Marmalade Issue 4, 2016
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ISSUE NO 04<br />
design + craftsmanship
A BAROSSA WINE, FOOD & ART PARADISE<br />
SEPPELTSFIELD.COM.AU<br />
T: (08) 8568 6200 A: 730 Seppeltsfield Rd Seppeltsfield Barossa Valley SA 5355
CONTENTS<br />
Features<br />
12 / The Next Crop<br />
JamFactory’s unique two-year Associate training program is<br />
delivering world class results for another group of inspiring<br />
young artists and designers.<br />
20 / JamFactory Icon: Gerry Wedd<br />
JamFactory’s annual Icon series celebrates the achievements of<br />
South Australia’s most influential artists working in crafts media.<br />
24 / FUSE Glass Prize: Reconciling Innovation and Beauty<br />
This new biennial is creating opportunities for outstanding Australian<br />
and New Zealand artists working in glass.<br />
14<br />
28 / Winning: Just the Beginning<br />
For accomplished Sydney-based designer Seaton Mckeon,<br />
the benefits of winning the 2015 AFDA are contining to acrue.<br />
36 / STEEL: art design architecture<br />
Outstanding projects by contemporary Australian artists, designers<br />
and architects representing a cross section of current creative<br />
practices and relationships to this versatile material.<br />
42 / Homeland: returning, remembering, reimagining<br />
Alumni and Associates of the University of South Australia’s<br />
Bachelor of Interior Architecture consider the meaning of homeland<br />
in relationship to their professional practice and personal lives.<br />
Profiles<br />
22<br />
46 / Liam Mugavin<br />
48 / Amanda Dziedzic<br />
Regulars<br />
6 / Highlights<br />
56 / Q&A: Angela Walford<br />
26<br />
48<br />
ISSUE 04 / 1
<strong>Marmalade</strong><br />
Editorial Team<br />
Margaret Hancock Davis<br />
Brian Parkes<br />
Design<br />
Sophie Guiney with<br />
template by Canvas Group<br />
Copy Editor<br />
Genevieve O’Callaghan<br />
Feature Writers<br />
and Contributors<br />
Leanne Amodeo<br />
Penny Craswell<br />
Joanne Cys<br />
Julie Ewington<br />
Caitlin Eyre<br />
Margaret Hancock Davis<br />
Jo Higgins<br />
Gerry King<br />
Jane Lawrence<br />
Lara Merrington<br />
Margot Osborne<br />
Brian Parkes<br />
Marcus Piper<br />
Photographers<br />
Angela Bakker<br />
Chris Boha<br />
Brad Bonar<br />
Andre Castellucci<br />
Hadyn Cattach<br />
Andrew Cowen<br />
Pete Daly<br />
Jeremy Dhillon<br />
Anna Fenech Harris<br />
John Gollings<br />
Jordan Gower<br />
Grant Hancock<br />
George Karatzas<br />
Sven Kovac<br />
Lara Merrington<br />
Derek McClure<br />
Pippy Mount<br />
Sam Noonan<br />
Seb Paynter<br />
Sharrin Rees<br />
Tom Roschi<br />
Barton Taylor<br />
Jonathan van der Knaap<br />
Elise Wilken<br />
Bo Wong<br />
All photography as indicated<br />
Measurements throughout<br />
have been given in millimeters,<br />
height x width x depth.<br />
Printing<br />
Printed in Adelaide by Express<br />
Colour<br />
Distribution Enquiries<br />
Emma Aiston<br />
emma.aiston@jamfactory.com.au<br />
Publisher<br />
JamFactory<br />
19 Morphett Street<br />
Adelaide SA 5000<br />
Office: (08) 8410 0727<br />
Email: contact@jamfactory.com.au<br />
Website: jamfactory.com.au<br />
Board of Directors<br />
Peter Vaughan (Chair)<br />
Jim Carreker<br />
Noelene Buddle<br />
Shane Flowers<br />
Prof. Kay Lawrence AM<br />
Dr. Jane Lomax-Smith AM<br />
Anne Moroney<br />
Libby Raupach OAM<br />
Chief Executive Officer<br />
and Artistic Director<br />
Brian Parkes<br />
Administration<br />
General Manager<br />
Kate Cenko<br />
Finance Manager<br />
Carolyn Seelig<br />
Executive Assistant<br />
Claudine Young<br />
Accounts Officer<br />
Tracy Peck<br />
Administration/Accounts Assistant<br />
Anna Fenech Harris<br />
Development Manager<br />
Nikki Hamdorf<br />
Marketing and Graphic Design<br />
Manager<br />
Sophie Guiney<br />
Marketing and Communications<br />
Coordinator<br />
Vanessa Heath<br />
Sales<br />
Creative Directors -<br />
Retail and Product<br />
Emma Aiston and Daniel To<br />
Retail and Gallery Manager<br />
Lucy Potter<br />
Retail Supervisor<br />
Ali Carpenter<br />
Retail Supervisor - Rundle Mall Plaza<br />
Roxanne Ambrose<br />
Retail and Gallery Supervisor -<br />
Seppeltsfield<br />
Kristy Pyror<br />
Retail Sales Staff<br />
Naomi Bishop<br />
Angela Kearns<br />
Sonya Moyle<br />
Kate O’Leary Wroblewski<br />
Bettina Smith<br />
Ellen Steinborner<br />
Janice Vitkovsky<br />
Zarah Witzmann<br />
Exhibitions<br />
Senior Curator<br />
Margaret Hancock Davis<br />
Assistant Curator<br />
Lara Merrington<br />
Exhibitions Coordinator<br />
Katie Barber<br />
Exhibition Installation<br />
Peter Carroll<br />
Rhys Cooper<br />
Ceramics Studio<br />
Creative Director<br />
Damon Moon<br />
Production Manager<br />
David Pedler<br />
Associates<br />
Connie Augoustinos<br />
Jordan Gower<br />
Madeline McDade<br />
Glass Studio<br />
Creative Director<br />
Karen Cunningham<br />
Program Manager<br />
Kristel Britcher<br />
Production Manager<br />
Liam Fleming<br />
Commissions Assistant<br />
Llewelyn Ash<br />
Technician<br />
Tim Edwards<br />
Assistant Technician<br />
Madeline Prowd<br />
Associates<br />
Lewis Batchelar<br />
Laure Fradin<br />
Cole Johnson<br />
Alice Mahoney<br />
Thomas Pearson<br />
Emma Young<br />
Furniture Studio<br />
Creative Director<br />
Jon Goulder<br />
Production Manager<br />
Nicholas Fuller<br />
Associates<br />
James Howe<br />
Madeline Isakson<br />
Huw McConachy<br />
Matt Pearson<br />
Jake Rollins<br />
Pantea Roostaee<br />
Daniel Tucker<br />
Metal Design Studio<br />
Creative Director<br />
Christian Hall<br />
Production Manager<br />
Alice Potter<br />
Studio Tenant<br />
Sylvia Nevistic<br />
Associates<br />
Danielle Barrie<br />
Antonia Field<br />
Emma Field<br />
Zoe Grigoris<br />
Studio Tenants - Adelaide<br />
Studio 1<br />
Katie-Ann Houghton<br />
Madeline Prowd<br />
Studio 2<br />
Llewelyn Ash<br />
Andrew Baldwin<br />
Liam Fleming<br />
Alexander Valero<br />
Studio 3<br />
Kristel Britcher<br />
Tegan Empson<br />
Emma Klau<br />
Zoe Woods<br />
Studio 4<br />
Snøhetta<br />
Studio 5<br />
Rhys Cooper<br />
Matt Taylor<br />
Studio 6<br />
Stephen Roy<br />
Studio 7<br />
Lilly Buttrose<br />
Courtney Jackson<br />
John Richardson<br />
Kate Sutherland<br />
Studio 8<br />
Julie Bartholemew<br />
Bruce Nuske<br />
Sophia Nuske<br />
Ulrica Trulsson<br />
Studio 9<br />
Susan Frost<br />
Wayne Mcara<br />
Studio 10<br />
Daniel Emma<br />
Studio Tenants -Seppeltsfield<br />
Julie Fleming<br />
Brenden Scott French<br />
Barry Gardner<br />
Rose-Anne and Michael Russell<br />
Angela Walford<br />
Development Committee<br />
Denise George<br />
Diana Jaquillard<br />
Helen Nash<br />
Patricia Roche Greville<br />
Barbara Tanner<br />
Special thanks to Libby Raupach<br />
OAM<br />
Cover<br />
Mari Funaki, Object, 2009<br />
heat coloured mild steel<br />
410 x 50 x 45<br />
Collection of Geoffrey Smith<br />
and Gary Singer, Melbourne<br />
Photography Courtesy of the<br />
National Gallery of Victoria<br />
Photographer: Jeremy Dillon<br />
Left: Glass studio.<br />
Photographer: Brad Bonar<br />
JamFactory supports and promotes outstanding design and craftsmanship through its widely acclaimed studios, galleries and shops. A unique not-for-profit<br />
organisation located in the Adelaide city centre and at Seppeltsfield in the Barossa, JamFactory is supported by the South Australian Government and recognised<br />
both nationally and internationally as a centre for excellence. JamFactory acknowledges the support and assistance of Arts South Australia and is assisted by<br />
The Visual Arts and Crafts Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments. JamFactory Exhibitions Program is assisted by the Australian<br />
Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.<br />
ISSUE 04 / 3
Editorial<br />
WELCOME TO THE<br />
<strong>2016</strong> ISSUE OF<br />
MARMALADE!<br />
JamFactory recently launched a fresh new<br />
website and I’m pleased to report that our<br />
on-line audience is growing rapidly. The digital<br />
environment is global and almost infinite and<br />
while we are excited about the possibilities of<br />
promoting what we do via the World Wide Web,<br />
we are equally committed to telling our stories<br />
through this annual printed publication – a<br />
beautiful thing that can be held in the hand<br />
and read slowly over time.<br />
Physical engagement with objects and spaces is<br />
important to us and I’m equally pleased to report<br />
that our audience has recently increased to over<br />
250,000 visitors annually across our touring<br />
exhibitions and our permanent venues in<br />
Adelaide and the Barossa.<br />
Our plans for continued growth over the coming<br />
years will see JamFactory increase its<br />
engagement nationally and internationally. In<br />
particular we hope to establish an on-going<br />
presence in Sydney and in November this year<br />
we launched an eight-week JamFactory pop-up<br />
at Koskela in Rosebery to test some ideas. We<br />
are grateful to Koskela for the opportunity and<br />
hope to build many new connections.<br />
One of JamFactory’s most important offerings<br />
is our unique two-year Associate training<br />
program and for this issue of <strong>Marmalade</strong> we<br />
invited Leanne Amodeo to write about the<br />
program and the growing philanthropic support<br />
it receives through our wonderful Medici<br />
Collective program. 12 outstanding new first-year<br />
Associates will join the program in 2017. They will<br />
be coming from as far away as France, the United<br />
States, the Czech Republic and Mexico as well as<br />
Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Adelaide.<br />
JamFactory now runs three significant award<br />
programs. The latest is the biennial FUSE Glass<br />
Prize, which Margot Osborne has written about<br />
on page 24. The others are the biennial Australian<br />
Furniture Design Award (in partnership with<br />
Stylecraft) and the annual South Australian Drink<br />
Dine Design Emerging Designer Award. The 2015<br />
winners of both these awards are also profiled in<br />
this issue.<br />
An ambitious new activity for JamFactory<br />
was the recent launch of our first ever furniture<br />
collection – an initiative that we hope will create<br />
significant training, marketing and income<br />
benefits as well as contribute to growth in local<br />
high-value manufacturing. You can read about<br />
this on page 50.<br />
JamFactory has long been a leader in curatorial<br />
research and exhibition development within the<br />
craft and design sector. Our first major exhibition<br />
for 2017 will be STEEL: art design architecture,<br />
which will tour nationally to 15 venues and be<br />
accompanied by a 264-page catalogue. The<br />
exhibition’s curator Margaret Hancock Davis<br />
has provided some wonderful insights into the<br />
exhibition on page 36.<br />
<strong>Marmalade</strong> is jam-packed with fascinating stories<br />
that are generated by the many hundreds of<br />
passionate artists, designers, craftspeople,<br />
curators and collectors who are part of<br />
JamFactory’s growing network.<br />
Enjoy!<br />
Brian Parkes<br />
CEO and Artistic Director<br />
JamFactory<br />
ISSUE 04 / 5
Highlights<br />
LIKE MINDED<br />
Coffee Bondi Beach is a coffee bar and roaster with a focus on education,<br />
experience, sustainability and quality. In late 2015 the client approached<br />
former JamFactory Furniture Studio Associate Liam Mugavin with a brief<br />
of “complete creative control” and the opportunity to not only apply his<br />
skills as a designer and maker, but also to engage and collaborate with<br />
fellow JamFactory artists and designers; Christian Hall in metal, Ulrica Trulsson<br />
in ceramics, Liam Fleming in glass and Stephen Soeffky, a JamFactory<br />
alumnus who provided significant input as an interior designer.<br />
AMERICAN DREAM<br />
The new JamFactory scholarship with the<br />
internationally esteemed Corning Museum<br />
of Glass was awarded to second-year Glass<br />
Studio Associate Laure Fradin. This gave<br />
Fradin the opportunity to participate in a<br />
workshop with American glass artists Karen<br />
Willenbrink-Johnsen and Jasen Johnsen in<br />
June this year. While at the Corning Museum<br />
of Glass, Fradin perfected skills in hot sculpting<br />
and new techniques for the application of<br />
colour. She also did further research for<br />
upcoming works at the renowned Rakow<br />
Research Library, which has the largest<br />
collection of glass-related resources in<br />
the world.<br />
Photographer: The artist<br />
Liam’s research during his Masters in Sustainable Design at the University of<br />
South Australia, focusing on producer responsibility, design for end-of-life<br />
and material take-back, tied in neatly with the client’s ethos – to serve only<br />
what they themselves produce, including in-house roasted beans and an<br />
almond–macadamia nut milk. Taking all these elements into consideration,<br />
Liam finished all the timber with tung (nut) oil and made certain nothing in<br />
the shop was “off the shelf”.<br />
Photographer: Barton Taylor<br />
NEW WORTH<br />
Worth Gallery has set up a city<br />
showroom and gallery space to<br />
complement their existing site at<br />
The Barn in Stirling. The new<br />
warehouse venue at 20 The Parade<br />
West, Kent Town, has been divided up<br />
to provide space for several creative<br />
businesses including Tell Henry cafe,<br />
Lucent Construction and Rodeo.<br />
The Worth boutique showroom<br />
stocks limited-edition exhibition<br />
pieces and artists’ work, while the<br />
gallery will show an exhibition<br />
program of featured Worth Gallery<br />
artists, whose work encompasses<br />
furniture, glass, ceramics, jewellery,<br />
painting and sculpture.<br />
Image courtesy of Worth Gallery<br />
6 / ISSUE 04
A BECOMING WIN<br />
“Instantly, unavoidably compelling” is how the judges<br />
described Gabriella Bisetto’s winning entry for the Art<br />
Gallery of Western Australia’s <strong>2016</strong> Luminous: Tom Malone<br />
Prize for contemporary glass artists. The work, titled<br />
Becoming, 2015 is “a tangle of tubular curving forms held in<br />
a loose spherical formation” that the judges recognised as “a<br />
brilliantly bold, ambitious statement in glass”. Becoming<br />
evolves from Bisetto’s interest in the body and the nature of<br />
death. She says the structure of her work was inspired by<br />
the beauty of the ubiquitous plant species Kali tragus,<br />
common in the arid regions of Australia and especially on<br />
the Hay Plains, which she frequently passes through. Bisetto<br />
explains: “It is a plant rarely admired or even noticed until it<br />
dies, when in its new animated state it is commonly<br />
recognised as a tumbleweed. More visible dead than alive,<br />
its transitional state speaks to me about our own mortality<br />
and the perplexity of death”. Bisetto says winning the prize,<br />
now in its 14th year, was extremely affirming to her practice.<br />
She is excited to be on the list of artists acquired by the Art<br />
Gallery of Western Australia, including Nick Mount, Jessica<br />
Loughlin, Clare Belfrage, Benjamin Sewell, Kevin Gordon,<br />
Charles Butcher, Cobi Cockburn, Deirdre Feeney, Brian Corr,<br />
Tom Moore and Mel Douglas.<br />
Photographer: Chris Boha<br />
WEST SIDE<br />
3 Degrees West is a retail space nestled among<br />
a group of small shops in West Croydon. It<br />
specialises in South Australian handmade and<br />
botanical goods. Owned and operated by<br />
ceramic artist and JamFactory alumnus<br />
Stephanie James-Manttan, the shop is<br />
conveniently located next door to James-<br />
Manttan’s shared workspace, 6 Hands Studio,<br />
where you are welcome to see how<br />
her contemporary ceramics are made.<br />
Photographer: Lara Merrington<br />
INTERNATIONAL SCALE<br />
Snøhetta is a trans-disciplinary architecture and landscape<br />
practice with main offices in Oslo and New York. In January this<br />
year, they took up residency in a studio located at JamFactory.<br />
With a working method that practises a simultaneous<br />
exploration of cutting-edge digital technology and traditional<br />
handicraft, for Snøhetta, being located among the makers and<br />
designers of JamFactory is a perfect match. From their<br />
Adelaide base, they are currently working on the University<br />
of South Australia’s Great Hall project in association with JPE<br />
Design Studio, as well as the Arts Centre Melbourne master<br />
plan project in association with NH Architecture. Snøhetta<br />
received its first commission in 1989 – the Bibliotheca<br />
Alexandrina in Alexandria, Egypt – followed a decade later by<br />
the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet. In 2004, Snøhetta<br />
was commissioned to build the National September 11 Memorial<br />
Museum & Pavillion at the World Trade Center site in New<br />
York, and, in 2013, the new San Francisco Museum of<br />
Modern Art expansion.<br />
Image courtesy of Snøhetta<br />
ISSUE 04 / 7
Highlights<br />
BEAUTY NOW<br />
Designers Daniel Emma (also the Creative Directors of<br />
Product and Retail at JamFactory) were selected to<br />
exhibit in the fifth instalment of the Cooper Hewitt,<br />
Smithsonian Design Museum’s signature<br />
contemporary design exhibition series Beauty –<br />
Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial. Beauty included<br />
projects ranging from experimental prototypes and<br />
interactive games to fashion ensembles and<br />
architectural interventions. With a focus on aesthetic<br />
innovation, the exhibition featured more than 250<br />
works by 63 designers and teams from around the<br />
globe and was organised according to seven themes:<br />
extravagant, intricate, ethereal, transgressive,<br />
emergent, elemental and transformative. Presenting a<br />
variation on their work Squeaky Clean, which was<br />
originally exhibited at the Wallpaper* Handmade<br />
exhibition in Milan, Daniel Emma created a design for<br />
