illustration of such a human duet, expressed in the ceramic artwork of myself and my late partner of 50 years – Wendy Dowsett. We shared an extraordinary half century of living and working together, that was suddenly and cruelly ended when she died from a rare bone marrow cancer in February 2017.
In Melbourne I was a practising architect and Wendy a geography teacher and environmental scientist, when in 1977 we moved to Cairns to manage an art gallery for the Aboriginal Arts Board of the Australia Council. It was the time of the Art and Craft Revival of the 1970’s when Australians were developing a new appreciation of the importance of the arts in the nation’s burgeoning cultural identity. Our close association with many Aboriginal and European Australian artists and craftspeople inspired us (and many others) to hope that we could make a living as professional artists. I learnt to throw pots on the wheel from the famous Aboriginal potter – Thancoupie, and together with Wendy’s unique calligraphic glazing, we established ‘Trinity Pottery’ at Trinity Beach, north of Cairns.
Living in Far North Queensland was an inspiring cultural, environmental and artistic experience, and we trod a fine line between the need to make a living and the artistic imperative to express our love for all aspects of the Tropics. Naturally, our pottery started with functional ware – high fired stoneware that met the demand for handmade, individual kitchen-dinnerware that was functional and visually appealing. In the late ‘80’s, after travelling through Cape York and the Northern Territory, we started to develop as “Art Ceramics”, still predominantly wheel thrown, but with glazes, images and colours that were increasingly expressive of our unique environment. Also we completed a number of ceramic mural commissions for government and commercial buildings, and then branched into the fascinating world of wood fired pottery.
It has always been my intention to help raise the status of pottery and ceramics as a valid art form worthy of equal value with the other conventional visual arts. In this exhibition, each of the pairs of pots are not meant to be individually expressive of anything other than their existence as two objects that seem to have a certain “ rightness” to be displayed together. I hope that people seeing these pairs will be reminded of DUETS in their own experience.
Russell French
