Marmalade Issue 5, 2017
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Editorial<br />
WELCOME TO THE<br />
<strong>2017</strong> ISSUE OF<br />
MARMALADE!<br />
As always, we hope you’ll enjoy reading<br />
MARMALADE, our annual hard-copy compilation<br />
of news and stories that provide insight into the<br />
people, projects, places and products that are<br />
inspiring us and informing our current activities.<br />
Over the past year JamFactory has continued to<br />
grow in reach and scale and I’m pleased that this<br />
growth has contributed to increased income for<br />
artists and designers through direct employment,<br />
artists fees, private commissions, sales of work,<br />
royalty payments and access to space and<br />
facilities that enable the production of great<br />
work. I firmly believe that creative vibrancy relies<br />
on the on-going viability of creative practice.<br />
Supporting much of this growth has been the<br />
increased public interest in crafts-based<br />
production, the hand-made and the bespoke.<br />
This reaction to globalised homogeneity is<br />
providing new (and rebooted) opportunities<br />
for local designers and makers. Architects are<br />
looking for locally designed and made furniture<br />
for commercial and residential projects, chefs<br />
are working with local potters to develop<br />
signature bespoke tableware and tourism<br />
operators are seeking authentic mementos made<br />
by local artisans to extend the narrative of place.<br />
There also seems to be a softening of the<br />
significant hierarchical divide (commercially and<br />
institutionally) between contemporary visual arts<br />
and what has traditionally been referred to as the<br />
decorative arts, evidenced by the increasing<br />
visibility of ceramic sculpture and collectable<br />
design in several leading commercial<br />
contemporary art galleries.<br />
In this issue of MARMALADE we have sought<br />
to highlight some of these emerging threads.<br />
Leanne Amodeo reveals key issues underpinning<br />
a buoyant and thriving furniture design scene in<br />
Adelaide (page 12) while Damon Moon reflects<br />
on how the national appetite for studio pottery<br />
has grown so rapidly in recent years (page 30).<br />
JamFactory and Stylecraft recently presented<br />
the second biennial Australian Furniture Design<br />
Award (AFDA). The $20,000 prize was won by<br />
Alice Springs-based designer Elliat Rich. Her<br />
award-winning piece featured on page 18 was<br />
fabricated by skilled Sydney-based maker Oscar<br />
Prieckaerts and has entered the collection of the<br />
Art Gallery of South Australia. It is a great example<br />
of the kind of collectable design that has built a<br />
significant following in Europe and North America<br />
over the past decade and is now emerging<br />
strongly in Australia. Elliat has a forthcoming<br />
solo exhibition at the prestigious Sophie Gannon<br />
Gallery in Melbourne and I expect there will be<br />
a positive critical and commercial response.<br />
The Creative Director of Broached Commissions,<br />
Lou Weis, has been one of the key protagonists<br />
for collectable design in the Australian context<br />
and we were pleased to have Lou run an intensive<br />
three-day workshop with JamFactory’s<br />
Associates in July this year. For MARMALADE<br />
Lou has given us an insight into how he<br />
approaches the field and his latest collaboration<br />
with Jon Goulder who heads up our own Furniture<br />
Studio. Ever keen to challenge convention, Lou<br />
proposed engaging internationally acclaimed<br />
graphic designer John Warwicker to lay out the<br />
pages of his article and I’m grateful to Lou and<br />
John for their thoughtful disruption (pages 38<br />
to 43).<br />
I’m enormously proud of what JamFactory<br />
achieves through its exhibition program and two<br />
of the feature articles in this issue celebrate key<br />
projects. Timmah Ball gets to the heart of what<br />
we’re trying to do in promoting Indigenous<br />
design as part of the TARNANTHI Festival of<br />
Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait<br />
Islander Art (page 24) and Margaret Hancock<br />
Davis interviews our <strong>2017</strong> JamFactory Icon<br />
exhibitor Catherine Truman (page 20).<br />
If you do enjoy the content of MARMALADE,<br />
I encourage you to subscribe to our electronic<br />
newsletter or follow us on Instagram, Facebook<br />
or Twitter. With hundreds of artists and designers<br />
exhibiting in our galleries, working in our studios<br />
and represented in our shops, there are great new<br />
stories every single day.<br />
Enjoy!<br />
Brian Parkes<br />
CEO and Artistic Director<br />
JamFactory<br />
Left: JamFactory at Seppeltsfield.<br />
Photographer: Andre Castellucci.<br />
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