When Richard Jones unloaded his latest arrivals from the kiln in time for Open Day at his Possum Creek studio he couldn’t have been more pleased.

“It looks like a sea of bowls,” says Jones.  “The celadons did really well on the raku clay, and the shinos did all sorts of weird and wonderful things – as shino does.”

It was Jones’s partner Jo Immig, who coined the word ‘plowls’ for the fabulous double-fired three-glaze plate/bowls above.  “We use them all the time now,” says Jones.  “They’re wonderful for eating off.  I was very pleased with this batch, the copper reds can be quite tricky and can end up bright blue if the firing doesn’t work!”

“These cups, or glasses are porcelain inlay on raku clay,” says Jones.  “I carve the design- sometimes quite random-and fill it with porcelain. When it’s partially dry I scrape off the surplus to reveal the design. I started doing this as an experiment and discovered it was called Mishima in Japan.”  For Jones part of the appeal of pottery is the constant experimentation.  “It’s led me to creative places I could never have imagined when I started,” he says.

Jones call these his ‘star bowls’, and says they are reminiscent of his galaxy paintings. “I’ve stocked up for the Open Studios day,” he says.  “I love it when people visit me here where I live and work – it’s all about getting back in touch with nature.  There’s the roosters, Sebastian, Rupert and Alisdair; the brush turkeys – if you’re lucky the koalas – sometimes a python curled up asleep, and hundreds of bird varieties.”

“Each piece –  including the five dollar pieces will save several hundred rainforest trees in Sumatra thanks to Kelvin Davies and the Rainforest Trust,” says Jones, and for him the Open Day is not just a chance to show off his incredible range, but with every bowl sold, he knows one more piece of rainforest has been saved.

Richard Jones studio is at 56 Gittoes Lane Possum Creek and will be open this weekend, Saturday and Sunday from 10.00am to 4.00pm.

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Local Bluegrass group The Wilson Pickers.

If you’re one of the unlucky ones that left your run to buy a Byron Bay Writers’ Festival ticket too late, don’t despair – there’s plenty on this weekend – and  a veritable smorgasboard of events during August.

The Bangalow BBQ & Bluegrass Festival only started last year, but it was a crowd-pleaser from the start, and so it’s not surprising to see that it’s already grown, with a great line-up of musos and bands from far and near, including The Wilson Pickers, The Company and Green Mohair Suits. It’s on today, Saturday August 8 at the Bangalow Showgrounds from 10.o0 am, and tickets are available at the gate.  Kids under 18 are free, which makes it a cheap family day out.  Great food, great music, great weather…enjoy.

In the meantime, if the white noise of writers and music gets too much, up at Tweed Heads, there’s the 17th Tweed Antiques and Collectables Fair, which runs all day on August 8 and 9, at the Tweed Heads Civic Centre, Brett Street, Tweed Heads.  You never know, you might just pick up a bargain…and be back in the Shire in time for the next session.

Next weekend – August 14 – 16, the hills are alive with a different sound of music with the Bangalow Music Festival for 2015.  The Festival is celebrating its 14th year, and it’s 20 years since Creative Director Tania Frazer started the highly successful Southern Cross Soloists chamber music ensemble.  This year’s festival explores the connections between past and present – and celebrates the promise of a bright future. Artists appearing include Piers Lane, Karin Schaupp and William Barton, as well as members of Southern Cross Soloists – and international visitor, UK conductor Rainer Hersch.  The Festival kicks off on Thursday night, August 13, with the Festival Prelude at the A&I Hall.

Comic and musician Rainer Hersch brings his one-man show to the Byron at Byron for the Bangalow Music Festival.

Tickets range from the Platinum Subscription of $450pp to single concert tickets for $55 – try your luck at the A&I Hall next weekend call Southern Cross Soloists on 07 3833 7260 or email [email protected] or visit www.southernxsoloists.com

Suvira McDonald’s ‘Lost River’.

If you’re in town for the Music Festival, take a little time out to follow this year’s North Coast Mud Trail, and unearth your local potter – or even perhaps, your inner potter.  Visit 10 studio potters in nine beautiful Northern Rivers locations, catch a workshop, demonstration or artist talk – and buy your first Christmas presents.

Potters include the incredibly talented multi-disciplinary arts practitioner Suvira McDonald who is throwing open his Federal studio; the dynamic duo of ceramcists Karen Jennings and Jenn Johnston at their Tooheys Mill Road studio in leafy Fernleigh; the brilliantly minimalist work of John Stewart at his studio near Clunes and the 2012 winner of the $10,000 Townsville Ceramic Award, Catherine Lane, whose luminous pieces are bsed on a practice grounded in the Japanese ‘mingei’ tradition.

For enquiries call Suvira McDonald on 02 6684 9194 and for a list of Australian Ceramics Open Studios go to: www.australianceramics.com

Karen Jennings and Jenn Johnston at the Tooheys Mill Pottery.