Cooper Hewitt that was minimal and composed of<br />
geometric shapes, but playful in the experience and<br />
interaction with the object. Emma Aiston says their<br />
challenge as designers is to look at objects that most<br />
people take for granted and “make them more<br />
enjoyable to use and just nice”.<br />
Photographer: Andre Castellucci<br />
TRULY HONOURED<br />
Catherine Truman has been chosen as the 2017<br />
JamFactory Icon. Truman, who is co-founder of<br />
Adelaide’s Gray Street Workshop, has a diverse<br />
practice spanning installation and contemporary<br />
jewellery to public art projects and moving image.<br />
Recently she was celebrated as featured artist for<br />
the <strong>2016</strong> South Australian Living Artists (SALA)<br />
Festival and Wakefield Press publication. An<br />
accompanying survey exhibition was held at the<br />
Art Gallery of South Australia and provided a rare<br />
opportunity to present a comprehensive survey of<br />
her carved objects and jewellery from her 35 years<br />
of practice. Truman says she feels very honoured<br />
to have been chosen as the next JamFactory Icon<br />
and is excited about the upcoming exhibition<br />
which will investigate her 20 years of research<br />
and collaborative practice at the nexus of art and<br />
science. This exhibition will open at JamFactory<br />
in July 2017.<br />
Photographer: Grant Hancock<br />
FUNCTION AND FASHION<br />
JamFactory Furniture Studio second-year Associates Matt<br />
Pearson and Daniel Tucker have recently completed a 20-seater<br />
boardroom table for the fit-out of Australian Fashion Labels at<br />
their new headquarters on North Terrace, Adelaide. The piece is<br />
designed for the space, which boasts richly coloured jarrah<br />
flooring and a varied colour palette. The design of the table uses<br />
simple forms and takes visual queues from the JamFactory<br />
commissioned bench seats for the new Royal Adelaide Hospital.<br />
It features a bone white Corian working surface with blackened<br />
American oak carcasses to form the leg structure. A strip of solid<br />
American oak is a central feature on top of the work surface. It<br />
has flip lids at either end that allow access to an integrated<br />
power and data management system. Pearson and Tucker say<br />
they were cautious about designing anything that was “on trend”<br />
or too “outrageous”, with their priority being to create a “tasteful<br />
form that was fundamentally functional and would remain<br />
stylistically relevant for the contemporary fashion label”.<br />
Photographer: Seb Paynter<br />
8 / ISSUE 04
MAKING GOOD<br />
ESSENTIALLY AUSTRALIAN<br />
Former JamFactory Associate and Ceramics Studio<br />
Tenant (2010–15) Maria Chatzinikolaki held a solo<br />
exhibition of her work at Beaver Galleries, Canberra, in<br />
June this year. Titled Essence of…, the works were<br />
based on “the qualities that define us and that we carry<br />
as human vessels”. Using mould-casting as well as<br />
hand-building and throwing, Chatzinikolaki made the<br />
clay and glaze, specific chemicals and all the colours<br />
and stains out of Australian materials. These were<br />
transported from Australia with Chatzinikolaki to her<br />
small studio on Paros island, Greece, where she now<br />
lives and works. Chatzinikolaki currently works with two<br />
main galleries in Australia, Beaver Galleries, ACT and<br />
Margaret River Gallery, WA.<br />
Photographer: George Karatzas<br />
Continuing their work in backing creative professionals,<br />
Guildhouse launched a new marketing initiative, Well<br />
Made. A curated online platform, the site is designed to<br />
connect the very best South Australian visual artists,<br />
craftspeople, designers and spaces with those looking to<br />
purchase work, collaborate on a new project, invest in<br />
residential and commercial commissions or plan their visit<br />
to South Australia. Well Made can be contacted about<br />
artists and commissions or to discover what’s happening<br />
generally across our creative industry.<br />
Photographer: Jonathan van der Knaap<br />
FORCE OF NATURE<br />
The <strong>2016</strong> Biennial North Queensland Ceramic Award was<br />
awarded to Jeff Mincham for his Bush Ballard (Forces of<br />
Nature Series), 2015. The Creative Director of JamFactory’s<br />
Ceramics Studio, Damon Moon, was the sole judge of the<br />
award. Mincham, who has enjoyed an association with the<br />
ceramics community of Townsville and the Perc Tucker<br />
Regional Gallery for over 30 years, says he was pleased to<br />
hear that after a brief hiatus the ceramic award was to be<br />
revived: “For over three decades [the award] has been the<br />
underpinning of the gallery’s very fine ceramic collection,<br />
easily among the best of its kind in the regional gallery<br />
network”. This is the second time he has won the award,<br />
as well as having also previously judged it.<br />
Image courtesy of the artist<br />
ISSUE 04 / 9
Highlights<br />
SILENT NATURE<br />
TAKING FLIGHT<br />
The Creative Director of JamFactory’s<br />
Metal Design Studio, Christian Hall, was<br />
commissioned to create a piece<br />
commemorating the commencement of<br />
direct flights (two per week) between Adelaide<br />
and Doha. A gift from Adelaide Airport to<br />
Qatar Airways, CEO to CEO, the Falcon piece<br />
constructed from lasercut and folded stainless<br />
steel and cast brass was considered an<br />
appropriate gift, with falconry being one of<br />
the core cultural activities of Qatar. So pleased<br />
with the project was the airport that they have<br />
subsequently commissioned JamFactory’s<br />
Metal Design Studio to create a new gift to<br />
commemorate the commencement of flights<br />
by Southern China Airlines.<br />
Photographer: Tom Roschi<br />
In December 2014 a fire ripped through Eden Valley, including large portions<br />
of the Angas’ property, Hutton Vale Farm, in the Barossa region. The property<br />
is a mixed farming business and has been in the Angas family since 1843. The<br />
trees of this land were more than part of the Angas lineage on the property,<br />
with some of those extensively damaged in the fire, including 77 river red<br />
gums, in existence for near to 500 years.<br />
Silent witnesses to an age of events on the land, an integral part of the local<br />
eco-system and a staple in the rolling landscape, these majestic beings<br />
represent a significant and emotional loss for which Jan and John Angas felt<br />
deserved a proper send-off. They approached Brian Parkes (Chief Executive<br />
Officer, JamFactory) with the idea for a project that would creatively preserve<br />
the trees’ memory. The resulting exhibition at JamFactory at Seppeltsfield<br />
includes a selection of South Australian artists who have created new works in<br />
response to their site visits and their conversations about the cultural history<br />
of Hutton Vale Farm, from Aboriginal to colonial and contemporary times and<br />
regarding the role of the trees within the wider ecology of the landscape.<br />
Featuring Jennifer Ahrens, Adam Cantwell, Chris de Rosa, Helen Fuller, Heidi<br />
Kenyon, Sue Kneebone, Adrian Potter and James Tylor, the exhibition is<br />
curated by JamFactory’s Assistant Curator, Lara Merrington. Silent Nature<br />
runs until 4 December, <strong>2016</strong> at JamFactory at Seppeltsfield.<br />
Photographer: Lara Merrington<br />
CAREER<br />
SCULPTING<br />
This year’s recipient of the Pilchuck<br />
Scholarship was JamFactory<br />
first-year Associate Thom Pearson.<br />
Thom Pearson attended a class<br />
at Pilchuck Glass School under glass<br />
artist Debora Moore. Based in<br />
Seattle, Moore teaches a class called<br />
The Architexture of Nature, which<br />
provides an in-depth approach to<br />
colour application. Pearson gained<br />
a significant insight into surface<br />
manipulation and built an<br />
understanding of hot-sculpting<br />
techniques, benefiting the<br />
technical skills in his practice.<br />
Photographer: Sven Kovac<br />
10 / ISSUE 04
BREATHING SPACE<br />
NEW MUSEUM,<br />
OLD ART<br />
In June this year, Adelaide welcomed a new<br />
museum to its ranks, the David Roche Foundation<br />
House Museum. As one of the greatest decorative<br />
arts collections in a private institution in Australia,<br />
the impressive collection of porcelain, paintings,<br />
furnishings and antiques spans two centuries of<br />
European design, focusing particularly on<br />
European neoclassical design of the late 18th and<br />
early 19th centuries. The late David Roche<br />
(1930–2013) assembled the collection over his<br />
lifetime, purchasing his first piece at the age of 17.<br />
Today the collection is of “national and, indeed,<br />
international significance”, explains museum<br />
Director Martyn Cook. Part open house, part<br />
purpose-built museum, an extension designed by<br />
Adelaide architecture and interior design firm<br />
Williams Burton Leopardi houses the curated<br />
exhibitions of the most important pieces of the<br />
collection, while complementing the display of<br />
Roche’s former home, Fermoy House, adjacent.<br />
Located on Melbourne Street, North Adelaide, the<br />
house is presented in a manner reminiscent of<br />
how David Roche lived and displays elements of<br />
his collection in the context of his lifestyle and<br />
everyday interaction with the objects<br />
Image courtesy of the David Roche Foundation<br />
JamFactory Ceramics Studio Tenant Wayne Mcara was<br />
selected to participate in the first Latvia International<br />
Ceramics Biennale held in June this year at the majestic<br />
fortress that is the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Center.<br />
Latvia’s largest centre for contemporary art, it holds the<br />
most significant selection of work by renowned Latvian<br />
ceramicist the late Peteris Martinsons. As well as several<br />
contemporary international exhibitions, conferences,<br />
lectures, performances and other activities held during the<br />
biennale, a key event is the Martinsons Award, which gives<br />
three individual cash prizes to international ceramicists.<br />
Using the “mimetic qualities of porcelain, slip-casting and<br />
hand-building techniques”, Mcara creates installations and<br />
groupings of objects that blur reality and fiction, weaving<br />
new stories directly into his delicate porcelain forms. Mcara<br />
says his entry, titled #icantbreathe, questions “our place in<br />
the global community and our outlook on inequality within<br />
social structure” and toys with “perception and narrative<br />
through contemporary ceramic sculpture and installation”.<br />
Photographer: Michael Kluvanek<br />
OVER THE EDGE<br />
Our first-year Ceramics Studio Associates were recently<br />
commissioned to make a small run of branded beakers for<br />
Over the Edge, a regional bike shop and cafe in Melrose in<br />
the Southern Flinders Ranges. The final design was<br />
decided on after close conversation with the shop’s owner,<br />
Kerri Bruce, and is a slightly shorter version of the thrown<br />
beaker from the JamFactory Ceramics Studio production<br />
range. It also features the shop’s emblem and a grey/iron<br />
matte glaze. Guided by the Ceramics Studio’s Creative<br />
Director, Damon Moon, the first-year Associates managed<br />
and oversaw the project from start to finish, which<br />
included not only making the work but keeping on track of<br />
finances, approaching commercial industry and fulfilling<br />
client requirements. The Associates said it was a “great<br />
opportunity to understand how to operate within a<br />
commissions-based environment”.<br />
Photographer: Jordan Gower<br />
ISSUE 04 / 11
Feature
THE<br />
NEXT CROP<br />
Words by Leanne Amodeo<br />
Leanne is a content director,<br />
media consultant and educator.<br />
JAMFACTORY’S UNIQUE TWO-YEAR<br />
ASSOCIATE TRAINING PROGRAM IS<br />
DELIVERING WORLD CLASS RESULTS<br />
FOR ANOTHER GROUP OF INSPIRING<br />
YOUNG ARTISTS AND DESIGNERS.<br />
For many people their introduction to JamFactory’s Associate<br />
training program is via the annual presentation of work by<br />
second-year graduates, Generate. The exhibition always<br />
manages to exceed expectations, with an offering that<br />
proves the quality of work being produced by the Adelaide<br />
institution’s four studios is on a fast-moving trajectory. Last<br />
year’s showcase, in particular, displayed the Associates’ high<br />
level of commitment to their craft and stands as testament<br />
to the hard work of JamFactory Chief Executive Officer Brian<br />
Parkes and his team.<br />
Tasmanian-born Parkes has long reinforced the importance<br />
of the training program for the nation’s creative economy.<br />
Associates spend two years developing their own work and<br />
collaborating on JamFactory products under the guidance and<br />
mentorship of expert creative staff; after graduation they set<br />
up across Australia and beyond. Not only do these emerging<br />
practitioners become new ambassadors for the design<br />
industry in general, but they also shine a very bright light<br />
on JamFactory as one of Australia’s leading incubators of<br />
creative talent.<br />
This reputation has been cemented by Parkes, who was<br />
quick to appoint some of the country’s finest to lead the four<br />
on-site studios through what is arguably JamFactory’s most<br />
prodigious period in its 43-year history. As Creative Director<br />
of the Furniture Design Studio, Jon Goulder exemplifies the<br />
unabashed ambition that steers the internal vision for the<br />
program. “I want to make the JamFactory Furniture Studio<br />
the place in Australia to come and practice or study furniture”,<br />
says the renowned designer–maker. During his relatively<br />
short time at the helm, the studio has produced a number<br />
of high-profile commercial commissions, launched the first<br />
JamFactory furniture collection and collaborated with several<br />
well-respected independent designers, including Henry Wilson.<br />
The three other studios – Ceramics, Glass and Metal Design<br />
– are headed by Creative Directors Damon Moon, Karen<br />
Cunningham and Christian Hall respectively, and are also<br />
excelling. Significantly, the Ceramics Studio recently completed<br />
a prestigious 12-month commission to produce hand-thrown<br />
tableware for the Magill Estate Restaurant’s degustation menu.<br />
Current Associates number 19 in total (four in Metal Design,<br />
three in Ceramics and six each in Furniture Design and Glass)<br />
and come from all around Australia and as far afield as France<br />
and the United States.<br />
ISSUE 04 / 13
Many are attracted by the facility itself, while some want the<br />
opportunity to be mentored by a specific Creative Director<br />
and others see it as a chance to change the direction of<br />
their existing practice. Yet most may well agree that the<br />
JamFactory’s Associate training program’s key appealing<br />
feature, and biggest benefit, is its ability to connect people.<br />
As Metal Design Creative Director Christian Hall explains, “It’s<br />
a formidable community, but JamFactory is also an outwardlooking<br />
organisation that includes local practitioners, industry<br />
and a growing list of members and clients who are invested<br />
in what we do”.<br />
Being part of an established creative network serves<br />
each Associate well, making their entry into the world of<br />
professional design practice all the more smoother. “I would<br />
encourage any designer who wanted to grow their practice<br />
creatively, technically or entrepreneurially to apply”, says<br />
Hall. “The program allows them to set even more ambitious<br />
expectations for themselves and move forward with<br />
confidence in both their creative and financial futures.”<br />
One of the advantages of the Associate training program<br />
is, indeed, its holistic approach in providing teaching<br />
across both creative and business areas.<br />
However, the measure of any program’s success is the calibre<br />
and achievements of its graduates. With internationally<br />
recognised artists and designers such as Tom Moore, Vipoo<br />
Srivilasa, Janice Vitkovsky and Jim Hannon-Tan peppering the<br />
list of alumni, it’s safe to say JamFactory’s rate of success is<br />
very high. One of last year’s Furniture Design studio graduates,<br />
Rhys Cooper, is already proving a name to watch. His CUSP<br />
Dining Chair is included in JamFactory’s inaugural furniture<br />
collection and he is currently developing new product as well<br />
as working on small commissions. For Cooper, the training<br />
program was invaluable in providing him with business<br />
and marketing savvy: “I’ve built a level of confidence and<br />
self-respect in what I do. And my plan now is to develop a<br />
collection of four to five products using local manufacture”.<br />
Another recent graduate making a mark is Kate Nixon, who<br />
also completed the training program last year. The Glass<br />
alumnus is currently working as a glass blower at Canberra<br />
Glassworks and travelled to Berlin mid-year to undertake<br />
a four-month residency at Berlin Glas e.V. Like Cooper,<br />
she is quick to praise the practical tools the Associate<br />
training program taught her. “The hand and technical skills<br />
I learnt through production glass blowing has made me a<br />
more confident maker and, overall, the program gave me<br />
an excellent grounding in the nuts and bolts of running a<br />
sustainable practice”, she says. Nixon was also able to<br />
shape a clear idea of the type of practice she wanted and<br />
implement realistic business structures and goals in order<br />
to make that happen.<br />
Supporting emerging talent is a motto JamFactory lives by<br />
and on the suggestion of the Board Chair Peter Vaughan,<br />
Parkes recently established a new donor program to benefit<br />
the Associate training program. The Medici Collective is the<br />
organisation’s first formal philanthropic initiative and directly<br />
