CERAMICIST SHANNON GARSON makes her creative process sound remarkably simple … “all my work starts as a lump of porcelain clay thrown on an electric wheel.” Needless to say many more amazing things happen before her stunningly delicate pieces emerge from her kiln. Shannon has become one of Australia’s most collectable ceramicists, combining strong draftsmanship and a controlled design flair for the simple and organic. Her use of the Australian-created ‘southern ice’ porcelain clay gives her work a delicate translucence.
Now settled in and around her Maleny-based studio with her mozzarella-making husband Trevor and two young children, Shannon is opening her studio to the public on Saturday December 5.
“We like to open the studio every so often”, she says. “For one thing it reminds people that artists live all around them - right next door. They need to see that we have a special room to work in and it’s a serious job… a lot of people don’t realise what artists do. “
Another reason for the open studio is that Shannon will be joined by her jeweller friend Rebecca Ward. The two artists have just been awarded a $40,000 collaborative grant from Arts Queensland to produce works based on wallum swamp land, particularly on the Sunshine Coast.
“Wallum is fast disappearing on the Coast”, says Shannon, “it’s amazingly diverse and supports a lot of flora and fauna.”
The two artists will visit various wallum areas around south-east Queensland over the next twelve months. The end result will be a mixed exhibition towards the end of 2010 that will contain pots, jewellery, glassware, and collaborative pieces reflecting the diversity and sensitivity of the threatened wallum.
“Rebecca and I share beliefs about making people’s lives better through objects”, says Shannon. There will be wearable jewellery, usable vessels, and a lighting component through the glassware and my translucent porcelain.” “We want the exhibition items to be things that you want to touch, and you’re allowed to do that”, adds Shannon with a laugh.
“More importantly we hope the exhibition will focus people’ s attention to the Wallum through the craft materials we’re using. It’s all about drawing attention to what’s there underneath your nose.”
“In making a breakfast bowl for example, if it gets a person thinking about the Wallum from the design on the bowl, if it plants that idea into people’s minds when they’re in the muddle of everyday life, then we’ve achieved something.”
The wallum exhibition will be shown at a Sunshine Coast gallery late next year and then it will travel around Queensland and around Australia.
For the studio opening on December 5, Shannon will present her new range of ceramics based on the Queensland rainforest firewheel tree. Some see it as classically Asian, even Zen in its purity of shape and design. Shannon sees what she does as being more down to earth.
“It’s the simplicity and tranquillity of the shapes, like the old colonial mixing bowl. It’s really an attempt to make a piece of art than can go practically into people’s houses. It makes people less afraid of art.”
Shannon Garson’s ceramic pieces have certainly found a place in many Australian homes. She now sells in Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney and Perth and is sending pieces to America.
In 2003 Shannon won the prestigious Josephine Ulrick Award for Excellence in the Gold Coast International Ceramic Awards. In 2005 she received a Churchill Fellowship and spent 3 months travelling in Europe studying the art of the medieval and Renaissance periods.
And as her working life increases in pace Shannon constantly re-adjusts her work / life balance. “ The family is full-time”, she laughs, “and my pottery is squeezed in between. But I would like it to be full time,” she adds with an optimistic smile.
Studio opening:
Saturday 5 December
23 Cedar St, Maleny
9:00am… ’til late
Contact Shannon at www.shannongarson.com
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