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The new owners of the Lismore Northern Rivers Pottery Supplies are riding a wave of ceramic resurgence, writes Candida Baker.

Madeleine Smith and her husband Ove Altmann had been living in the Lismore region for ten years when the chance came up to buy the Northern Rivers Pottery Supplies.

“I’d been working at St. John’s College as the creative arts and performing assistant,” says Altmann, “and we bought all our clay and supplies from Paula, but I was really keen to get into this wave that seems to be happening around the handmade slow movement, and it seemed a good fit for us to take the step of buying the business.”

Somewhat to their surprise their beginners’ workshops sold out almost immediately, and with a new website, and the couple pooling their time and resources the supply shop is experiencing a whole new period of growth.  They have been lucky to attract many talented ceramicists, both local and international, to conduct their workshops and courses.

Learning the wheel with Master Potter Brooke Clunie, from Red Door Studio.

“I really do believe that ceramics are hot at the moment,” says Smith, and Altmann agrees. “I think it’s partly that it used to be considered more of a craft than an art,” he says, “but now it’s ceramic art, and much of it is breaking the boundaries of conventional practice. For me there’s a sense of alchemy when the materials all come together in the firing process – it’s a science and an art form as well. It requires a systematic approach, a mindfulness of the material and what it does, and the creative ideas.”

Together the couple brought their various skills to the table. Smith has an extensive background in administration, is also a qualified naturopath and has worked for TAFE in Lismore in the admin department for the past three years.  Altmann completed a Fine Arts Degree at the National Art School in East Sydney. For Smith, owning the centre has meant she too has been able to satisfy an urge to create, learning how to make ceramic bangles and necklaces through her label Audrey Alice, and the results of her creative endeavours are now for sale in the premises, a much-loved Lismore institution, hiding down a tiny lane which gives away nothing of the light, airy barn sitting at the end, full of – to a non-potter at least – fascinatingly curious materials and tools.

Tools of the trade at the Northern Rivers Pottery Supplies.

The couple originally met when they were both living in Brisbane in 1993. After moving and living in inner city Sydney for many years they spent six years in Thirroul on the south coast before moving to the Northern Rivers in 2004. Altmann,who was originally an actor, musician, documentary film-maker and artist, was content to put aside his creative pursuits in order to take on the job at St. John’s, which, with Smith’s work has allowed the two to bring up their two children, Sonny, 12, and Floyd, 4, living in the country town of Dunoon, north-east of Lismore.

As the couple have built up the business, all aspects of it have grown. “We run a regular Wednesday pottery group for intermediate to experienced potters,” says Altmann, “and that is going really well. The group meets for the day for a small fee of $5 which covers their insurance, tea and coffee, and then they pay for their firings as they go.”

Ceramic beads and bangles give pottery a whole new meaning…

They also provide a wheel service, and a clay delivery service across the Northern Rivers and into the Gold Coast, and their plan to create a potters ‘hub’ is quickly becoming a reality. “We want to be a point of contact for all the 3D artists in the area,” says Altmann. “As well as stocking the materials, we would like to exhibit work from potters’ groups – and we really want to encourage people to physically recycle their materials as well.”

Both Altmann and Smith have found that owning the business has enhanced their own creativity.   “It’s hard not be around all the people we meet here and not be inspired,” she says. “I’ve done a pottery course, and Ove makes a wide variety of objects.”

The NRPS offers a firing service with the cost calculated on the fired weight of each piece.

On the day I visit it’s the school holidays, and Sonny is on the computer, while Floyd is testing his four-year-old muscles climbing up banks of clay bags, and their little Jack Russell, eight-year-old Betty Biscuit, is much more of a meet-and-greeter than a guard dog. This new incarnation of the Northern Rivers Pottery Supplies is very much a family affair, and is set to stay that way for a long time to come.

Madeleine Smith and Ove Altmann
Northern Rivers Pottery Supplies
54d Terania Street
NORTH LISMORE  NSW 2480
Mob: 0417 710 697 or 0402 727 496
Tel: (02) 6621 4688
Fax: (02) 6621 3618
nrpotterysupplies
Find them on Facebook facebook.com/NorthernRiversPotterySupplies
OPENING HOURS: TUES & THUR: 9AM – 4PM, WED & FRI: 8:30AM – 4PM

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 Richard Jones, our Political Potter finds that sometimes no matter how much you want to rescue something, resistance gets in the way – but persistance is always a virtue.

I spent much of yesterday trying to rescue beetles crawling around the floor where I was firing.
It was a hopeless task.
I turned them back on their feet but they were soon upside down. Again.

When I picked them up they seemed to want to burrow so I took a handful outside and put them amongst leaves under a tree and wished them luck.
It was an alien environment for them in the kiln room, all concrete and metal.
Much of our human environment is inimical to nature – but not all.
Jo showed me photographs of two new towers at the old brewery site in Broadway Sydney covered in plants – two columns of green.
Evidently native bees were harvesting nectar from the flowers – and this in what was once one of the grimiest parts of Sydney.
 It’s a case of accidental ‘rewilding’.