supports the training program, which is partially covered by<br />
State Government funding and by JamFactory’s commercial<br />
activity. Increased financial support, of course, means more<br />
can be done in order to continually refine the quality of<br />
delivery. Thus far, the Medici Collective has been well<br />
received with donors acknowledging the need for private<br />
investment in an age where influence and possibility has<br />
never been more important.<br />
It’s little wonder the Associate training program’s application<br />
process is so highly competitive. While it comes with neither<br />
a guarantee for fame nor fortune, there is certainly no other<br />
place in Australia that can offer quite what JamFactory<br />
does. The organisation finds itself operating at a time when<br />
Adelaide’s design landscape is shifting and the eastern states<br />
are no longer regarded as the sole industry leaders. Keep an<br />
eye on the current crop of Associates – Matt Pearson, Daniel<br />
Tucker, Madeline Isakson, Huw McConachy, Zoe Grigoris,<br />
Emma Field, Lewis Batchelar, Laure Fradin and Alice Mahoney<br />
– because they’re sure to make an impact.<br />
14 / ISSUE 04
Previous page: Metal Design Studio Associate Zoe Grigoris<br />
Photographer: Sven Kovac<br />
Far left: Glass Studio. Photographer: Brad Bonar<br />
Top: Furniture Studio Creative Director, Jon Goulder, in<br />
the studio. Photographer: Bo Wong<br />
Bottom left: Glass Studio Alumnus, Kate Nixon.<br />
Photographer: Sven Kovac<br />
Bottom right: Ceramics Studio Creative Director Damon<br />
Moon with elements of the Magill Estate Tableware<br />
Commission. Photographer: Andre Castellucci<br />
ISSUE 04 / 15
MEDICI<br />
COLLECTIVE<br />
The dynamic program enabling visionary patrons<br />
to collectively invest in and directly engage with<br />
the talented emerging artists and designers<br />
undertaking JamFactory’s acclaimed Associate<br />
training program.<br />
THANK YOU TO OUR <strong>2016</strong><br />
MEDICI COLLECTIVE MEMBERS<br />
Paul and Janelle Amos<br />
Kent Aughey and Louisa Scott<br />
William Boyle<br />
Noelene Buddle and David Shannon<br />
Jim and Helen Carreker<br />
John Chambers and Dawn Taylor<br />
Annette Coleman<br />
Michael Darling<br />
Geoff Day OAM and Anne Day<br />
Shane and Kate Flowers<br />
Denise George<br />
Colin and Marie Goodall<br />
Steve Grieve and Dr Christine Putland<br />
Deborah and Craig Hosking<br />
Philippe and Diana Jaquillard<br />
John Kirkwood and Wendy Alstergren<br />
Professor Kay Lawrence AM<br />
Nicholas Linke<br />
Penny McAuley<br />
Paul and Fatima McHugh<br />
David and Pam McKee<br />
David and Sue Minns<br />
Anne Moroney<br />
Libby Raupach OAM and Mark Lloyd<br />
Patricia Roche Greville and Dr Hugh Greville<br />
Roger and Helen Salkeld<br />
Peter Vaughan and Anne Barker<br />
Alan Young AM and Sue Young<br />
Association of Australian Decorative and Fine Arts Societies<br />
Ballandry Fund, a sub fund of Australian Communities Foundation<br />
JPE Design Studio<br />
In its first two years the Medici Collective has contributed more than $120,000<br />
towards supporting the Associate training program. The passionate influencers<br />
who make up the Medici Collective have the rewarding opportunity to see the<br />
results of their investment and involvement as they witness the development of<br />
individual artists and designers.<br />
We sincerely thank the <strong>2016</strong> Medici Collective members and warmly welcome<br />
interest in the program for 2017. For further information please contact<br />
JamFactory’s Development Manager Nikki Hamdorf on (08) 8410 0727 or<br />
nikki.hamdorf@jamfactory.com.au<br />
Visit https://www.jamfactory.com.au/pages/donate-membership#medici<br />
Right: <strong>2016</strong> Medici Dinner. Photographer: Andre Castellucci<br />
16 / ISSUE 04
FOR THE PEOPLE<br />
Words by Marcus Piper<br />
Marcus is Editor and Creative Director of Mezzanine Magazine.<br />
Growing up in Bendigo, Hardiman had no interest in design,<br />
nor furniture for that matter. It was deemed to be “something<br />
in the middle” by him and his family. As he says, furniture was<br />
just “facilitating something for someone else.” But, as luck,<br />
for us, might have it – this unassuming rural lad found himself<br />
studying furniture design at Melbourne’s RMIT University and<br />
very soon became a focal point of a creative world beyond<br />
his imagination.<br />
Initially thinking he would learn to create “functional<br />
sculptures,” Hardiman quickly realised he wasn’t all that<br />
interested in functional furniture at all – he was interested<br />
in exploration. Having taken a gap year to work so he could<br />
afford his education, design was not a luxury and nor were<br />
materials. With his first project, Kids Straw Stool, created<br />
in 2011, Hardiman was already flying in the face of the<br />
usual response to a student project. The brief called for a<br />
composite material and, instead of using resin, Hardiman<br />
created his own material using pea straw and grass seeds,<br />
cooked and moulded in the kitchen of his small Melbourne<br />
share house.<br />
The stool, which is completely biodegradable, explored the<br />
concept of making your own furniture – something more<br />
common in 3D-printed work, but unexpected in a first-year<br />
student project on composite materials. Entering the work in<br />
the prestigious Bombay Sapphire Design Discovery Award,<br />
the fledgling designer was amazed when it became a finalist<br />
amongst a line-up of Australia’s leading creators. What<br />
Hardiman took from this success is that “the work of students<br />
is just as valid as those who have been practicing for years.”<br />
The following year, Hardiman entered Klag, 2011, a threelegged<br />
chair made of fly-ash, a coal combustion by-product<br />
and concrete substitute, in an Italian competition. The prize<br />
was a stand at the Salone del Mobile (the Milan Furniture<br />
Fair), and to his surprise he won – though not having the<br />
ability to make the trip to Italy, he was awarded runner-up.<br />
Through a discussion with the awards co-ordinators at the<br />
famed Milan Polytechnic, Hardiman realised that he was<br />
the only Australian entrant, and with that he launched a<br />
Facebook page to share international awards with<br />
designers globally.<br />
The concept of giving is constant through Hardiman’s work,<br />
as can be seen through his more curatorial endeavours. As<br />
his former RMIT mentor, Simone LeAmon observes: “Dale is<br />
the instigator and co-founder of numerous design projects<br />
that bring together Australian designers in the spirit of highlevel<br />
creative risk-taking.”<br />
designer André Hnatojko – a platform to showcase the<br />
work of emerging and cutting-edge Australian designers.<br />
“His motivation is quite simple – he gets community,”<br />
adds LeAmon. “He understands that, underpinning a<br />
vibrant design sector, there is social cohesion, where<br />
practitioners exchange ideas, conversation and<br />
demonstrate a genuine interest in each other.”<br />
In speaking with Hardiman, the word ‘facilitation’ is<br />
never too far from mind, and to make his less commercial<br />
endeavours possible, he launched Dowel Jones with<br />
Adam Lynch in 2013. Starting as a concept to create<br />
open-source designs, Dowel Jones provides plans online<br />
for designs using simple materials like dowels that are<br />
readily available at any local hardware store, so that<br />
people can literally make their own pieces – removing<br />
the need for transport and manufacturing. Three years<br />
on and Dowel Jones now has several furniture, lighting<br />
and accessories for sale, which are achieving local and<br />
international acclaim.<br />
Working backwards from conversations and accessible<br />
manufacturing, Hardiman sees the Hurdle brand family<br />
of stools, side-tables and chairs as a perfect example of<br />
Dowel Jones’s process. “We talk to people about what<br />
is needed, what kinds of products are needed and what<br />
kind of price-points are needed,” describes Hardiman.<br />
Since its launch in June 2015 as part of the Broadsheet<br />
pop-up restaurant, the Hurdle family has elevated the<br />
brand to local and international recognition.<br />
Manufactured in Thomastown and the Dandenongs, the<br />
Hurdle family is assembled in Melbourne and in just over<br />
a year has made the leap to venues in Denmark, Zurich,<br />
Canada and the Singapore National Gallery. With such<br />
immediate success, Hardiman is still humble, emphasising<br />
that: “The most important thing about Dowel Jones is<br />
relationships.” And, while it is clear this life story is being<br />
with the idea that, for him, design is truly about<br />
facilitating something for someone else.<br />
An extract from the original complete article in<br />
Mezzanine Magazine’s fifth issue by Marcus Piper.<br />
Photography: Elise Wilken<br />
Dale Hardiman ran a three day collaborative<br />
design workshop with JamFactory’s<br />
Associates in July <strong>2016</strong>.<br />
LeAmon, now The Hugh D.T. Williamson Curator of<br />
Contemporary Design and Architecture at the National<br />
Gallery of Victoria, has supported Hardiman’s vision through<br />
the avant-garde 1-OK Club which he launched with fellow<br />
18 / ISSUE 04
With a generosity of<br />
spirit and well-crafted<br />
sense of humour,<br />
Dale Hardiman is<br />
fast-emerging as an<br />
exciting new face in<br />
the Australian design<br />
crowd.<br />
ISSUE 04 / 19
Feature<br />
JAMFACTORY ICON:<br />
GERRY WEDD<br />
Words by Margaret Hancock Davis<br />
Margaret is Senior Curator at JamFactory and curator of<br />
JamFactory Icon <strong>2016</strong> Gerry Wedd: Kitschen Man
LAUNCHED IN 2013, JAMFACTORY’S<br />
ANNUAL ICON SERIES CELEBRATES<br />
THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF SOUTH<br />
AUSTRALIA’S MOST OUTSTANDING<br />
AND INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS<br />
WORKING IN CRAFTS MEDIA.<br />
The <strong>2016</strong> iteration presents the work of Gerry Wedd.<br />
With a practice spanning close to 40 years, Wedd enjoys<br />
a national reputation for his wheel thrown hand-built and<br />
decorated ceramics that brim with a dry wit oscillating<br />
from the humorous to darkly disturbing.<br />
JamFactory’s Senior Curator, Margaret Hancock Davis,<br />
recently caught up with Wedd in his home studio in Port<br />
Elliot to discuss influences, ideas and aspects of the<br />
exhibition Gerry Wedd: Kitschen Man.<br />
MHD I have often read about how you first came to pottery<br />
through your mother, Felicity Wedd, who, as you have<br />
described, took to pottery “ferociously”, creating utilitarian<br />
earthenware that overtook the kitchen table and became an<br />
additional source of income for the family. You are also an<br />
avid maker and have mentioned that when you are away from<br />
making you can be rather restless, even difficult to be around.<br />
Where does this restlessness come from?<br />
GW Without wanting to get all psychoanalytical, I suppose<br />
it’s how you choose to define yourself. Maybe it has<br />
something to do with the boundaries between work and life<br />
having become very blurred. I suppose I see making in terms<br />
of a continuum where resolution is a fleeting (unnecessary?)<br />
outcome. Although my approach is light years away from<br />
wabi-sabi, there is something to be said for getting lost in<br />
making. One way of doing this is to make incessantly. This is<br />
certainly true of production-based domestic items such as<br />
cups, bowls and teapots. Also, if you’re enjoying it, you<br />
hopefully get better at making. I’ve tried to “do the math”…<br />
40 years of making, say 10 pots a week …<br />
MHD You’ve mentioned your fascination for the works<br />
produced by British potteries on the cusp of the Industrial<br />
Revolution; these works are an interesting mix of<br />
mechanisation and the handmade or hand-decorated. The<br />
handmade is prevalent in your work – you can sense the clay<br />
being manipulated by your hand, your pushing and pulling of<br />
the material leaving its trail of indentations and impressions<br />
on the surface. What does the handmade mean to you?<br />
GW Thinking too much about this can be a problem.<br />
The handmade isn’t in itself that interesting apart from<br />
the fact that it runs counter to rampant consumerism; it’s<br />
an anachronistic activity. I don’t like the feel of most<br />
industry-made domestic pots. They hardly ever feel right to<br />
me. There is something important about the idea of touch<br />
playing out in the work.<br />
MHD Runneth Over, <strong>2016</strong>, a work consisting of 100 cups,<br />
reflects not only this near-compulsive drive to make, but also<br />
your passion for drawing. Can you tell me a little about what<br />
these drawings mean to you?<br />
GW Representational drawing is a series of “tricks” that you<br />
employ to make some kind of argument or proposition. What<br />
I do is probably illustration, rather than drawing. Drawing on<br />
three-dimensional surfaces and under a glaze is a different<br />
kind of activity. Modernism and the studio pottery movement<br />
made drawing on pottery a kind of aesthetics crime. The<br />
tastemakers were very driven by particular idioms that were<br />
more influenced by minimal, pared-back, wabi-sabi aesthetics.<br />
There are, of course, notable exceptions, but even these<br />
were derided as “Picassoettes”. I started drawing on my<br />
mother’s pots; I didn’t know you weren’t meant to! Thinking<br />
that pottery was a second-rate activity anyway, the vessel’s<br />
surface and form were open season to me. So, I drew and<br />
scratched on hundreds and, now, thousands of pots. I suppose<br />
I’d always seen images of the classic Attic pots painted with<br />
mythological scenes, so drawing on pots seemed a natural<br />
thing to do. For years I only decorated in sgraffito, where you<br />
paint a contrasting layer of slip (liquid clay) onto the surface<br />
of the pot and scratch your drawing through to the pot’s<br />
surface. Now I veer between that and painting with cobalt<br />
underglaze. The nice thing about using cobalt is that it’s a<br />
little less predictable both to use and in the way it responds<br />
to different glaze thicknesses. Last year I spent three months<br />
hanging around the ceramics collection of the Victoria & Albert<br />
Museum courtesy of the Australia Council’s London residency.<br />
The objects I kept coming back to were those made on the<br />
cusp of the Industrial Revolution, which combine industrial and<br />
craft production and skills. Interestingly (to me), this was also<br />
a time when kitsch objects flooded the market due to the new<br />
ease of production and decoration.<br />
MHD The domestic is important to you. Your partner,<br />
printmaker Chris de Rosa, and your studios are located in<br />
your fertile garden, while your house is a vibrant cornucopia<br />
of objects and imagery, including pieces by fellow artists and<br />
friends and folk art items from your travels. How does this<br />
setting feed into your artwork?<br />
GW Most of the stuff we’re surrounded by at home is from<br />
trips we took to see things we were fascinated by in situ, to<br />
maybe get under the skin of the artefacts in some way. There<br />
is, of course, a fascination with a kind of folk art – that is an<br />
art that is enmeshed in daily life and serves a more prosaic<br />
purpose than the other kind of art. We first went to Mexico<br />
20 years ago and brought back a lot of small Day of the<br />
Dead wooden skeletons, probably made for tourists. Most<br />
of the stuff has a relationship to telling stories – the wooden<br />
skeletons are essentially figurines from daily life and we have<br />
an Asafo flag that illustrates some kind of folk tale. They all<br />
have a decorative and humorous quality. There is a casual<br />
approach in the crafting of these things that I aspire to.<br />
ISSUE 04 / 21
MHD The exhibition includes works of art from your<br />
personal collection, by artists who were part of the<br />
Jamboree Workshop (1990–99), an artist-run workshop<br />
located in an old Scouts Hall in Welland. Why have you<br />
chosen these works?<br />
GW The collected work is a mixture of influences and<br />
sentiment. There are things made by people who were a direct<br />
influence on me, like Chris Headley and Bronwyn Kemp, along<br />
with my former studio mates at Jamboree, Jo Crawford, Peter<br />
Johnson, Phil Hart and Lincoln Kirby Bell. Toni Warburton and<br />
Stephen Benwell are artists who make the kind of work I<br />
aspire to, while Stephen Bird and David Ray just make in a<br />
way I love but can’t do.<br />
MHD Many of your works have lyrics tracing their form or<br />
looping around images. Why are songs such a potent form<br />
of inspiration for you?<br />
GW The song-based pots are “cover versions”, karaoke<br />
crockery perhaps? My approach is unavoidably craft-based<br />
and I think that writing/making songs is a craft activity. Again,<br />
there are powerful precedents in the history of ceramics from<br />
Iranian tiles to Attic amphorae. Some of the pots are simply<br />
tributes to a song or a particular writer/performer in the<br />
manner of Robert Crumb’s great illustrations of blues singers.<br />
The song-based work simply illustrates the song in a very<br />
straightforward way. I guess that I’m aiming for a particular<br />
reading of the lyric by turning metaphors into images to see<br />
how they play out.<br />
MHD I have read previously that you keenly listen to Radio<br />
National (RN) programs such as Michael Cathcart’s Books<br />
and Arts and Inside Sleeve. Both are great programs, but I<br />
can’t help but wonder, if like many Radio National listeners,<br />
you possibly don’t change the radio channel that much and<br />
therefore you end up listening to an array of other programs<br />
