Fine Art and Ceramics

As with most young kids, I loved to draw and paint. I struggled at school, being forced to conform with a curriculum that I could not relate to. Art was my only salvation. In my youth I began employment in horticulture, which lasted four years. It consisted of long hours of physically hard work, but I loved the challenge. After this period, the need for variety saw me bounce from job to job, unable to settle into to any serious career path. Eventually I decided to follow my one passion. I enrolled at a Technical College outside of London, to study Art and Ceramics. The world to which that choice introduced me, was a revelation. I soon needed to spread my wings. I emigrated to Australia. Radical I know, but I found a home in South Australia working in two commercial potteries and a ceramic supply company. My first teaching experience was with the pottery school which was run as an addendum to the supply company. Within a couple of years this experience gave me sufficient confidence to apply to the South Australian School of Art to study ceramics. This is where my career in the arts truly began. My first foray into business was as a professional ceramist. Having a public prepared to purchase my works in sufficient quantity to allow me to support my family was also a revelation to me. A couple of years later my first wife and I opened a Gallery on the fringe of the Barossa Valley. It became very successful. I joined a couple of ceramic societies and won a gold medal for my work.

The second stage of my life as an artist began after my first marriage broke up. I was invited to exhibit at an highly respected gallery in Canberra. The exhibition was not only a success, but it was at this gallery where I met my second wife. I moved home and workshop from South Australia, to re-establish in Canberra. In combination with producing my own work, I also taught part-time in applied design at TAFE. After twelve months teaching part-time I was offered the opportunity of a full-time position, using my background knowledge to help structure and coordinate a full time course in craft studies. This supplied an additional opportunity for me to teach several subjects across several disciplines. ( Interior Design, Graphic Design, Architectural Studies and Craft Studies.) Teaching others was as satisfying as producing my own work. Unfortunately, the production of latter did suffer somewhat to my commitment to the first. After five years at TAFE, Government constraints on funding to that institutional body eventuated in a Governmental reduction in commitment to the arts. The usual industrial trades became all important, while the arts became merely a minor philanthropic gesture. Tertiary departments were amalgamated and reduced in size and staffing, which in my opinion compromised the creative environment, and I decided to leave something I loved doing.

I continue to dabble in the arts and write.