There’s a powerful new global movement to purposefully ‘rewild’ the planet as discussed in George Monbiot’s book FERAL – rewilding the land, sea and human life.
 (Monbiot describes himself as a ‘slightly unhinged adventurer’. He trained as a zoologist at Oxford University, was the BBC’s first investigative environmental reporter and has written and produced numerous articles, talks and books on environmentalism. goodreads.com

Needless to say rewilding is becoming extremely urgent.
Neoliberalism, the dominant paradigm since the 1980s, is conducting a devastating war on nature and it appears that nothing can stand in the way of profits for the giant corporations and the 1% who control them.
Right now the neoliberals are winning this war and if it continues in this manner by the end of this century this planet of ours will be virtually uninhabitable for humans and millions of other species.

Naomi Klein covers this in her book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the climate. (thischangeseverything)
As she says we need to reimagine our relationship to the Earth- and we are fast running out of time.
Australia’s own Prime Minister is an arch proponent of neoliberalism and he essentially governs for the 1%, not the other 99%.
 We need to get his lot out as soon as we can in order to start beginning the repair job so desperately needed.

We all need to be part of this.
If we fail, our grandchildren and their children will never forgive us.

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Potter Richard Jones: “The word ‘retirement’ is not in my lexicon…”

Never averse to standing up for the causes he believes in, Richard Jones was the first convenor of Friends of the Earth Australia, and assisted in the founding of Greenpeace. A ‘ratbag’ (as he’s often been called) environmentalist, as a Democrat and later Independent politician he was an early advocate for green politics and animals rights issues. He lives  near Byron Bay in a house he shares with his partner, environmentalist Jo Immig, and an assortment of wildlife including paper wasps, pythons, koalas and tree frogs. Verandah caught up with him on his verandah – naturally!

Q:  You were a politician for many years, and an eco-warrier for many more – when did you decide to become a potter?

I was handling a couple of my mother’s pieces she had made a few weeks before she died – very suddenly. She had just startedrecovering from the equally sudden death of my father and had made only a few pieces of pottery.  I realised that these were the most precious things I had of her, something she had made with her own hands.  I thought it would be good to leave a few objects like that for my son and three grandchildren. I started learning with Lucy Vanstone in 2007 and became entranced with it. As I made more pieces, it soon became evident that we would not have enough space for them so I had better find homes for them. I tried a small market stall and was amazed to sell sixty pieces and then I tried another market.

Q:  Your pottery has a beautiful almost Japanese feel to it – how do you feel it’s progressed over the past four years?

I love the Japanese aesthetic, particularly their notion of wabi sabi. I’m not keen on perfect pottery that could almost be machine made. I found my wonkiest pieces sold first. I don’t make them deliberately wonky but do allow nature to take its course both during throwing and firing. You simply never know what to expect when the kiln door swings open after a reduction firing. Every piece I make is an experiment and I never quite know how I will carve it or even glaze it. Not worrying about being perfect allows me the freedom to make individual and idiosyncratic pieces.

Q:  What’s it like being a regular market-stall holder?

I now have so much respect for market stall-holders. They are up before dawn and back at dusk. They work so hard and sometimes for not too much return. There are quite a number of young women who are making, baking, growing, designing products and carving out their own living. There’s a lot of camaraderie amongst stall-holders.
It is tremendous fun meeting such a variety of people from all walks of life and from different countries. My pottery is now in a number of countries and scattered in homes around Australia.

Q:  Where did you live before you came to the Northern Rivers and what attracted you to the area?

I first came to legendary Byron Bay in the sixties and my first question was: “Where are all the trees?” It’s changed a lot since then – there are many more trees and a host of fascinating creative people. We’ve made so many more like-minded friends here than we could ever have in Sydney where I spent much of the previous 38 years.
Originally friends from Sydney’s Northern Beaches started moving up and I followed them.

Q:  I know the money you make goes to buying rainforest – so do you do this for love rather than an income?

About ten per cent of the gross revenue goes to buying rainforest. Every firing saves around 750 square metres of rainforest in Sumatra, land that would otherwise be cleared for palm oil plantations thereby destroying the homes of endangered tigers, clouded leopards, gibbons  and other creatures. I use gas and feel I have an obligation to more than offset that by saving forests and planting trees. My customers also like the idea that they are contributing. Each piece I sell saves five square metres of forest, even five dollar pieces, so I make five dollar pieces specifically and young girls in particular buy them.

 Q:  What about retirement? You’re 74 but you’re not showing any signs of slowing down…

I’ll be retired when I’m interred.  Plenty of time to lie around when I’m dead. The word “retirement” is not in my lexicon.

Q:  What do you love best about living in this area?

The people, the beaches, the abundant organic food, the spirit and the fact we now have koalas in the trees I planted years ago. They have returned after an absence of about eighty years – as have other wild creatures. It’s heaven on earth.

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