with a vast mixture of topics. I ask because a lot of your works<br />
interrogate societal views, from current, often damning<br />
events to aspects of Australia’s unsettling past. What<br />
drives these works?<br />
GW Erm … I’m not a fan of Cathcart, but the show is kind<br />
of unavoidable. Having always decorated pots with songs<br />
and stories, it’s inevitable that current stories will end up<br />
embedded in the work. The whole RN thing is double-edged,<br />
comfortable chardonnay socialist stuff. There is also the need<br />
to feel like you are “culturally informed”. There have been some<br />
really interesting interviews with authors dealing with their<br />
craft. There are also a number of particular news stories I have<br />
“illustrated”, but I don’t really like to spell things out too much.<br />
Ceramics is forever, so some of the figurines might serve as a<br />
reminder to particular events or circumstances. Maybe they<br />
are conversation pieces … Napoleon had porcelain figurine<br />
tableaux made to accompany meals to provoke discussion<br />
of events, so again I’m drawing on the history of the activity.<br />
Based on mythology and characters from theatre, the<br />
figurines were originally made from sugar paste.<br />
MHD It strikes me that people often see your work as a<br />
lighthearted reference to the freedom and excitement of surf<br />
culture; however, I would suggest this assumption is often<br />
made without closely looking at and engaging with many of<br />
your works. Some of your urns reference a much darker view<br />
of surfing, its infamous stars and many of its lesser-known<br />
histories. Who are these surfers and what is it about their<br />
stories that you aim to convey?<br />
GW People don’t really look at my work, me included. They<br />
see a generic pot form with blue-and-white decoration.<br />
Most of the work is made to be lived with … to unfurl over<br />
time, perhaps.<br />
A few years ago I started making work focused on antiheroes<br />
in surfing. Trophies were for winners, so it seemed<br />
appropriate to make them for losers. Up until I worked for<br />
Mambo, the sort of imagery I employed was largely part<br />
of the decorative ceramic oeuvre. Dare Jennings, who was<br />
the driver of Mambo, encouraged me to use personal and<br />
political imagery when I was designing fabrics and T-shirts<br />
for them. The work I was doing for Dare infiltrated my ceramic<br />
decoration, so the breadth of subject matter became more<br />
diverse and pointed. Having been obsessed by surf culture<br />
from age 11, I had lots of surfing history and mythology to<br />
draw from. Some of the subjects, such as Michael Peterson<br />
and Peter Drouyn, were brilliant and accomplished athletes<br />
whose lives were the stuff of mythology, complete with<br />
triumph and tragedy. Trophies are based on urns. Mine are<br />
anti-trophies or something like it. Again, precedents are in<br />
ceramics from the past that were festooned with mythology.<br />
There is a period of “surfing history” that I keep coming back<br />
to when the counterculture, music and psychedelics collided<br />
with a very straight, boofy, regimented surf culture.<br />
JamFactory Icon <strong>2016</strong>, Gerry Wedd: Kitschen Man, opened<br />
in Adelaide in July as part of the South Australian Living<br />
Artists (SALA) Festival. In 2017 the exhibition will tour<br />
to JamFactory at Seppeltsfield; Manningham Art Gallery,<br />
Doncaster; Port Augusta Cultural Centre - Yarta Purtli; Port<br />
Pirie Regional Art Gallery; Signal Point Gallery, Goolwa;<br />
Murray Bridge Regional Gallery and Walkway Gallery,<br />
Bordertown. The exhibition tour has been assisted by the<br />
Australian Government’s Contemporary Touring Initiative,<br />
a program of the Australia Council for the Arts.<br />
Previous page: Gram Jar, <strong>2016</strong><br />
coil built, terracotta, coloured slip decoration<br />
1120ºC, 640 x 430 430<br />
Photographer: Andrew Cowen<br />
Top right: Gerry Wedd in the studio. Photographer: Andrew Cowen<br />
Bottom right: Strange Fruit Bowl, <strong>2016</strong><br />
handbuilt, coloured slip, coloured slip decoration<br />
1220ºC, 80 x 290 x 190. Photographer: Andrew Cowen<br />
22 / ISSUE 04
ISSUE 04 / 23
Feature
FUSE GLASS PRIZE<br />
RECONCILING INNOVATION<br />
AND BEAUTY<br />
Words by Margot Osborne<br />
Margot is an independent curator and arts writer and was<br />
a judge of the <strong>2016</strong> FUSE Glass Prize.<br />
On 12 May <strong>2016</strong> the inaugural FUSE Glass Prize of $20,000<br />
was awarded to South Australian artist Clare Belfrage. The<br />
award was the culmination of a highly competitive selection<br />
process, with five award judges filtering 83 entries to achieve<br />
a final exhibition of ten artists in the established category and<br />
five in the emerging category. Judging criteria focused on<br />
innovation and mastery in the use of the glass medium.<br />
The other finalists in the established category were Mel<br />
Douglas (ACT), Tim Edwards (SA), Wendy Fairclough (SA),<br />
Brenden Scott French (SA), Elizabeth Kelly (ACT), Jessica<br />
Loughlin (SA), Nick Mount (SA), Richard Whiteley (ACT)<br />
and Kathryn Wightman (NZ). In the emerging category the<br />
award of $2,500, combined with a professional development<br />
program, was awarded to Alex Valero (SA), an alumnus of<br />
JamFactory’s Associate program. The other finalists in the<br />
emerging category were Lewis Batchelar (SA), Hannah Gason<br />
(ACT), Marina Hanser (ACT) and Andrew Plummer (NSW).<br />
This final selection, in its mix of exciting new talent and some<br />
of the most outstanding established glass artists, exemplifies<br />
the strength and diversity of contemporary glass practice in<br />
Australia and New Zealand. It is particularly noteworthy that<br />
the focus of the judging on innovation resulted in the FUSE<br />
Glass Prize exhibition showcasing fresh and experimental<br />
approaches to working with glass, including some that were<br />
technically unimaginable only a few years ago.<br />
At the same time, FUSE has reinforced the continuing<br />
importance of attaining excellence in such traditional skills<br />
as cane-working, engraving, carving, polishing, blowing,<br />
casting and hot-forming. Indeed these skills underlie nearly all<br />
the works. The finalists’ exhibition affirms that innovation in<br />
glass does not come about from a sudden thought bubble of<br />
inspiration, but rather is the end result of years of skills-based<br />
training and experimentation. Equally, works by finalists in<br />
the FUSE Glass Prize refute any suggestion that technical and<br />
conceptual innovation might be irreconcilable with formal<br />
beauty. On the contrary, both share a potential to disrupt our<br />
preconceptions, and to invoke fresh or unexpected insights<br />
into the familiar.<br />
Clare Belfrage, in her blown and cane-worked vessel titled<br />
Into the Deep, <strong>2016</strong> has created wondrous three-dimensional<br />
effects of interwoven and overlaid colour within the depths of<br />
the glass through her sophisticated cane-working technique.<br />
This involves applying trails of coloured glass onto a large<br />
bubble, melting these streams of colour and then drawing<br />
overlaid patterns of fine white lines, before encasing the<br />
drawing in further gathers of clear glass. The final hotworking<br />
phase is blowing and forming the vessel into a gently<br />
flattened, ever-so-slightly asymmetrical, almost-closed form.<br />
Belfrage then abrades and sands the surface to a fine satin<br />
finish that provides a perfect foil for the coloured ribbons<br />
floating within.<br />
Belfrage’s subtle modifications of formal symmetry and<br />
her careful attention to proportion impart an air of calm<br />
repose to her forms. She has imbued Into the Deep with<br />
understated allusions to rhythmic aqueous movement,<br />
hovering between organic abstraction and representation.<br />
Through a harmonious balance of restrained colour and<br />
elegant abstraction of blown form, the piece emanates a<br />
quiet, resonant beauty.<br />
Kathryn Wightman, who migrated to Whanganui, New<br />
Zealand, from Britain in 2012 after obtaining a doctorate<br />
from the University of Sunderland, has developed a highly<br />
innovative method of using digital technology to adapt<br />
screen printing to create complex patterns in fused glass<br />
panels. Her installation of floor panels using this technique<br />
was awarded the final Ranamok Glass Prize, in 2014. In her<br />
evocative FUSE installation Capturer, <strong>2016</strong> Wightman has<br />
taken this breakthrough into a new poetic dimension through<br />
incorporating allusions to the flocked, patterned wallpaper<br />
of a domestic interior.<br />
The bold graphic presence of Tim Edwards’ large blown<br />
and carved vessel, Line Drawing #12, <strong>2016</strong> both simulates<br />
and subverts the act of drawing. It hovers between twoand<br />
three-dimensional form, generating an enticing optical<br />
seduction though this playful ambiguity. In an inversion<br />
ISSUE 04 / 25
26 / ISSUE 04
of the additive process of drawing, Edwards creates allusions<br />
to drawn form by a laborious process of carving back the<br />
outer layer of black glass until it is no more than a linear<br />
outline. Line Drawing #12 conveys a strong resolved<br />
presence when viewed from a distance, while to the<br />
intimate gaze it reveals the nuanced beauty of its carved<br />
and textured surfaces.<br />
Also playing with the shifting perceptual effects of viewing<br />
a work from afar and close-up, Brenden Scott French, in his<br />
murrine wall panel titled View from Window, has configured<br />
his palette of glass colours to create a semi-abstract<br />
impressionistic evocation of landscape, through composing<br />
murrine tiles of compressed, fused slivers of coloured glass<br />
in a myriad of tonal variations. There is a potent dimension of<br />
dark imagining in Nick Mount’s cone-shaped blown sculpture,<br />
Beacon, <strong>2016</strong>. His delicately drawn enamel markings, with<br />
their luminous tonal modulations, act as a counterpoint to the<br />
sombre overtones of his uncharacteristically subdued and<br />
restrained blown form.<br />
In other cases, artists have progressively refined and<br />
extended their approach to embodying poetic and<br />
metaphorical concepts, while working within a coherent<br />
framework over a period of years. Jessica Loughlin, in her<br />
panoramic sequence of wall panels, Unfolding Continuum<br />
10:00, 10:05, 11:30, 1:00, <strong>2016</strong> has found ever-more technically<br />
accomplished means to evoke the connection between inner<br />
and outer realities through evocations of subtly shifting<br />
cloudscapes. Adelaide-based glass artist Wendy Fairclough,<br />
who is currently undertaking a residency in her birthplace of<br />
Whanganui, New Zealand, continues to refine her work with<br />
cast glass to create luminous still-life installations in which<br />
she elicits a surprising beauty by transfiguring the humdrum<br />
objects of everyday life.<br />
Mel Douglas attains an exquisitely resolved formal harmony<br />
in her triptych of blown, engraved vessels, Wove.Weave.<br />
Weaving, <strong>2016</strong>. She deftly balances exterior and interior<br />
surfaces, positive and negative space in her meticulously<br />
conceived composition of finely engraved linear drawings<br />
and monochrome surfaces. Richard Whiteley, in his cast<br />
glass sculpture, Absence, <strong>2016</strong> also works at a poetic level<br />
by creating formal interplay between interior and exterior<br />
form, between solid glass and the voids within. Inspired by<br />
MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) of the body’s internal<br />
landscape, he sculpts softly amorphous, organic forms that<br />
are partly encased within, and partly perforating, the severe<br />
formal geometry of the cast glass.<br />
Elizabeth Kelly evokes organic form at an even more<br />
elemental level in the intricate geometry of her miniature<br />
sculpture in cast glass, Groovy, <strong>2016</strong>. Kelly has translated<br />
her fascination with the “rhythmic repetition and patterns”<br />
of organic quasi-life forms into the interlocked spiral<br />
components of Groovy. This is one of the first pieces<br />
resulting from her investigation into the organic geometry<br />
of abiogenesis – a scientific term for the point where a<br />
chemical composition becomes a life form.<br />
Innovative approaches to glass are a distinctive feature of<br />
FUSE Glass Prize’s emerging category. Award winner Alex<br />
Valero has adopted an unconventional approach to<br />
hot-worked glass in his pair of small geometric objects titled<br />
Grave (Infra & Ultra), 2015. Working with solid rod colour,<br />
he uses minimal intervention, neither blowing nor kiln firing,<br />
but simply heating and forming the glass rod on a punty<br />
in the glory hole to retain the maximum intensity of colour<br />
and achieve an optically alluring surface lustre. These small<br />
objects, with their sharp, irregular angles and mysterious<br />
metallic finish, exert a powerful enigmatic presence that<br />
belies their size.<br />
Australian National University (ANU) glass program graduate<br />
Hannah Gason has created alluring painterly effects of<br />
overlaid tonal colour through a process she developed<br />
whereby glass powder and threads are compressed between<br />
sheets of glass to achieve a very thin final composite. Marina<br />
Hanser, another ANU graduate, has employed a distinctive<br />
approach to pate de verre casting in order to achieve subtle<br />
grey tonal nuances in her understated abstract sequence of<br />
wall panels.<br />
In stark contrast, Andrew Plummer’s bold graphics and vivid<br />
colours in his fused glass panel titled Urban Hieroglyphs,<br />
2015 draw inspiration from the coded markings left in the<br />
urban environment by “the builder tribes of Sydney furiously<br />
communicating with their spray-can styluses”. Plummer has<br />
translated these into glass – first via photography, which is<br />
then freely interpreted through a drip-painting technique;<br />
and then by digital imaging to achieve the “looseness” in<br />
glass that emulates the spontaneity of the original. Lewis<br />
Batchelar, a current Associate in JamFactory’s Glass Studio,<br />
is the sole emerging artist to work with blown glass. He has<br />
done so with considerable elan and bravura command of<br />
traditional cane-working techniques. His “family” group of<br />
quirky anthropometric forms, Animism, <strong>2016</strong> is characterised<br />
by visually impressive streamlined shapes and beautiful<br />
stretched cane patterns.<br />
We thank the founding donors to the FUSE Glass Prize<br />
Jim and Helen Carreker, Diana Laidlaw AM, Phil and Diana<br />
Jaquillard, Alan Young AM and Sue Young, The Thomas<br />
Foundation and Sandy Benjamin OAM. Funds contributed<br />
by this generous donor group have enabled JamFactory to<br />
introduce this new award for excellence in the field of glass.<br />
Previous page: <strong>2016</strong> FUSE Glass prize winner Clare Belfrage with her<br />
piece Into the Deep, <strong>2016</strong>. Photographer: Andre Castellucci<br />
Top left: Wendy Fairclough, Fill to Line, 2014<br />
cast lead crystal, 730 x 280 x 280<br />
Photographer: Grant Hancock<br />
Bottom left: Nick Mount, Beacon, <strong>2016</strong><br />
blown glass, surface worked, low fire glass enamel, patinated mild steel<br />
850 x 260 x 260<br />
Photographer: Pippy Mount<br />
Bottom right: Alex Valero, Grave (Intra & Ultra), 2015<br />
rod colour, 170 x 70 x 40<br />
Photographer: Anna Fenech Harris<br />
ISSUE 04 / 27
Feature
WINNING: JUST<br />
THE BEGINNING<br />
Words by Penny Craswell<br />
Penny is a Sydney-based editor, writer and communications<br />
specialist on design and architecture.<br />
IN 2015 JAMFACTORY AND STYLECRAFT<br />
LAUNCHED THE BIENNIAL AUSTRALIAN<br />
FURNITURE DESIGN AWARD - THE<br />
AFDA. THE WINNER OF THE INAUGURAL<br />
AWARD WAS SYDNEY BASED DESIGNER<br />
SEATON MCKEON.<br />
Mckeon is interested in the human dimension of design. “For<br />
me, design is pretty broad”, he explains. “It’s not just about<br />
sculpture or about objects, it’s about trying to bring what’s<br />
human to the problem or experience. I’m interested in what<br />
civilisation imposes on the human condition, whether using<br />
a shopping trolley or a pushbike, or doing your banking.”<br />
Mckeon was first inspired to investigate design as a career<br />
option after travelling the world and learning about the<br />
Bauhaus. While his upbringing had been full of DIY projects,<br />
one particular door handle designed by Walter Gropius<br />
opened his eyes to the possibility of design at a small scale:<br />
“I really appreciated the level of detail – plus it had a<br />
presence and identity that made an impression on me”.<br />
Now, Mckeon works across a range of design disciplines – his<br />
job at Blue Sky Design Group has him currently working on<br />
a transport wayfinding kit of parts for Sydney Trains – but<br />
it is his standing lamp, The Sun, the Moon and Me, 2015 that<br />
has gained him the most recognition. The light won him<br />
the inaugural Australian Furniture Design Award (AFDA),<br />
the richest and most prestigious award for designers in<br />
Australia right now and presented by JamFactory and<br />
leading commercial furniture supplier Stylecraft. Mckeon<br />
was selected from a shortlist of six and received $20,000 in<br />
cash and the opportunity to develop work for commercial<br />
production and distribution.<br />
The winning design is inspired by the sky at night. A large<br />
transparent perspex disc represents the night sky with<br />
stars etched onto its surface with a laser. At its centre, the<br />
ISSUE 04 / 29
aluminium housing and switch behind presents a dark circle<br />
to the front of the light, which Mckeon sees as the black hole<br />
