Farmhouse Pottery

Walpole – South coastal town in Western Australia

Technician Yarra

In 1988 my husband Yarra (physicist) took on the job of my Technician in beginning to work on a New Enterprise scheme of creating a pottery. It was my dream and his knowledge that made it happen.

It was not easy but we had a beautiful piece of land in the Walpole Forrest area on the South Coast of Western Australia. We had a half built house and three children to boot.

It was either madness or enthusiastic passion that drove me on in my quest of keeping pottery alive in my family- inherited from my Grandfathers family.

Ukrainian peace project

The peace project came later in 2015- but that is another story !! Back to Farmhouse Pottery Story…………………

Building a house and a studio and running a pottery sounds like hard work and it was. But I had the motivation and developed a love for production. There is nothing more satisfying than having 30mugs with handles ready for firing.

I threw mainly stoneware at that time. Developed and disciplined myself to only use three glazes. One glaze was the Japanese Tenmoku. The second was a Matt white stoneware and when used on an iron based clay threw a lovely oatmeal colour; the third was the most popular – a Matt blue throwing specks of green blue. Most glazes were mixed by us while using recipes from a great little book by Janet DeBoos called Glazes for Australian Potters.

Decorating using wax resist
Mother bird flying off

My design decoration developed over time. I recall my early brush strokes of hot wax to be timid and not confident.

I chose wax resist because I had been a very experienced decorator of Ukrainian Pysanki. What began as a leaf motive eventually became a mother bird flying off followed by two- three baby birds. This was usually applied to bisque ware and then the pot would be immersed into liquid glaze. For production work it was quick and efficient. I loved working with hot wax.

Glazing
Mass production at its peak
Gas Fibre Kiln
Buttery Matt-blue Domestic range
Each selling outlet was supplied with a hand made pine dresser full of functional ware. The dressers were made by Yarra.

Farmhouse pottery was my most demanding learning curve. Being a production thrower teaches one a lot of skills. The discipline was relentless and eventually one has to stop. But satisfaction was great and used to culminate in participating in the Denmark and Walpole markets annually. I had outlets in Walpole, Albany, Denmark, Dogswamp in Perth, Napoleon St. Cottesloe and Bunbury. It’s mind blowing to re-call. But that’s what it took to run a pottery business. Sheer hard work!!

Eventually burned out with carpal tunnel in both wrists!!

Slip ware 1998