Marmalade Issue 5, 2017

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