at the centre of the universe. Attached to the perspex disc at<br />
the front and to the side is another disc – a metal clamping<br />
plate that represents the moon. With a mirrored metallic<br />
finish, this disc does not emit light, but only reflects it, just as<br />
the moon does. The whole is attached to a steel pole with a<br />
marble base to give it stability.<br />
The Sun, the Moon and Me is considered, detailed and<br />
beautiful in its materiality and its concept. “I was interested<br />
in the idea of creating a discussion through an object”,<br />
explains Mckeon. “I used stars to communicate a sense of<br />
scale, to allow people to sit and take the time to reflect on<br />
the scale of the universe. The design became minimal so<br />
as not to deflect from that idea.”<br />
Winning the award has been a surreal experience for Mckeon.<br />
“It was a lot of work to make it and each step of the process<br />
I felt like I was flying by the seat of my pants”, he explains.<br />
But the best thing to come out of the process has been<br />
developing the design – firstly into an object that could tour<br />
all the Stylecraft showrooms to be exhibited, and then into<br />
a working production edition that is now for sale. “I felt like<br />
every other month I was finding weaknesses in the product,<br />
but now, after a process of total redesign from the original<br />
prototype, I have a bulletproof design that has a really<br />
enduring quality to it.”<br />
Designer Jon Goulder, Creative Director of JamFactory’s<br />
Furniture Studio, initially conceived of the idea for the<br />
award with Anthony Collins from Stylecraft three years<br />
ago. When Goulder took up his role at the JamFactory,<br />
he began discussing the idea with CEO Brian Parkes, who<br />
could see the benefit in the award and was excited to team<br />
up with Stylecraft to deliver the outcome. Goulder explains:<br />
“We wanted to design an award that put its money where<br />
its mouth is – no small print, just real outcomes”. He is<br />
also delighted with the winning design: “Seaton is a true<br />
professional, his light is truly original and that is what we<br />
were looking for”.<br />
and JamFactory to design a furniture range”, says Stylecraft<br />
Brand Director Tony Russell. “This provides the winner with<br />
real insight into what is involved in developing a range and<br />
then bringing it to market. The award also allows us to form<br />
relationships with emerging and established design talent.”<br />
While Stylecraft doesn’t want to give away too many<br />
specifics about the range (it will be launched in early 2017),<br />
they say the collection will encompass a chair, lounge and<br />
bar stools and will be suitable for hospitality, corporate<br />
and residential applications. “The range will draw upon<br />
JamFactory’s and Stylecraft’s expertise in guiding design<br />
development and the resources of leading Australian<br />
manufacturers”, says Russell.<br />
For Mckeon, working with JamFactory, visiting their metal<br />
and timber workshops in Adelaide and collaborating with<br />
designers, manufacturers and fabricators there has been<br />
a really valuable experience: “It’s heaven down there for<br />
a designer to be walking around with every tool at your<br />
disposal and everyone has been really friendly. It’s been<br />
awesome to be working on that collection and have that<br />
support.”<br />
JamFactory and Stylecraft will present the 2017 AFDA in<br />
July 2017. The deadline for applications is 15 May 2017.<br />
Previous page: Sketches and scale model of the Paperclip Chair, 2015<br />
Image courtesy the artist<br />
Right: Seaton Mckeon with the AFDA winning piece The Sun, the Moon and Me, 2015<br />
Photographer: Andre Castellucci<br />
Below: Computer render of the Paperclip Chair in development for Stylecraft<br />
Image courtesy of the artist<br />
Mckeon is currently working with Stylecraft and JamFactory<br />
on a new range of furniture, which is scheduled for release in<br />
late <strong>2016</strong>. This aspect of the award was the most significant<br />
for Stylecraft, who will produce and distribute the collection.<br />
“The idea behind AFDA, and its point of difference from other<br />
design awards, is that the winner will collaborate with us<br />
30 / ISSUE 04
Tribute<br />
VALE ROBERT FOSTER
THIS YEAR THE AUSTRALIAN<br />
DESIGN SECTOR LOST ONE OF<br />
ITS GREATEST CHAMPIONS.<br />
Robert Foster’s tragic death, in a car accident in July, cut<br />
short the career of one of Australia’s most influential and<br />
respected designers.<br />
Robert was an electric mix of master craftsperson, mad<br />
scientist, experimental engineer and poetic visual artist. His<br />
excitement in the processes of designing and making was<br />
visceral and infectious. His pioneering approach to both the<br />
creative and commercial aspects of an independent design<br />
practice, and his enthusiasm to share his knowledge and<br />
mentor others, made a significant impact on the Australian<br />
design landscape.<br />
I first met Robert when I moved to Canberra over 20 years<br />
ago to run the shop at the National Gallery of Australia - an<br />
early stockist of his now iconic F!NK & Co. products. Robert<br />
was also one of the first designers I spoke to back in 2005<br />
while curating Freestyle: new Australian design for living – the<br />
first major survey of contemporary Australian design. The<br />
conversations we had around this time were some of the<br />
most intense and enlightening I have had. Robert’s actions<br />
and opinions helped define that show, as they have no doubt<br />
helped define design culture in Australia today.<br />
Indeed, key elements of JamFactory’s current strategic<br />
direction (and much of my own philosophy about the<br />
relationship between craft, design and industry) owe their<br />
genesis to conversations with Robert and his partner Gretel<br />
Harrison and their trail-blazing work through F!NK & Co. The<br />
design and manufacture of crafts-based products within<br />
the JamFactory studios, the distribution of these products<br />
and the valuable role their production plays in our Associate<br />
training program are just some examples.<br />
In 1992 he was invited to exhibit at the prestigious Museum<br />
fur Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg, Germany, which led to<br />
discussions with Alberto Alessi about designing something<br />
for the Alessi range. The opportunity never transpired but<br />
Robert’s frustration with the process motivated him to<br />
explore the idea of self-manufacturing in Australia and in<br />
1993 F!NK & Co. was established. As the name suggests, it<br />
was always intended that the company support and create<br />
opportunities not just for Robert but for other Australian<br />
designers as well. It remains one of the most successful<br />
Australian design stories, informed significantly by the global<br />
success of one of its earliest products - the F!NK water jug,<br />
designed by Robert in 1994. The water jug is often referred<br />
to as an icon of Australian design. It is sold and used around<br />
the world and has been in continuous production for over<br />
two decades.<br />
Robert’s creative output included experimental one-off<br />
pieces of hollowware, jewellery, furniture and lighting as<br />
well as designing elegant and affordable products for<br />
everyday living. His work is represented in most major public<br />
collections in Australia as well as several overseas, including<br />
the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.<br />
Robert’s star shone most brightly in the Canberra region,<br />
where he lived with Gretel and their two daughters, but<br />
he maintained strong networks and connections across<br />
Australia and internationally. His memorial service was filled<br />
with artists, craftspeople, designers, curators and friends. All<br />
gathered to pay tribute to a life cut so tragically short, yet<br />
lived with such deep intensity.<br />
Words by Brian Parkes<br />
Brian Parkes is CEO at JamFactory.<br />
If you wish to honour Robert Foster’s outstanding contribution to the arts in<br />
Australia, the Capital Arts Patrons’ Organisation has established the Robert<br />
Foster Memorial Award. For information on how to donate visit www.capo.org.au<br />
JamFactory was also an early stockist of F!NK & Co. products<br />
and hosted solo exhibitions by Robert in 1995 and 2002,<br />
as well as numerous group exhibitions featuring his work.<br />
Robert also undertook residencies in the glass and furniture<br />
studios in 1996 and 1999 and ran a collaborative design<br />
workshop for our Associates in 2011.<br />
Robert was born in Kyneton, Victoria in 1962 and studied<br />
gold and silversmithing in the early 1980s under Ragnar<br />
Hansen and Johannes Kuhnen at the Canberra School of<br />
Art. He achieved significant early success as a silversmith<br />
undertaking commissions and exhibiting widely in Australia.<br />
Left: Robert Foster with the F!NK water jug<br />
Image courtesy of F!NK & Co<br />
ISSUE 04 / 33
WORKING FROM THE INSIDE
The Egyptians wrapped threads of molten glass around<br />
a core of clay-like material to make small vessels. The<br />
Syrians and Romans blew bubbles of molten glass to<br />
fashion hollow vessels. Forming a bubble provides the<br />
glass with an integrity, which allows the work to be<br />
manipulated without losing its form. A well-controlled<br />
bubble is the basis of glass blowing.<br />
Yet Martin Janecky sacrifices that integrity by opening<br />
the far end of the bubble while it is still attached to the<br />
pipe. He inserts tools to press areas outwards to make<br />
human faces and torsos. Martin originally trained in his<br />
homeland of the Czech Republic and among many other<br />
formative experiences assisted the American glass blower<br />
William Morris.<br />
Andrew (Andy) Baldwin wraps an impossibly thin thread<br />
of coloured glass around a mass of hot glass. This form<br />
will later become a vessel with the orientation of the lines<br />
in the direction opposite to that which one might expect.<br />
He also makes multicoloured rods of glass in a technique<br />
first mastered in Murano and uniquely exploited by Danish<br />
glass blower Tobias Mohl. Andy trained at two Australian<br />
universities, at JamFactory and more latterly in<br />
international workshops.<br />
At JamFactory in 2015 Martin Janecky and Andy Baldwin<br />
combined their techniques to demonstrate the making of a<br />
hollow skull. Martin was teaching a workshop while visiting<br />
from his home in Prague. Andy is a key member of the<br />
JamFactory “family”. Now, one could reasonably be amazed<br />
with their technical finesse; one could reasonably be amazed<br />
with their aesthetic outcome. One might, though, be equally<br />
amazed at the connections that brought them together.<br />
Contemporary glass has from its onset been international.<br />
Initiated in Europe and popularised in the United States,<br />
its tentacles spread around the globe. This trait of<br />
international migration of knowledge references the<br />
eventual spread of traditional glassmaking and JamFactory<br />
participates in the international dissemination of knowledge<br />
and insight generated by glass blowers locally and from<br />
around the world.<br />
Martin and Andy met during 2014 at the Hsinchu International<br />
Glass Art Festival in Taiwan, where both were exhibitors and<br />
demonstrators. In demonstrations they assisted each other.<br />
Their next meeting resulted in the skull that bears Andy’s<br />
decoration and Martin’s sculpting.<br />
A line could almost be drawn that traces the threads of<br />
development of glass blowing from early times through the<br />
many cultures and individuals who have contributed to the<br />
skill and conceptual ability held by these two artists, each a<br />
master in his own specialty.<br />
Such is the nature of contemporary glass – skills and insights<br />
are exchanged around the world in contrast to traditional<br />
factory working, in which commercial secrecy was the ideal.<br />
The skull belongs to Martin, who has taken it home to sit<br />
alongside his collection of mementos that give witness to<br />
his travels and collaborations. It also belongs to Andy, as<br />
his contribution was indispensable. It also belongs to the<br />
workshop participants, as their experience of its creation is<br />
indelible. It also belongs to the glassmakers of Egypt, Syria,<br />
Murano, the United States and the glass-blowing teachers of<br />
the Czech Republic and Australia.<br />
Words by Gerry King<br />
Gerry is a renowned artist and designer specialising in<br />
contemporary glass.<br />
In 2017 JamFactory’s Glass Studio will host workshops<br />
by Edols Elliott (Ben Edols and Kathy Elliott) from Sydney<br />
and David Walters from the USA.<br />
Left: Glass sculpture by Martin Janecky. Image courtesy of the artist<br />
Top right: Skull created by Martin Janecky and Andrew Baldwin.<br />
Photographer: Anna Fenech Harris<br />
ISSUE 04 / 35
Feature<br />
STEEL: ART DESIGN<br />
ARCHTECTURE<br />
“That’s all the motorcycle is, a system of concepts worked out in steel. There’s no part in it, no<br />
shape in it, that is not out of someone’s mind… I’ve noticed that people who have never worked<br />
with steel have trouble seeing this – that the motorcycle is primarily a mental phenomenon.<br />
They associate metal with given shapes – pipes, rods, girders, tools, parts – all of them fixed<br />
and inviolable, and think of it as primarily physical. But a person who does machining or foundry<br />
work or forge work or welding sees “steel” as having no shape at all. Steel can be any shape<br />
you want if you are skilled enough, and any shape but the one you want if you are not.”<br />
Robert M Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An inquiry into Values, 1974,<br />
Chapter 8, pp 104–5.<br />
36 / ISSUE 04
Words by Margaret Hancock Davis<br />
Margaret is Senior Curator at<br />
JamFactory and curator of<br />
STEEL: art design architecture.<br />
Steel is a medium rich in human history.<br />
An alloy of iron and carbon, steel dates<br />
back to 4000 years ago and traces<br />
the technical and cultural development<br />
of multiple civilisations. First forged in<br />
handmade furnaces, steel production<br />
and its subsequent use expanded in the<br />
17th century with technical innovations.<br />
By the 19th century, and with further<br />
developments, the era of massproduced<br />
steel had begun. Today,<br />
steel is one of the most ubiquitous<br />
and pervasive materials in the world.<br />
It inhabits the landscape of our bodies,<br />
our domestic spaces and our built<br />
environments. A material that ranges<br />
from raw and functional to lustrous and<br />
decorative, steel blurs the boundary<br />
between utilitarian and precious. Its<br />
affordability and durability has made it<br />
so pervasive that is often overlooked.<br />
Just think of an average day: you may<br />
get up in a house or apartment block<br />
whose structural form is made of steel,<br />
head to the bathroom where you turn<br />
steel taps for a shower under a steel<br />
shower rose; next to the kitchen to open<br />
your stainless-steel-covered fridge, turn<br />
on your steel kettle, and eat breakfast<br />
with utensils made from steel; before<br />
leaving in cars, motorbikes, trains, trams<br />
or buses, over bridges and on tracks,<br />
all of which contain steel.<br />
In Australia steel has played an essential<br />
role in the development of our design<br />
vernacular. In the hands of skilled<br />
Australian designers and makers, steel<br />
has become an essential material that<br />
helps articulate a national character<br />
and contributes to our distinctive<br />
material culture.<br />
The Drew House, 2010, by Simon Laws<br />
takes its cue from the architecture of<br />
Queensland’s cane-growing region<br />
around Bundaberg. The dramatic visual<br />
language of the sugarcane mill, its largescale<br />
boilers and turbines juxtaposed<br />
with the beautiful silhouettes of the<br />
corrugated-iron water tanks and stands,<br />
finds form in this holiday home. Built to<br />
be a luxury type of camping, the house<br />
operates as sculpture on a bushland<br />
site camped at by the Drew siblings for<br />
many years. It is located near the beach<br />
with the aim to create a building that<br />
celebrates its environment by allowing<br />
its occupants to be in touch with their<br />
surroundings; the building is therefore<br />
designed as a series of interconnected<br />
pavillons and walkways. Assembled in<br />
Brisbane, the pavillons were scaled to fit<br />
a semitrailer and transported to the site.<br />
With the house positioned to capture<br />
natural airflows, the south-easterly<br />
breeze creates a passive cooling system<br />
without the need for air conditioning.<br />
DesignByThem is a Sydney-based<br />
design company established in 2007<br />
representing and producing the work<br />
of Australian designers. Founded by<br />
industrial designers Sarah Gibson and<br />
Nicholas Karlovasitis, it has a designfirst<br />
approach that is reflected in its<br />
culture and products. Every design<br />
is carefully considered, developed<br />
and curated to ensure it meets the<br />
requirements and standards of good<br />
design. DesignByThem creates a playful<br />
collection of fun and functional furniture<br />
and lighting. Made of mirror-polished<br />
stainless steel, the Corro Bowl, 2009 is<br />
a beautifully refined corrugated form<br />
accentuating steel’s inherent strength<br />
and fluidity.<br />
For the many thousands of varieties of<br />
steel there is one that seems intrinsically<br />
linked with the Australian identity –<br />
the corrugated steel sheets known<br />
as corrugated iron. Synonymous with<br />
Australia’s rural and mining landscapes,<br />
while also an essential part of the classic<br />
