02 Jun Chester Nealie

“Digging up old bottles, collecting scraps of weathered driftwood from the mangrove swamps or absorbing visual delights in fossils and artefacts in musky museums are often stimuli behind my work. My shapes are a synthesis of an emotional link I feel with past objects and the accidental play with clay in its making. I like to use a slow turning wheel with a minimum of water so that all honest marks of making remain to be seen.” (Nealie in Mansfield, J., 1995)

Nealie’s pots illustrate the index – traces left of the shells used to prop up the pots during firing. Also terroir – fire, air, clay, ash glazes. I met him at the Ceramics biennial last year. I think that conference was a pivotal point in the genesis of this project. Ceramicists talk about their clay and glazes like they talk about a landscape or a place.

Mansfield, J. (1995) Contemporary Ceramic Art in Australia and New Zealand. Rosefield East, NSW: Craftsman House. ISBN 9768097329.