a series of actions - Alica Kane and Kaye Pemberton

Return to index of past exhibitions
Download a PDF version   File size: 1.07 MB
View images from the gallery

Craft ACT Gallery Two: 5 February - 14 March 2009

An emerging talent, an end of an era and optimism

The Australia Council announced the end of the Craft Youth Mentorship funding last year; initially this funding had its roots in the previous coalition government's youth agenda and was delivered through the federal government agency the Australia Council. Over the past almost 10 years this funding has seen breakthroughs by an array of emerging talent, providing a bedrock of experiences for those fortunate enough to be successful in their applications. To see the end of this funding is to acknowledge its legacy - an era of new talent. In its absence, funding agents and government ministers will need to develop new schemes to achieve the benchmark set by this program.

Alicia Kane is the final recipient of the Australia Council Craft Mentorship funding for the ACT, delivered through Craft ACT: Craft and Design Centre. Kane alongside her chosen mentor Kaye Pemberton has been on a journey of redefining her practice and her goals, negotiating the building of skills and confidence to ensure that making remains the focus of her professional career.

How does this young woman continue along a creative path, one steeped in history to find her voice which will resonate with her own individual values, decisions and expression? Kane, like many before her graduated from an institution where she was inducted into the rich traditions and stories of visual art practices, where ideas are formed into objects, dismantled, broken down, and stitched up again. Whilst one voice amongst many students may seem lost in the crowd, leaving what can be described as a sanctuary of the arts to be jettisoned into a world of fierce consumerism is a test of one's faith and endurance.

A mentorship, and by this I mean a dedicated period of time spent with a skilled professional with a stipend for both parties can provide just enough time and space to reinvest in the hopes and dreams of an emerging practitioner. This mentorship is a celebration of the handmade; it's the signs of life of the wonderful world of potting, making things from clay and the acknowledgement of a young artist pursuing her passion in an era that challenges the values of hand skills and the act of contemplation. It is a story, with a narrative of hope and perseverance.

Upon graduating from the Australian National University School of Art Ceramic Workshop, Kane took up an internship with Craft ACT: craft and Design Centre, assisting in the management of the exhibition program. She also spent a period of time working with the well known tableware producer Bison Homewares. These two diverse worlds provided Kane with a broad view point of the arts and the opportunities open to her.

Initially Kane's visual vocabulary was embedded in a sculptural format, a commentary on land and material. From this post art school position, Kane found her self drawn to the world of functional ware; she became interested the marriage of utility with aesthetic, function and material satisfaction. A desire to ground her practice in the development of a functional range of tableware for Kane was the beginning of a new direction, and one that was driven by intent, process, and design. Kane's new work is exciting - not because it is necessarily new, on the contrary it is a reconfirmation of old traditions, but because it is a celebration of accomplishment above the odds of our industrial and technology age.

As Virginia Woolf so aptly described in her essay "A room of one's own", 'a place of independence' is the means to individual creativity. The Australia Council mentoring grant is Kane's 'room of her own'. Kane invited Kaye Pemberton into this room as she patiently rediscovered at an intense level the process of clay selection, throwing, finishing and surface decoration, and incorporating the art of studio efficiency.

A rare opportunity to rent a studio in Queanbeyan NSW provided Kane with a space of her own. Pemberton spent a week there with her, everyday became a mantra of studio practice, that addressed the best lay out to work in, the necessity of neatness and how it helps to develop a methodical process, all of which begets an economy of actions marking the rite of hand made production.

Pemberton is a key element in the sum of this mentorship. Her depth of experience is unequivocally a source of great knowledge and was the platform for Kane to develop rigour and discipline in her practice. Where Kane initially starts out with loose bowl and plate forms, their wobbles and undulating lips providing an expressive frame, it is through Pemberton that she pushes over this edge creating a true production range. Through this process a regularity emerged demonstrating that Kane's skills are becoming embedded in her hands which in turn will allow her the pleasure of choosing to control her forms to produce shapes that are either regular or irregular in the future.

Pemberton's influence is gentle enough that Kane's final range is unique and very separate from her own work. Her forms are refreshing to the eye for their combination of elements. This includes an unusual yet appealing base structure where Kane has gouged regular horizontal cuts into a thicker base providing visual and textural stimulation as well as stability for the form. A beguiling and surprising choice of terracotta clay, boldly red in colour combined with a loose, confident and expressive painted surface clinches the deal on this work. The unexpected base clay is strong and wholesome and is the right backdrop for the surface treatment. Broadly applied white background glaze wash is combined with strong deconstructed flora arrangements, revealing Kane's strong calligraphic mark making skills. This unusual combination has a freedom that comes to life when seen repeated on bowl, plate and cup and ultimately provides a sense that Kane can and will find her voice amongst her peers.

Pemberton's role as she refers to it is a position of privilege, a place where she reconfirms her position as a professional, an artist whose skill level, built over a thirty year period, is refined, hard won and treasured. Yet in the process of a mentorship an exchange occurs both ways and in this case Pemberton introduces the terracotta clay used by Kane into her oeuvre of porcelain based domestic vignettes. Within designed suites of teapots, cups, saucers, milk jugs and sugar bowls Pemberton accents each suite with one piece made in the terracotta. Surprisingly the terracotta is a moment of beautiful serendipity as its colour reminds us of the heritage of clay; an ongoing companion to human domestic life, a theme that is central to Pemberton's recent work. As Jas Hugonnet states in his essay Placement for Pemberton's joint exhibition with Sarit Cohen of the same name,

"Her collection, use and placement of contemporary studio ceramics provides a connection between the 'making do' approach of the past and today's respect for handmade quality and design."¹

Education is not a straight forward system, neither is it confined in one direction as it moves between the participants in ways that realising new ideas elicits fresh comprehension. It does not solely belong within identifiable cloaks of institutions and can be formalised via other formats. Through this mentorship Kane has entered into another realm where a collective passion for making objects, a manifestation of decision making and judgements of hand, eye and emotion that have each contributed to the rich ceramic object culture of Australia which continues despite the economic roller coaster of modern times.

As Catrina Vignando, General Manager of Craft Australia noted at the opening of Kane and Pemberton's exhibition at Craft ACT: Craft and Design Centre, titled a series of actions:

"The arts remain a touch stone that connect us to the tangible in everyday life. This tangible reality is very reassuring in times of financial uncertainty. As audiences we take refuge in the streak of optimism presented by the familiarity of objects [and Kane] and her work present one of the many glimmers of optimism that still abound."

 

Barbara McConchie
Executive Director Craft ACT: Craft and Design Centre
February, 2009

Images:

• Alicia Kane, Bowls, 2009, wheelthrown ceramics
• Alicia Kane, Production Set, 2009, wheelthrown ceramics
• Kaye Pemberton, He will be needing lots of cups of tea, 2009, teapot, cup and saucer with tray, porcelain, terracotta and found tray.

All Photos: Creative Image Photography.

 

Footnotes

1. Hugonnet, J. (2008), Placement.