Previous Workshops - March 2002

Workshop with Ian Currie
September 14 & 15, 2002
9:00am - 5:00pm

About The Artist

Ian Currie lives and works in Queensland, Australia.  He has been studying and working with clay and glazes for over 30 years.  He has spent over a year in Japan studying many aspects of Japanese ceramics, including their approach to glazes.  Upon his return to Australia, he made a living producing functional handmade stoneware and porcelain,  His interest in glazes eventually led to lecturing in the subject Australia-wide.

In 1980 he founded a correspondence course in Stoneware Glazes for the Australian Flying Arts School (now Flying Arts Inc.) and taught this course for several years.  He was also a flying pottery lecturer with AFAS during this period.  He is best known fir the method he has developed over the years for studying glazes - a very efficient systematic technique that quickly reveals glaze principles while discovering beautiful glazes.  He uses a recipe-based system which makes the grid method more accessible to potters with an aversion to chemistry and calculations.  He occasionally lectures and runs workshops in Australia and overseas.  He conducts workshops in the U.S. each year in the fall.

These days he spends most of his time writing and teaching, makes pots for pleasure only, and enjoys singing a-cappella.

visit his Web Site at http://www.ian.currie.to

Before turning to the studio full-time, I worked as a gardener for ten years.  While filling the warm months with a labor that enhanced the visual lives of my customers, I worked with plants.  Their structure and color and habits of growth have surfaced in this work.

My basic interest lies in taking a surface (be it the surface of a pot or a slab of clay ), drawing on it and then carving back into it to pull the image into three dimensional relief.  With the addition of color and line, I hope to develop the gesture--to bring life to the image.