“Aussie” backyard, forming sheds,<br />
chicken coops, outhouses and water<br />
tanks, corrugated iron is durable, strong,<br />
adaptable and light. It is for these<br />
reasons that it is used or interpreted<br />
by contemporary architects, designers<br />
and artists.<br />
Previous page: Maureen Faye Chauhan,<br />
Cluster Series Brooches, 2008, heat coloured<br />
mild steel, 85 x 80 x45 and 70 x 40 x 30<br />
Photographer: Jeremy Dhillon<br />
Right: DesignByThem, Tuck Table and Stool, 2013 - 15<br />
zinc plated and powder coated steel<br />
Table 720 x 800 x 800, Stool 440 x 310 x 310<br />
Photographer: Pete Daly<br />
38 / ISSUE 04
Top left: Alison Jackson, 10 Vessels 10 Days, 2015<br />
fine silver, copper, binding wire<br />
50 x 65 x 65mm each<br />
Photographer: Angela Bakker<br />
Top right: Korban Flaubert, Involute, 2009<br />
60 Clarence St, Sydney, New South Wales<br />
powdered coated steel<br />
1500 x 1500 x 1500<br />
Photographer: Sharrin Rees<br />
Bottom left: Trent Jansen, Tidal Chair, 2015<br />
stainless steel, 570 x 455 x 770<br />
Image courtesy of the artist<br />
Bottom right: BVN, The Australian Plantbank, 2014<br />
Australian Botanic Garden, Mount Annan, NSW<br />
Photographer: John Gollings<br />
40 / ISSUE 04
Lorraine Connelly-Northey is a<br />
Waradgerie woman from Swan Hill in<br />
north-west Victoria who finds inspiration<br />
in the land of her childhood and her<br />
mother’s tribal boundary, where the<br />
Mallee meets the Murray River. The<br />
strong cultural practice of weaving is<br />
translated in Connelly-Northey’s work,<br />
which transforms found materials such<br />
as rusted sheets of corrugated iron,<br />
steel barbed wire, fencing mesh and<br />
other agricultural detritus into traditional<br />
forms including koolimans (coolamons),<br />
narbongs (dilly bags) and interpretations<br />
of possum-skin cloaks. Her choice of<br />
material from our frontier and colonial<br />
history reminds us of Australia’s fraught<br />
history with our First Nations peoples –<br />
the fence being both a physical barrier<br />
used to contain and control Aboriginal<br />
people living on missions and as a<br />
metaphoric symbol of Aboriginal people<br />
being trapped within white society,<br />
unable to express their culture and<br />
traditional way of life.<br />
Australia, like most countries, has many<br />
cultural tropes and myths surrounding<br />
its identity. Apart from the traditions<br />
of our First Nations peoples, Australian<br />
identities have been forged through<br />
many lenses, from our convict past and<br />
colonial frontiers with their bushranger<br />
legends, and the Anzac traditions of<br />
courage and sacrifice, to one of the<br />
most mythologised “Aussies”, that of<br />
the counterculture surfer history of the<br />
1960s and 1970s. Trent Jansen looks to<br />
these myths to create designs through<br />
a process he describes as design<br />
anthropology. Researching human<br />
behaviour to layer concepts into his<br />
forms, Jensen’s Tidal Collection, 2015,<br />
for Tait conjures long laid-back summers<br />
spent relaxing at the beach or by the<br />
pool. The steel-wire forms of the lounger,<br />
sun lounge and chair reference the shape<br />
waves take as they make their way to<br />
shore, knowledge surfers capitalise on to<br />
catch the perfect wave.<br />
Preservation can take many forms. The<br />
Australian PlantBank, 2014, designed<br />
by BVN, is situated in the Australian<br />
Botanic Garden, Mount Annan, on the<br />
outskirts of greater Sydney. Part of<br />
a global network coordinated by the<br />
Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, London,<br />
known as the Millennium Seed Bank<br />
Partnership, the Australian PlantBank<br />
houses the Domain Trust seed bank<br />
and research laboratories, which<br />
specialise in horticultural research and<br />
conservation of Australian native plant<br />
species, particularly those from New<br />
South Wales. Located in a part of the<br />
garden between a threatened and rare<br />
remnant section of Cumberland Plain<br />
native forests and the garden’s nursery<br />
that propagates species, including the<br />
famous Wollemi pine, the building is<br />
designed to embrace the forest. Steel<br />
is used throughout, with polished<br />
steel panels reflecting the building’s<br />
surroundings and bushfire-resistant<br />
mesh-covered louvre windows<br />
enabling the building to open up to<br />
natural airflows.<br />
Ecological practices often lead to<br />
discussions of sustainability and<br />
recyclability. Steel is the most recycled<br />
material on the planet, recycled more<br />
than all other materials combined.<br />
Steel retains an extremely high overall<br />
recycling rate, which in 2012 stood at<br />
88 per cent. 1 The amazing metallurgical<br />
properties of steel allow it to be recycled<br />
continually with no degradation in<br />
performance, and from one product<br />
to another.<br />
The recycling of steel can be seen in<br />
the beautifully crafted knives of master<br />
knifemaker Barry Gardner. Gardner is<br />
one of those makers that knows their<br />
“ah ha” moment – for him it came 24<br />
years ago while visiting a gun trade<br />
show in Adelaide. Trawling through<br />
the many stalls, he came across one<br />
showing a group of knives made<br />
by the stallholder. From that day he<br />
knew that this was what he wanted<br />
to do. Slowly developing his skills<br />
through trial and error and through<br />
research into Japanese knifemaking<br />
practices, Gardner creates handforged<br />
knives desired both nationally<br />
and internationally. Working mainly<br />
with Damascus steel, he tiers multiple<br />
layers of molten steel sourced from old<br />
files and bandsaw blades that he then<br />
reworks, twisting and folding the steel<br />
to create the distinctive and unique<br />
patterns that are revealed once the knife<br />
is submerged in an acid bath.<br />
From an ancient craft to one that works<br />
with modern technology to realise its<br />
final result, Maureen Faye-Chauhan’s<br />
intricate mild-steel brooches are<br />
produced through the manipulation of<br />
three-dimensional images in advanced<br />
computer-aided design programs and<br />
laser printing. Describing her practice<br />
as artistic, she notes that “part of<br />
the creative process is bringing forth<br />
something from nothing; ideas develop,<br />
a drawn line closes to become a shape,<br />
and through the manipulation of space,<br />
that shape becomes a form”. 2 Working<br />
with fundamental geometric patterns<br />
found in nature’s building blocks,<br />
Faye-Chauhan relies on repeated<br />
elements and the strength of steel to<br />
create her complex forms.<br />
This is a mere snapshot of the ideas<br />
and works presented in JamFactory’s<br />
upcoming STEEL: art design architecture<br />
exhibition. The third in a series of<br />
exhibitions produced by JamFactory,<br />
STEEL showcases innovative works by<br />
29 contemporary Australian artists,<br />
designers and architects, providing<br />
a cross-section of current creative<br />
practices, modes of thinking and<br />
relationships to this essential material.<br />
1. http://www.steel.org/sustainability/steel-recycling.<br />
aspx, accessed July <strong>2016</strong>.<br />
2. http://www.mfayechauhan.com/, accessed<br />
July <strong>2016</strong><br />
STEEL: art design architecture opens in<br />
Adelaide in February 2017 and will tour<br />
nationally to 15 venues. The exhibition<br />
has been assisted by the Australian<br />
Government’s Visions of Australia<br />
program.<br />
An extract from the essay published<br />
in STEEL: art design architecture by<br />
Margaret Hancock Davis.<br />
ISSUE 04 / 41
Feature<br />
Homeland: returning,<br />
remembering, reimagining<br />
Words by Joanne Cys and Jane Lawrence<br />
Dr Joanne Cys LFDIA is Associate Professor in Interior Architecture and Dean: Academic<br />
in the Division of Education, Arts and Social Sciences at the University of South Australia.<br />
Jane Lawrence is Associate Head of School: Teaching and Learning in the School of<br />
Art, Architecture and Design at the University of South Australia. Both are interior<br />
design graduates of UniSA and co-curators of the exhiition Homeland: returning,<br />
remembering, reimagining.
An association with “home” is ingrained in<br />
every person’s consciousness. For many, home<br />
is the place where first memories are made,<br />
where security and love are bounded. For<br />
others, home is a place of refuge, safety and<br />
shelter. For some, home is a place yet to be<br />
established, a future and sometimes-distant<br />
site where new memories will be made and<br />
dreams will be realised.<br />
The concept of “homeland” is both familiar and foreign:<br />
a paradigm, a place, a landscape, a nation or region, a<br />
constituency, a way of being, a place of belonging. It is of<br />
the past, the present and the future. It houses memories,<br />
experiences, objects, cultures, beliefs and relationships.<br />
Homeland is a realm where place and dweller are intimately<br />
connected and disconnected. Intricate details of physical<br />
interior space and fellow occupants are deeply etched<br />
and continuously recalled. The <strong>2016</strong> exhibition Homeland:<br />
returning, remembering, reimagining at JamFactory<br />
GalleryOne invites alumni of the University of South<br />
Australia’s current Bachelor of Interior Architecture and its<br />
antecedent programs 1 and awarding institutions – the South<br />
Australian Institute of Technology (SAIT) and the South<br />
Australian College of Advanced Education (SACAE) – to<br />
consider “homeland” in relationship to their professional<br />
practice and their personal lives and situations. The<br />
exhibition also celebrates the 25th birthday of the<br />
University of South Australia.<br />
Homeland: returning, remembering, reimagining coincided<br />
with the biennial Asia Pacific Space Designers Alliance<br />
(APSDA) conference, hosted for the first time in Australia<br />
in Adelaide over 24–26 September <strong>2016</strong>. The theme of the<br />
APSDA <strong>2016</strong> conference is “Home”, evoking the principal<br />
theme of home in its multitudinous interpretations but always<br />
interrelated to the interior.<br />
Interior design is a relatively new discipline of practice and<br />
research and is regarded by many as currently being in<br />
a state of emergence. The first interior design education<br />
program was established in the 1920s at the Parsons<br />
School of Design in New York. In Australia, the first interior<br />
design education program, a Diploma in Interior Design,<br />
commenced at RMIT University in Melbourne in 1950.<br />
In 1964, the South Australian Institute of Technology’s<br />
Louis Laybourne Smith School of Architecture and Design 2<br />
launched Australia’s second interior design qualification, an<br />
Ordinary Certificate in Interior Design. The first cohort of the<br />
two-year full-time program graduated in 1966 – five decades<br />
ago. In the years that ensued, there were a number of<br />
ISSUE 04 / 43
unsuccessful attempts by the school’s leadership to introduce<br />
a professional-level interior design bachelor degree program<br />
and it was not until 1982 that the Bachelor of Arts in Interior<br />
Design was approved by SAIT’s academic administration and<br />
the first cohort entered the program. In the meantime, the<br />
College of Advanced Education had, in 1980, established a<br />
Bachelor of Design (Human Environments) program at the<br />
Underdale campus. 3 In 1991 the University of South Australia<br />
was formed from SACAE and SAIT. The two interior design<br />
degree programs continued to run in parallel until 1997 when<br />
the final cohort of the human environments program at<br />
Underdale transferred to UniSA’s new City West campus to<br />
complete the final year of their degree.<br />
All these works are experimental and together they direct<br />
the discipline of interior design outwards into an expansive<br />
condition, rich in new possibilities and generative concepts.<br />
Each piece, however, is conceptually grounded by interior<br />
design’s essential purpose of responding to the fundamental<br />
needs of human habitation. This is an understanding, and<br />
a skill, that has been instilled in students and practised<br />
by graduates of UniSA’s interior design program for half<br />
a century.<br />
The exhibition Homeland: returning, remembering,<br />
reimagining was shown at JamFactory from<br />
22 September – 27 November <strong>2016</strong>.<br />
Over its 50-year history the program has graduated close<br />
to 1500 interior designers. Collectively, their practice has<br />
represented a significant contribution to the creation of<br />
spaces and places for human habitation: homes, workplaces,<br />
public places, retail, educational, healthcare, hospitality<br />
and leisure in Adelaide, throughout South Australia, across<br />
Australia and around the world. Unlike much of the structure<br />
that encloses it, spaces that are the outcome of interior<br />
design practice can often be temporary or transient,<br />
short-lived or ephemeral. The approach to practice by the<br />
program’s graduates can be characterised by a unique<br />
balance of highly creative and practical skills, a legacy of the<br />
culture of the design environment in which they studied and<br />
the expertise of key staff they encountered during their time<br />
as students.<br />
Notes<br />
(1) The antecedent programs were the Ordinary Certificate in Interior<br />
Design; Advanced Certificate in Interior Design; Bachelor of Design (Human<br />
Environments); Bachelor of Arts in Interior Design; Bachelor of Design (Interior<br />
Design); and Bachelor of Interior Design.<br />
(2) Since the 1990s, the constituent disciplines of the original School of<br />
Architecture and Building have been restructured and renamed a number of<br />
times. In 2001 the interior design program was renamed Bachelor of Interior<br />
Architecture. It currently resides in the School of Art, Architecture and Design<br />
at UniSA’s City West campus.<br />
(3) The authors wish to acknowledge the assistance of UniSA EAS Academic<br />
Services team members Deborah Faigen and Vicki Clark in determining the<br />
commencement dates of these programs.<br />
To celebrate 50 years of interior design alumni, Homeland:<br />
returning, remembering, reimagining has invited 12 graduates<br />
to “come home” from their daily practice and share their<br />
personal reflections on and responses to the notion of<br />
homeland. The 12 individual works are contextualised by a<br />
pivotal installation piece designed by alumnus and lecturer<br />
Michael Geissler that collectively represents every graduate<br />
since 1966.<br />
The individual works reflect the interdisciplinary nature<br />
and inherent explorations of interior design practice. Some<br />
exhibitors have chosen to respond to the proposition of<br />
homeland in three dimensions through furniture and object<br />
(Samantha Agostino with Gareth Brown, and Stephen<br />
Soeffky), lighting (Saul Scanlon) and installation (Andrew<br />
Schunke). Others explore their response through handdrawing<br />
(Hannah White, Alex Gilmore-Johnstone and Michael<br />
Geissler); while others experiment with other materials and<br />
representation techniques including digital media (Jordan<br />
D’Arsie and Vi Nguyen) and photography (Lisa Zamberlan).<br />
44 / ISSUE 04
Previous page: Agostino & Brown, Long Table, <strong>2016</strong><br />
clear matte lacquer, solid Amercian white oak, pure aniline leather<br />
2010 x 850 x 710. Image courtesy of the artist<br />
Top left: Stephen Blaess, Alessi Marli Bottle Opener, 2005<br />
stainless steel. Image courtesy of the artist<br />
Top right: Saul Scanlon, Beehive Pendants, <strong>2016</strong><br />
sandblasted glass, brass, water jet and machined brass and G9 lighting<br />
components. Photographer: Saul Scanlon and A. Wood<br />
Bottom left: Hannah White, Henry House, <strong>2016</strong><br />
graphite and digital print on 300gsm paper<br />
10 pieces 170 x 290. Image courtesy of the artist<br />
Bottom right: Amber Lewis and Murray Britton, Mem-O-Pouf, <strong>2016</strong><br />
fabric, threads, upholstered daybed/pouf base, timber<br />
approx 1500 dia x 2800. Image courtesy of the artist<br />
ISSUE 04 / 45
Profile<br />
LIAM MUGAVIN
ORDERING A FLAT WHITE AT<br />
COFFEE BONDI BEACH, IT’S<br />
HARD NOT TO TAKE IN THE<br />
CLEAN LINES, SOLID WALNUT<br />
COUNTERS AND PARED BACK,<br />
THOUGHTFUL DETAILS AND<br />
WONDER, IS THAT WHAT THE<br />
INSIDE OF LIAM MUGAVIN’S<br />
MIND LOOKS LIKE TOO?<br />
Words by Jo Higgins<br />
Jo is a Sydney-based freelance writer and<br />
the Creative Strategy Manager at the<br />
Australian Design Centre.<br />
The interior fit out of this effortlessly stylish vegan coffee bar in <strong>2016</strong><br />
announced Mugavin’s arrival in Sydney. The fit out, designed and built<br />
while Mugavin was a studio tenant at JamFactory, was completed<br />
in January; the designer himself arrived in February, setting up his<br />
workshop in St Peters’ vibrant Precinct 75. The move, which Mugavin<br />
has described as somewhat spontaneous, arguably marks a pivotal<br />
moment in what is already an increasingly successful career.<br />
In 2015, Mugavin received not only the highly prestigious Clarence Prize<br />
for Excellence in Furniture Design, for his Tasmanian oak and copper<br />
Koto Light, 2015 but also the Drink, Dine, Design Emerging Designer<br />
Award for his Tasmanian silver wattle Hamra Chair, 2015. Named after<br />
his great-grandparents and the Adelaide institution that was Hamra<br />
Furniture before its closure last year, Mugavin’s chair consists of just<br />
four pieces and three near-identical joints and is the very definition of<br />
elegant restraint. Its beauty and simplicity, with its clean lines and gently<br />
