This is ‘moi’ after searching high and low through our beautiful Winter holiday in Germany and France. I still have one last place to try in Berlin, but at this point, I’ve come up fairly empty handed. I do have some ideas of products that I am going to try and source online to then sell on my site. But, that’s it folks!!! I’ve realised that what the ceramics community offers to Australians is pretty, darn good. Creative, great quality, well priced and so much variety. We really need to nurture and support what we have…it’s quite amazing! This trip has helped me see this more clearly! PS…the burnt orange Datsun 120Y jacket was primarily chosen so my family could spot me in the crowd.

In the last part of this year I am travelling to Eastern Europe for a white Christmas. Of course, there a lot of variables that can happen, but that one is a must! I will be in Berlin for Christmas itself and hope to enjoy a ridiculous amount of joy experiencing the Christmas markets. It’s always been a great time of year, having grown up with an extended family that met on the Orchard and later by the Murray for big get-togethers. But change is inevitable and I am going to try to embrace ‘change’ a little more in 24 rather than lament about it. When I first went about getting my new website up and running, my designer Claire and I came up with the concept of bringing back hard-to-find treasures from my travels over there. To find markets and handmade crafts that you rarely come across in Australia. So now the time is here, the year has passed and I am indeed going to get my sourcing cap on and see what I can find. Wish me luck…I am going to find out any related stories I can, and bring them back to share with you as well. It may work, it may not, lets see where the wind blows.

CLAY MATTERS September 2023

OPEN LETTER OF SUPPORT FOR INDIGENOUS VOICE TO PARLIAMENT

We represent a broad group of clay workers for the environment.

As part of our Potters Pledge to make informed choices regarding the environment in our daily practice, we pay our respects to the country on which we create and to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who have never ceded sovereignty.

We wholeheartedly support the Indigenous Voice to Parliament. We respect the principle of self-determination. A commitment to long-term listening is essential in addressing the systemic inequity that Indigenous Australians experience today.

We believe that the Voice is a straightforward, sensible and empowering step in rectifying historical injustices and shaping a more equitable and promising future for Australia.

We pay our respects to the incredible resistance of Indigenous peoples and celebrate the endurance of their Culture, relationship to Country and the immense knowledge from which we must all learn. We acknowledge that sustainability is not a new concept for First Nations people and that areas of thinking sustainably are built on indigenous thinking and practice.

This is part of the core values of Clay Matters.

We wish to accept with equal grace the offer with which the Uluru Statement of the Heart is given. Please sign below and join us in this history making moment to vote for a more equitable and prosperous future for all Australians. We urge all Australians to learn more about the Uluru Statement and make an informed decision in the referendum.

The Potters Pledge was formed during the pandemic by a group of Potters wanting to open up discourse re the Climate Emergency we were facing as a humanity. We wanted to share and learn together how to support each other, as a community. What was our footprint? How could we lessen it?

All those Abba songs that were sung, all those Donna Summer moves that were danced. She was Frida, I was Anna, on those long, hot endless Summers.

Statements from the Soul shows that the Uluru Statement of the heart goes to the heart of who we are as a country and is essential to reconciliation.

If you are a traditionalist at heart, for the 9th Wedding anniversary you give pottery to your loved one. It represents something beautiful emerging from something so ordinary as a piece of Earth.

I’m excited and also proud to have this webshop up and running. I have no idea how it will go, but am happy that I have taken my time to reach this point and I am still bewildered by the kindness shown along the way. I am very grateful for this. I’ve left nothing on the table this time…well, except for a bunch of ceramics!