Official opening for Gunnedah Pottery Club's 50-year exhibition

Gunnedah Pottery Club officially opened its 50th anniversary exhibition on Friday evening.

Like many of the 360 pots on display – a near record according to organisers – planning for this pottery milestone was refined with time.

“I think we had our first meeting two years ago,” club president Jenny Mathews said.

“We discussed the name of the exhibition (Potters from the Plains), how it’s going to be set up, what the format’s going to be.

Pots from artists past and present are now on display – chronicling the club’s history from its earliest beginnings to modern works by new and emerging potters.

Members were offered the chance to showcase their works. This was complemented with written profiles of the artists who have shared their sources of inspiration for the making of their pots.

“We’ve done a short summary of our history over the years, what’s been our most significant times, and you’ll see samples of the pit firing and Raku firing, which a lot of other (pottery) clubs don’t do,” Jenny said.

The club president said membership stands at about 35 members of all skill levels – from the relative newcomers to those such as Louise Baker, Pat Tobin and Ann Pickett who hold many decades of experience.

Jenny said pottery offered an escape from the everyday unlike any other and it was the relaxation for the mind which she found most beneficial.

“I go down to the (pottery) shed and think I’m going to be here for an hour or two hours, then four hours later I look up and it’s like three o’clock in the afternoon and only that my stomach says I’m hungry, that I need to go home. So that’s what happens,” she said.

“It is the relaxation and creating and just making something from mud. You can say it comes from mud and look what happens.”

Jenny said the real reward is seeing the finished product, hopefully intact, after the firing.

“Once you do the firing, when it comes out of the kiln, you can either be excited or you cry,” she said, highlighting a big work recently which unfortunately did not survive the firing process.

Jenny said the great camaraderie among fellow pottery club members is also a bonus.

“It’s the people – you go down there and we’re all sitting there creating and the members and the people in the club are just … it’s just nice to be around creative people,” she said.

Fellow exhibitor and club member Jayde Noble said it was a privilege to display her pots alongside some of the club’s most distinguished artists.

“It’s a really great honour because there are lots of potters with lots of experience and they are very generous with all of their skills,” Jayde said.

“It’s lovely to be involved in that and accepted into the club as one of the members.”

She joined the Gunnedah club in 2019 after completing an ‘introduction to pottery class’ and hasn’t looked back since.

Jayde said one of the best aspects of pottery is being able to gift her works – even though that means sometimes borrowing them back temporarily for exhibition.

“It is a really interesting and enjoyable hobby to have and it can be so varied, there’s so many different ways of doing things and it can be very, very exciting too because you never know how something is going to turn out,” she said.

Agricultural consultant and farmer Rick Thomas has dabbled in pottery for 20 years. He joked with fellow club member Geoff Dawson about being the “token male members”. Geoff, incidentally, is exhibiting five pots each 48 years old, which he submitted for his major project in the 1977 Higher School Certificate.

The pottery exhibition at Gunnedah’s Creative Arts Gallery in Chandos Street, is open until November 16.

Artist profile: Pat Tobin

Pat has been a member of Gunnedah Pottery Club since 1976. She joined the club after an early foray into the craft while living in Sydney during the early 70s.

Pat recalled how some of the early club members sought to name the club the ‘mud larks’ before the pottery club name was adopted.

She reminisced about the first raku firings at Pat’s first farm on the Mullaley Road and later at another site on Quia Road using a fibre-lined, 44-gallon drum kiln.

Pat was awarded life membership to the pottery club in 2015 and despite being 91 years young, still takes a keen interest in pottery.

Artist profile: Anne Pickett

Anne joined the Gunnedah club in 1979 and recalled one of her first works was a wall hanging with leather strings. She used a brown clay and remembered marking 1980 on her work.

Anne went to TAFE and met Pat Tobin there have been best friends since. One of Anne’s best memories is going to TAFE in Tamworth for two years with Pat. She used to do pit firing at her farm at Kelvin and would regularly burnish her pots while watching television in the night.

Anne was awarded life membership in 2017 and is considered one of the club’s most outstanding hand builders.

Mad Hatters Exhibit

One of the more popular and unique works on display is the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. This class project for the 1981 TAFE class was led by Pat Tobin. The class participants included Audrey Durrant, Monica Jones, Marea Norman, Gloria Phillips, Anne Pickett, Hildegarge Sanders and Marion Warner.

According to the exhibit’s information card, the project was completed within the TAFE year and displayed at the following year’s art show, then held at the Smithhurst Theatre during August. It created great interest and a local identity enquired if it was for sale.

It was decided that it was not for sale and was packed away for several years until eventually presented to the historical society for display at the museum.