curved undersides, belies a sophisticated understanding of the role and<br />
value of the space that surrounds an object. In developing the design,<br />
Mugavin drew inspiration from both the planar surfaces of the work<br />
of American sculptor Donald Judd, and his knowledge of Japanese<br />
aesthetics and the philosophy of ‘ma’, which emphasises absence.<br />
Since receiving the Emerging Designer Award, Mugavin’s chair has been<br />
shown at both Factory Design District and Workshopped ’16 in Sydney<br />
and it’s acclaim continues to be put to good use. In <strong>2016</strong> Mugavin<br />
secured an Australia Council Project Grant that will be used to develop<br />
a new collection of Hamra-inspired furniture and lighting pieces that will<br />
form the designer’s first solo exhibition, to be held in Melbourne in 2017.<br />
Mugavin credits the visibility afforded him by the Clarence Prize and<br />
Emerging Designer Award for his recent slew of projects – including<br />
Coffee Bondi Beach and his collaboration with creative consultant<br />
Robyn Holt for Kate Dinon’s Commissioned Editions project. But<br />
Mugavin is also quick to attribute much of this success to his time as an<br />
associate and then studio tenant at JamFactory, and sees his practice<br />
today as one based very much on the Furniture Studio’s model of<br />
working across product development, commissions and fit-outs.<br />
Having completed the Bondi fit-out and his Adelaide to Sydney<br />
relocation, Mugavin is now working on another “dream project” for<br />
the same client, a restaurant at Barangaroo that will open next year.<br />
Given free reign of the entire interior – from wall finishes to furniture<br />
and lighting - Mugavin is taking a research-based approach to the<br />
project and using the cultural and historical significance of the<br />
location to inform the design.<br />
Left: Koto, 2015 Tasmanian Oak (stained), copper, glass, LED’s<br />
1800 x 1000 x 1000. Photographer: The artist<br />
And when he’s not contemplating local histories, veganism and<br />
sustainable practice, or preparing for his upcoming exhibition, or<br />
working on independent commissions, Mugavin can be found at<br />
Marrickville’s MakerSpace & Co, where he is setting up their new timber<br />
workshop, joining another community of passionate makers. Describing<br />
it as “a great opportunity for me to contribute a little to building a<br />
vibrant craft and design scene”, it seems Mugavin’s talents for elegant<br />
understatement extend well beyond his furniture… If the last 12 months<br />
are any measure of the things to come, Mugavin’s contributions to<br />
Australian design and the Sydney design community will be anything<br />
but little.<br />
Above: Hamra Chair, 2015 Tasmanian silver wattle<br />
550 x 550 x 900. Photographer: The artist<br />
ISSUE 04 / 47
Profile<br />
AMANDA DZIEDZIC
SINCE COMPLETING<br />
JAMFACTORY’S GLASS<br />
STUDIO ASSOCIATE TRAINING<br />
PROGRAM, MELBOURNE<br />
BASED GLASS ARTIST<br />
AMANDA DZIEDZIC HAS SEEN<br />
HER PRACTICE GAIN FIRM<br />
ROOTS WITHIN THE NATIONAL<br />
CONTEMPORARY GLASS<br />
SCENE. HER SOLO EXHIBITION,<br />
I DREAM A GREENHOUSE,<br />
WAS THE CULMINATION OF<br />
THREE YEARS’ WORTH OF<br />
EXPERIMENTATION AND<br />
UNWAVERING DEVOTION TO<br />
THE EXQUISITE BEAUTY OF<br />
BOTANICAL FORMS.<br />
Words by Caitlin Eyre<br />
Caitlin Eyre is an independent South<br />
Australian art curator and writer.<br />
Nature is a constant source of delight and wonder to Amanda Dziedzic,<br />
who finds the rich and vibrant array of forms, patterns and colours of<br />
plants to be a central inspiration and key theme of her practice. “I am<br />
obsessed with greenery and plant life in general”, she says. “They invade<br />
my waking life and creep into my dreaming life.” In her most recent body<br />
of work, Dziedzic has created a lush garden of exquisitely rendered plants<br />
in every imaginable shade of green, their cold glass surfaces bearing the<br />
clean lines and vibrant colours that are synonymous with her graceful and<br />
restrained aesthetic. The vivid hues of crisp beetroots, daikon radishes<br />
and turnips punctuate the dense foliage of succulents, stag ferns and<br />
celery stalks, while intricate miniature configurations are bedded on<br />
mossy dome-topped pedestals. The fine individual details of each plant<br />
are meticulously rendered, with each piece bearing the veined leaves,<br />
ribbed stalks, curved fronds, dirt smears, wrinkled flesh and creviced<br />
surfaces of their living counterparts.<br />
The inspiration for Dziedzic’s recent body of work stems from her<br />
experiences in Japan during a research residency and her frequent<br />
encounters with the tiny yet exquisite gardens located in the quiet<br />
backstreets of bustling Tokyo. Particularly significant to Dziedzic’s<br />
practice is her appreciation of wabi-sabi, the traditional Japanese<br />
philosophy of finding beauty and grace in the most humble of everyday<br />
tasks and objects: “These works are a celebration of the tiny and beautiful<br />
aspects of everyday life. It is really easy to get bogged down in life and<br />
these works express my joy and appreciation for the natural world”.<br />
In order to find inspiration during the initial design phase, Dziedzic<br />
immerses herself in extensive visual research, often finding inspiration in<br />
the imagery featured in retro gardening books and illustrated children’s<br />
encyclopedias. But it is her spontaneous interactions with plants in<br />
everyday life that Dziedzic finds the most stimulating, be it a visit to the<br />
local market or a leisurely stroll through a garden. Even the vegetables<br />
that appear on Dziedzic’s dinner plate can offer fertile ground for the<br />
creation of a new body of work. After perfecting rudimentary sketches<br />
based on found imagery and plant cuttings, Dziedzic then dedicates a<br />
number of sessions in the hot shop to crafting clear-glass prototypes of<br />
her creations. Once the form has been finalised, Dziedzic makes colour<br />
versions of each plant before finally progressing to the production phase.<br />
Working with a traditional glass-blowing practice, Dziedzic primarily<br />
uses hot-sculpting methods in the creation of her works. This technique<br />
involves gathering molten glass from the furnace on the end of a metal<br />
rod and shaping the pliable mass with a torch and various handheld tools.<br />
While most of Dziedzic’s work is performed with the aid of the hot-shop<br />
furnace out of necessity, smaller works are often flame-worked in the<br />
studio, the artist shaping rods and tubes of glass with a handheld torch.<br />
Left: Radish, <strong>2016</strong><br />
hot sculpted glass, found materials and mixed media<br />
Photographer: Hadyn Cattach<br />
There has been a long history of glass being used to make lasting and<br />
realistic representations of botanical specimens. While Dziedzic feels<br />
that her practice captures and preserves nature, there is more at play<br />
within her works than purely aesthetics and a love of plant life. “It is about<br />
capturing the memories that I have associated with these specimens”,<br />
she says. “They are my own personal album of memories represented<br />
in plant form.” As such, most of Dziedzic’s works are realistic portrayals<br />
of botanical forms found in nature, although she does on occasion craft<br />
fantastical “Franken-plants” if the mood strikes her. For the most part,<br />
though, Dziedzic prefers to keep the renderings true to form, believing<br />
that nature is the most divine architect and that the shapes and patterns<br />
found in nature are the most exquisite.<br />
ISSUE 04 / 49
FURNITURE<br />
COLLECTION<br />
Words by Brian Parkes<br />
Brian Parkes is CEO at JamFactory.<br />
IN JUNE THIS YEAR JAMFACTORY<br />
OFFICIALLY LAUNCHED IT’S FIRST<br />
EVER FURNITURE COLLECTION.<br />
Since it’s establishment in 1973, JamFactory has embraced<br />
entrepreneurial ways to support and promote contemporary<br />
craft and design. JamFactory’s furniture collection is a bold<br />
new initiative that will increase awareness of Australian<br />
design, create training and market opportunities for<br />
Australian designers, contribute to growth in local skillsbased<br />
manufacturing and help fund further development<br />
of JamFactory’s training and exhibitions program.<br />
This new range of furniture and lighting has been developed<br />
under the creative direction of leading Australian designer<br />
and current Creative Director of JamFactory’s Furniture<br />
Studio, Jon Goulder. The establishment of the collection<br />
has been central to Goulder’s fresh vision for the studio<br />
since his appointment in early 2014.<br />
Each studio area at JamFactory is required to operate as<br />
a viable business to provide income for the Associates<br />
and the program, and to create broad and relevant training<br />
experiences with the pressures of real clients, real deadlines<br />
and real budgets. Goulder believes that delivery of this<br />
furniture collection into the national marketplace will<br />
provide greater creative control and continuity within the<br />
studio, complementing the bespoke commission projects<br />
that the studio has become renowned for.<br />
Launched with pieces designed by some of Australia’s most<br />
recognised designers alongside items by talented young<br />
designers who have recently emerged from JamFactory’s<br />
training program, the furniture collection will grow and<br />
evolve each year. Goulder believes the collection will<br />
“create opportunities for our training Associates through<br />
hands-on involvement in design development, prototyping<br />
and liaison with industry, and through the chance to pitch<br />
new designs for consideration”. The pieces in the initial<br />
collection are deliberately varied but are all informed by the<br />
processes of making, the natural beauty of materials and the<br />
craftsperson’s attention to detail.<br />
Enlisting celebrated designers such as Adam Goodrum,<br />
Henry Wilson and South Australian duo Danile Emma<br />
(who, like Goulder, are all previous winners of the Bombay<br />
Sapphire Design Discovery Award), along with the head<br />
of JamFactory’s Glass Studio, Karen Cunningham, for the<br />
introductory collection illustrates the seriousness and<br />
ambition of this new initiative.<br />
The emerging designers featured are Rhys Cooper, who<br />
studied furniture at the University of Tasmania before<br />
coming to JamFactory, and Daniel Tucker, who came<br />
out of the industrial design program at the University of<br />
Technology, Sydney. Both designers have bloomed under<br />
Goulder’s mentorship.<br />
50 / ISSUE 04
The JamFactory furniture collection is aimed at<br />
the commercial market but has a strong residential<br />
application and is being produced at the highest<br />
quality through a network of local manufacturers and<br />
highly skilled artisans. A key long-term ambition for the<br />
collection is to contribute to retaining skills and growing<br />
jobs in the value-added manufacturing sector of<br />
South Australia.<br />
A significant part of the design development<br />
process, which took place over a 12-month period,<br />
was identifying specific capabilities of the relevant<br />
manufacturing partners and designing to ensure that<br />
each piece in the collection could be produced at the<br />
quality and in the quantities and time frames required<br />
by architects and interior designers working on<br />
commercial projects.<br />
The JamFactory furniture collection is now available<br />
in store and online. All purchases from the collection<br />
will directly support JamFactory’s training and<br />
exhibition programs.<br />
ISSUE 04 / 51
CUSP DINING CHAIR<br />
RHYS COOPER<br />
The CUSP Chair, available in both<br />
a dining and an occasional version,<br />
was developed during Cooper’s time<br />
as a JamFactory Associate. The<br />
chairs use traditional timber joinery<br />
techniques contrasted with highquality<br />
wool or leather upholstery.<br />
AG TABLES<br />
ADAM GOODRUM<br />
The AG Tables explore the relationship<br />
between shapes in the wire frame that<br />
move from a square to circle in a single<br />
bend. The three sizes, each available in<br />
timber or marble top, nestle together to<br />
create a dynamic display surface.<br />
HW BOX MODULE<br />
HENRY WILSON<br />
This beautiful, simple box module, with spline<br />
joint dovetail details, can be specified in a<br />
multitude of configurations. It is available in<br />
three standard options, tallboy, credenza<br />
and file, which all sit on solid brass rails.<br />
52 / ISSUE 04
BLOCK DINING CHAIR<br />
BLOCK DINING TABLE<br />
DANIEL EMMA<br />
The Block Chair is a contemporary<br />
revision of the archetypal school<br />
chair with simple clean lines<br />
combined with mirror-polished<br />
solid brass lugs. The Block Table<br />
further extends the language and is<br />
available as a six or eight-seater in<br />
either timber or marble top.<br />
LOOP SHELF<br />
DANIEL TUCKER<br />
The LOOP Shelf is a versatile<br />
shelving unit composed of<br />
two simple interconnected<br />
components – timber loops and<br />
bent steel shelves. It is available<br />
in two standard versions, high<br />
and low.<br />
STACK2 STOOL<br />
JON GOULDER<br />
Goulder designed the original Z in<br />
bent plywood almost two decades<br />
ago. This <strong>2016</strong> revision in beautiful<br />
solid timber retains the original<br />
feature of stacking in a bunch or as<br />
a display tower.<br />
KC PENDANT LIGHT<br />
KAREN CUNNINGHAM<br />
These free-formed, hand-blown<br />
glass pendant lights feature an<br />
innovative cord loop detail and<br />
are manufactured by a small team<br />
of skilled glass blowers in the<br />
JamFactory Glass Studio. The light<br />
is available in two sizes and six<br />
standard colours.<br />
For all trade and residential enquiries contact JamFactory on retail@jamfactory.com.au or (08) 8231 0434<br />
ISSUE 04 / 53
UNEXPECTED JOY<br />
COLLECTING CONTEMPORARY<br />
JEWELLERY
CONTEMPORARY JEWELLERY IS<br />
HOT. IN RECENT DECADES IT HAS<br />
BECOME AN IMPORTANT FOCUS OF<br />
COLLECTING, AND A WEALTH OF<br />
MUSEUM CATALOGUES, BOOKS AND<br />
BLOGS TESTIFIES TO THE BEAUTY,<br />
VITALITY AND DISTINCTION OF<br />
CONTEMPORARY JEWELLERY.<br />
This is especially trueof the United Kingdom, the USA,<br />
Germany, the Netherlands and Italy, but also in Australia<br />
and New Zealand, with energetic jewellery communities and<br />
leading figures recognised across the world.<br />
Collecting contemporary jewellery has been a long time<br />
coming. Humans have always needed jewellery, and the<br />
most ancient form of art thrives in the 21st century. Because<br />
jewellery is wearable, it is portable, passing from body to<br />
body, from hand to hand, travelling the world. And perhaps<br />
because contemporary jewellery embodies both portability<br />
and personal identity, it has thrived over the last five decades<br />
of accelerated social change, precisely when some other<br />
forms of crafting have been faltering.<br />
In Adelaide, the four jewellery collections featured in<br />
Revealed 3, the recent Samstag Museum of Art exhibition,<br />
hinted at the complex motivations that inspire engagement<br />
with contemporary jewellery. But collecting is, to a<br />
degree, opaque, even to collectors themselves: there is a<br />
serendipitous aspect to collecting, a story that unfolds with<br />
each acquisition. Each collection is an adventure, a delight.<br />
Truus and Joost Daalder have been collecting jewellery<br />
for decades – first antique, then tribal, now contemporary.<br />
Originally from the Netherlands, the Daalders’ long residence<br />
in the Southern Hemisphere – the last four decades in<br />
Adelaide – has inflected their collecting. Their project is<br />
classically encyclopedic: knowledgeable and discriminating,<br />
they pursue outstanding works of contemporary jewellery<br />
with boundless ardour. ‘We buy chiefly as art, and see<br />
jewellery as an important art form,’ Truus notes. ‘We are<br />
guided by the aesthetic appeal, not the preciousness of the<br />
materials used.’ Interested in key developments, the Daalders<br />
also recognize exceptions that prove the rule — Matthew<br />
McIntyre-Wilson’s Whetu brooch, 2012 where silver mimics<br />
Maori weaving.<br />
This passion for contemporary jewellery is reinforced by<br />
the knowledge that, as collectors, they are encouraging<br />
makers: as Truus says, ‘One reason for buying contemporary<br />
jewellery is the support one can give to contemporary<br />
jewellers, who often needit, because it can be a difficult way<br />
to earn money.’ Clearly, contact with contemporary jewellers<br />
has enriched the Daalders’ sense of purpose in collecting.<br />
Artists’ own collections are equally inspired by respect, but<br />
also insider knowledge. Catherine Truman, Sue Lorraine and<br />
Jess Dare, three current partners in Gray Street Workshop,<br />
Adelaide’s long-established contemporary jewellers’ hub,<br />
collect pieces that embody mutual admiration for other<br />
jewellers’ works.<br />
Catherine and Sue have been amassing their trove for around<br />
three decades —collectively it marks their trajectories as<br />
jewellers. Fine works have comefrom Julie Blyfield and<br />
Leslie Matthews, previous Gray Street Workshop partners,<br />
as well as from many of the 100 makers who have passed<br />
through the Workshop over30 years. One substantial<br />
group stems from the early 1990s, when a fruitful series of<br />
exchanges between Gray Street and New Zealand jewellers<br />
began at Dunedin, on the South Island; this connection was<br />
formative for the Workshop, building enduring relationships<br />
with New Zealand practitioners. Pieces by Kobi Bosshard and<br />
Lynn Kelly come from the early 1990s, with “memories of<br />
those original exchanges symbolised through the works”.<br />
For the most part, Catherine and Sue purchase pieces,<br />
in tribute to other makers: “We buy especially from the<br />
emerging jewellers because it is a validation in the most<br />
grass roots kind of way. It binds us together forever – there’s<br />
no better form of direct support.” What is most important,<br />
when Catherine or Sue asks for a work, is the sense of the<br />
maker embodied in the work, some trace of the person, even<br />
their distinctive way of being. Handling their pieces, one<br />
might work back from the tender lyricism of Marian Hosking’s<br />
brooch and the generous decisiveness of Carlier Makigawa’s,<br />
or the calculated whimsy of Zoe Brand’s pendant: each<br />
piece conjures time, place, conversations, affections.<br />
Collecting is often serendipitous, but what if some pieces<br />
of jewellery acquired their owners? American scholar Bill<br />
Brown has suggested that collecting seems to happen<br />
through “...a kind of magic, by an inexplicable vitality that<br />
objects and images assert when they discover us discovering<br />
them. Indeed, when you say that a collection really demands<br />
this or that addition, you voice not the desire for objects,<br />
but the desire of objects.”1 Why not? Happenstance is sadly<br />
underrated, and delight in collecting contemporary jewellery<br />
is heightened by exploring such an extraordinarily diverse<br />
field. There is a whole world waiting to be explored, and it is<br />
just outside the door.<br />
1. Bill Brown, ‘The Collecting Mania’, University of Chicago Magazine, Vol. 94, no.<br />
1, October 2001, accessed at http: //magazine.uchicago.edu/0110/features/mania.<br />
html<br />
Words by Julie Ewington<br />
Julie Ewington is an independent writer, curator<br />
and broadcaster.<br />
Revealed 3: Someone’s and Everyone’s was exhibited at<br />
the Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art in June <strong>2016</strong><br />
and presented in partnership with JamFactory.<br />
Left: Frank Bauer, pendant (detail), 1981. gold<br />
collection of Truus and Joost Daalder, Adelaide.<br />
Photographer: Sam Noonan<br />
ISSUE 04 / 55
Q&A<br />
ANGELA WALFORD
JAMFACTORY’S ADELAIDE AND<br />
SEPPELTSFIELD FACILITIES PROVIDE<br />
INDEPENDENT STUDIO SPACES AND<br />
HIGHLY SOUGHT-AFTER ARTIST-<br />
RESIDENCY OPPORTUNITIES. A<br />
COMPETITIVE APPLICATION PROCESS<br />
IS UNDERTAKEN TO FIND THE PERFECT<br />
MIX OF ARTISANS TO OCCUPY EACH<br />
BUILDING. LARA MERRINGTON SPEAKS<br />
WITH OUR SEPPELTSFIELD CERAMICS<br />
TENANT ANGELA WALFORD.<br />
From the United Kingdom to Japan, Angela Walford’s work<br />
is inspired by a range of techniques. Her varied background,<br />
which includes film, graphic design and printmaking, informs<br />
her practice as much as her love for experimentation through<br />
process. On a visit to Walford’s studio-cum-retail space at<br />
Seppeltsfield, discoveries range from large-form vessels to<br />
small tapas plates, and an artist who is always happy for a<br />
chat while working away behind the wheel.<br />
LM You are well known for your work with Shino (Shino<br />
uwagusuri), a type of pottery glaze, and Raku (raku-yaki),<br />
a technique used in Japanese tea ceremony wares. How did<br />
you come to work with these methods?<br />
AW I became enamoured by this glaze during my time at<br />
college and I still love it. It’s a beautiful surface that sometimes<br />
“captures” the fire of the kiln, leaving carbon spots and flame<br />
kisses. It can be illusive but always captivating. I had an<br />
introduction to clay back in the beginning of my studies and<br />
some 25 years later I am still captivated. It is really one of my<br />
favourite things! My college days began with fine art and then<br />
I crossed over into the design stream, so I also create more<br />
“designed” wares with colourful glazes and printed images.<br />
LM So you’re both a trained designer and intuitive artist. How<br />
would you describe your process from start to finish?<br />
AW I use both methods. Sometimes a fully-fledged idea for<br />
wares is complete in my mind and sometimes exhibition<br />
work can be a process of ideas I have been investigating for<br />
years, especially the more illustrative tile works. I’m always<br />
structuring the processes in my head in order to build the<br />
surface layers and bring the images to life.<br />
AW This one is a constant for me. Printing was my major and<br />
photography my minor at college and it just makes sense as<br />
part of my practice to make multiples of image transfers this<br />
way. I’m not a painter, but I do see things through a lens, so<br />
developing a thought with progressive changes just makes<br />
sense to me.<br />
LM Though you say you’re no painter, your “finger wipe”<br />
method is more free-form and intuitive. Do you feel the<br />
landscape at Seppeltsfield has informed your work in<br />
this sense?<br />
AW I think the drive through the hills and simply seeing the<br />
landscape is a constant inspiration. I can always use it as a<br />
source of colour and texture for whatever I’m working on.<br />
Even the glazed tagine surfaces are evidence of an impact<br />
the landscape might have had on my work.<br />
LM What drew you to moving your practice to the<br />
Seppeltsfield studios? How do you think the space<br />
complements your practice and what do you draw from it?<br />
AW I had an invite from Damon Moon (Creative Director<br />
of JamFactory’s Ceramics Studio), and on working in the<br />
Seppeltsfield studios, I really feel like I’ve launched into<br />
something totally new. Developing a public studio practice<br />
has its juggling moments – I enjoy the chats, learning where<br />
people come from, where they are going; the “arts crowd” is<br />
always great! We chat about their practice, too, which is<br />
always intriguing.<br />
LM What are you working towards right now?<br />
AW As well as my own practice, I’ve been involved with Gallery<br />
1855 and on the advisory group for four years, so that’s always<br />
running in the background of my own practice. At the moment<br />
I’m working on a couple of shows that I participate in annually<br />
for the South Australian Living Artists (SALA) Festival. I’m<br />
looking at developing a range of cooking wares, things that<br />
are great for baking but designed with simple lines; high-fired<br />
stoneware that would look in place on any dining table in a<br />
variety of dishes whose purpose it is to share from. It’s kind<br />
of what my mum’s dinner table looks like at a family feast.<br />
She, of course, owns some of my favourite pieces!<br />
Words by Lara Merrington<br />
Lara is Assistant Curator at JamFactory.<br />
LM Your staple range, Li’l Birdie, features mid-fired pieces<br />
with bird, moon and sea details, and is a perfect meeting of<br />
your two practices of graphic design and ceramics. Do you<br />
see yourself incorporating more of these layering techniques<br />
in the future?<br />
Left: Angela Walford in her Seppeltsfield studio<br />
Photographer: Derek McClure<br />
ISSUE 04 / 57
JAMFACTORY<br />
PRODUCTS<br />
JamFactory studio production focusses on the design<br />
of useful, well made products. These objects highlight<br />
the craft methods behind their production and the<br />
specific characteristics of the materials used.<br />
JamFactory products are designed in-house by creative<br />
staff or through collaboration with independent designers.<br />
Each piece is manufactured or hand finished within one<br />
or more of JamFactory’s four Adelaide based studios<br />
in ceramics, glass, furniture, and metal design.<br />
This range of products is designed by Kristel Britcher,<br />
Daniel Emma, Liam Fleming, Jon Goulder, Christian Hall,<br />
Deb Jones, Tom Mirams, Damon Moon, Brian Parkes,<br />
Alice Potter and Daniel Tucker.<br />
All products are available through JamFactory’s online shop.<br />
jamfactory.com.au<br />
Photographer: Sven Kovac
CHOP<br />
Board<br />
SERVE<br />
Board<br />
SHARE<br />
Board<br />
JAMJAR<br />
Storage Jar<br />
KINK<br />
Oil Bottle<br />
KINK<br />
Vinegar<br />
Bottle<br />
ECLIPSE<br />
Pinch<br />
Bowls<br />
ECLIPSE<br />
Nesting<br />
Bowls<br />
CURVE<br />
Salad Servers<br />
GRIND<br />
Pepper Mill<br />
GRIND<br />
Salt Mill<br />
DROP<br />
Small Vase<br />
DROP<br />
Large Vase<br />
STORE<br />
Desk Tidy<br />
CUBE<br />
Paperweight<br />
FOLD<br />
Card<br />
Holder<br />
FOLD<br />
Letter<br />
Holder<br />
FOLD<br />
Bookends<br />
FOLD<br />
Clock<br />
TRIO<br />
Nesting<br />
Trays<br />
TURN<br />
Small Bowl<br />
TURN<br />
Large Bowl<br />
THROWN<br />
Short<br />
Vase<br />
THROWN<br />
Medium<br />
Vase<br />
THROWN<br />
Tall Vase<br />
THROWN<br />
Planter<br />
THROWN<br />
Espresso<br />
THROWN<br />
Mug<br />
THROWN<br />
Cup & Saucer<br />
THROWN<br />
Cup<br />
THROWN<br />
Small Dish<br />
THROWN<br />
Side Plate<br />
THROWN<br />
Dinner Plate<br />
THROWN<br />
Platter<br />
THROWN<br />
Pasta Bowl<br />
THROWN<br />
Dessert Bowl<br />
THROWN<br />
Small Salad<br />
Bowl<br />
THROWN<br />
Salad Bowl<br />
ISSUE 04 / 59
Enjoy more…<br />
Join as a member from just $45 a year<br />
• A year of exclusive offers, previews, events<br />
and behind the scenes access<br />
• Special talks and insider knowledge about<br />
buying and collecting<br />
• Opportunities to meet artists, designers and<br />
like-minded contemporaries<br />
• Delivery of <strong>Marmalade</strong> magazine and event<br />
programs<br />
• Partner discounts and offers<br />
INDIVIDUAL MEMBERSHIP<br />
Cost: $45 Student/Senior: $25<br />
10% discount on purchases in JamFactory shops and online,<br />
including workshops and gift memberships.<br />
CORPORATE MEMBERSHIP<br />
Cost: $120<br />
20% discount on purchases in JamFactory shops, team building<br />
sessions and venue hire.<br />
MEMBERS’ EVENTS<br />
Enjoy a calendar of exclusive, tailored events with a focus on enjoying<br />
contemporary art and design with curious like-minded people who<br />
want to deepen their involvement with designers, makers and<br />
influencers associated with JamFactory.<br />
GIFT MEMBERSHIP<br />
Share the love of design with a gift membership, and support something good…<br />
SUPPORTING JAMFACTORY<br />
Every membership supports the promotion of good design and fine craftsmanship,<br />
and the professional development of creative entrepreneurs in Australia.<br />
Left: Furniture Collection launch <strong>2016</strong>. Photographer: Andre Castellucci<br />
ISSUE 04 / 61
MAJOR<br />
PARTNERS<br />
SUPPORTING<br />
PARTNERS<br />
JamFactory is a unique, iconic<br />
and important South Australian<br />
organisation, and ANZ is proud<br />
to be a sponsor again in <strong>2016</strong>.<br />
With a priceless legacy dating back<br />
to 1851, Seppeltsfield is one of<br />
Australia’s finest wine estates and<br />
JamFactory’s exclusive wine<br />
partner. Their partnership with<br />
JamFactory brings together two<br />
significant South Australian icons –<br />
both with a commitment to<br />
premium quality and bespoke<br />
production, providing a unique hub<br />
for craft and design in the Barossa.<br />
The University of South Australia<br />
is a progressive international<br />
university, and through the School<br />
of Art, Architecture and Design has<br />
a long history of leading the way in<br />
arts education and contributing to<br />
the vitality of the creative economy.<br />
The University of South Australia is<br />
pleased to be working closely with<br />
JamFactory to further enhance<br />
opportunity and viability for<br />
creative entrepreneurs.<br />
Established in 2003, Canvas Group<br />
is a multi-award-winning creative<br />
agency based in Sydney. With over<br />
9,000 projects for clients around<br />
Australia, Europe, Asia and the<br />
Americas, they are proud partners<br />
in the JamFactory brand, website<br />
design and <strong>Marmalade</strong>.<br />
A leader in the design industry,<br />
Stylecraft has been providing<br />
furniture of original contemporary<br />
design for over 60 years. Now<br />
together with JamFactory, they are<br />
proudly presenting the Australian<br />
Furniture Design Award, Australia’s<br />
richest and most prestigious award<br />
for furniture design that encourages<br />
innovation in furniture design and<br />
will foster new opportunities for<br />
furniture manufacturing in Australia.<br />
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GOVERNMENT<br />
PARTNERS<br />
CORPORATE<br />
COMMISSION<br />
CLIENTS 2015/<strong>2016</strong><br />
Adelaide Airport<br />
Adelaide Cabaret Festival<br />
Adelaide City Council<br />
Adelaide Oval Hill of Grace Restaurant<br />
Almond Glassworks<br />
ANZ<br />
Art Gallery of New South Wales<br />
Art Gallery of South Australia<br />
Articolo<br />
Arts South Australia<br />
Athletics Australia<br />
Australia Council for the Arts<br />
Australian Fashion Labels<br />
Barossa Trust Mark<br />
Brand SA<br />
Cara<br />
CRC Care<br />
Department of Education<br />
Department of State Development<br />
Divinity College<br />
Fino<br />
Food South Australia<br />
HYLC Joint Venture<br />
Jacobs Creek<br />
JK7 Skincare<br />
KWY Aboriginal Corporation<br />
Le Cordon Bleu<br />
Meals on Wheels<br />
Media Resource Centre<br />
National Pharmacies<br />
Ngeringa<br />
Pernod Ricard<br />
Robinson Institute<br />
Ross Gardam Design<br />
Royal Adelaide Show<br />
SA Health<br />
SA Media<br />
Santos Tour Down Under<br />
Sentek Technologies<br />
Seppeltsfield Wines<br />
Snøhetta<br />
South Australian Musuem<br />
South Australian Tourism Commission<br />
St George Church<br />
The Australian Glass and Glazing<br />
Association<br />
The National Association of<br />
Women in Construction<br />
Tulum Turkish Restaurant<br />
ISSUE 04 / 63
JamFactory is a not for profit organisation promoting good design and fine<br />
craftsmanship. All donations to JamFactory directly support our education,<br />
training and exhibition activities. JamFactory would like to acknowledge and<br />
sincerely thank the following donors for their support:<br />
Kent Aughey and Louisa Scott<br />
Susanna Bilardo<br />
Ganesh Balakrishnan<br />
Sandy Benjamin OAM<br />
Catherine Buddle<br />
Noelene Buddle & David Shannon<br />
John Caporaso<br />
Jim and Helen Carreker<br />
Annette Coleman<br />
John Chambers & Dawn Taylor<br />
Michael Darling and<br />
Manuela Darling-Gansser<br />
John Diekman<br />
Eugene Fleming<br />
Shane and Kate Flowers<br />
Dr Hugh Greville & Trish Roche Greville<br />
Steve Grieve and Dr Christine Putland<br />
Denise George<br />
Colin & Marie Goodall<br />
Stephanie Grose<br />
Sanghamitra Guha<br />
Deb & Craig Hosking<br />
Diana & Philippe Jaquillard<br />
John Kirkwood and Wendy Alstergren<br />
Diana Laidlaw AM<br />
Kay Lawrence AM<br />
Margaret Lehmann<br />
Nicholas Linke<br />
Jane Lomax-Smith AM<br />
Anne Maroney<br />
Penny McAuley<br />
Paul and Fatima McHugh<br />
David and Pam McKee<br />
David & Sue Minns<br />
Pam O’Donnell<br />
Libby Raupach OAM and Mark Lloyd<br />
Richard Ryan<br />
Roger & Helen Salkeld<br />
Patricia Stretton<br />
Caroline Treloar<br />
Peter Vaughan and Anne Barker<br />
Robina Weir<br />
Alan Young AM and Sue Young<br />
Jane Yuile<br />
Australian Decorative and Fine Arts<br />
Society<br />
Ballandry Fund<br />
JPE Design Studio<br />
The Thomas Foundation<br />
To donate visit jamfactory.com.au/pages/donate-membership<br />
JamFactory is approached for support by countless charities, not for profits and<br />
community groups annually. We strive to support those who support us, and celebrate<br />
generous and valuable individuals in our community. Below are some of the groups<br />
we supported in <strong>2016</strong><br />
10x10 Philanthrop<br />
Adelaide Festival Centre<br />
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra<br />
Adelaide Victory Football Club<br />
Australian Ballet<br />
Australian Medical Placements<br />
Barossa District Football & Netball Club<br />
Barossa Visitor Information Centre<br />
Barossa Wine Show<br />
Bellevue Philanthropy<br />
Catherine House<br />
Connecting Up Inc<br />
Conservation Council SA<br />
Feast Festival<br />
Flinders Medical Research Foundation<br />
Foodbank SA<br />
Hang it up for Poverty<br />
Heart Foundation<br />
Helpmann Acadamy<br />
HYPA Two Feet Campaign<br />
Lions Club<br />
Loreto College<br />
Make-A-Wish Foundation<br />
Mary Potter Found/Channel 9 Telethon<br />
Mother’s Day Classic<br />
National Breast Cancer Foundation<br />
Pinery Fire Recovery<br />
Quarter Club / South Australian Games<br />
Appeal<br />
Grow SA / Red Faces 2015<br />
Ronald McDonald House<br />
WaterAid<br />
SA Games Appeal<br />
SA Museum<br />
SA Olympic Council<br />
Sammy D Foundation<br />
Sight For All Foundation<br />
St Ignatius College<br />
Starlight Children’s Foundation<br />
State Theatre Company<br />
Cerebral Palsy Alliance<br />
Tanunda Hockey Club<br />
Tanunda Primary School &<br />
Disability Unit<br />
The Adelaide Youth Orchestra<br />
The Australian Refugee Association<br />
The Hospital Research Foundation<br />
The University of Adelaide<br />
The University of South Australia<br />
Vitalstatistix<br />
64 / ISSUE 04
Green Tea, 2015, porcelain, agate<br />
ware, wheel thrown, oxidation,<br />
teapot: 144 x 185 x 186 mm,<br />
cups: 105 x 46 mm.<br />
Daniel Jo,<br />
Bachelor of Visual Arts graduate.<br />
Leading the way in<br />
arts education since 1856<br />
The School of Art, Architecture and Design at the University of South Australia has led the way<br />
in arts education for more than 150 years. We are proud of our contribution to the vitality of the<br />
arts locally, nationally and internationally.<br />
Our award-winning students, graduates and academics excel in their chosen fields and aim to<br />
inspire the next generation.<br />
unisa.edu.au/aad<br />
CRICOS PROVIDER No 00121B
JamFactory thanks<br />
our major sponsors.<br />
Proudly investing in<br />
Tomorrow. Talent.<br />
Ceramic Studio Associate Connie Augoustinos. Photographer: Sven Kovac