My Friends and their Clay is a celebration of the animism inherent in works of clay and other objects. The works featured in this collection were created over several months by four women linked in friendship and the shared contemplation of beauty and landscape. Throughout the creating period, sample works were shared amongst one another, inviting each other to harness inspiration to create new work in response to the spirit emerging from the initial work.
Contributing artist, Samantha Lee, explains,
“I find myself surrounded by incredible women harbouring hidden talents - one being the ability to create beautiful objects from clay. I can’t remember a day that I haven’t drunk a cup of tea from a beautiful, handcrafted object made by one of my friends. To have your friends so intimately involved in your own daily rituals.. it's nothing but magic. I draw so much inspiration from these women - who they are, how they live, what they create. The beauty of their hearts shaped into tangible objects inspires me deeply, breathing life and joy into my own art practice and offerings. I feel I’m not alone in this appreciation - we are all surrounded by incredible women - I wanted to share my version of it.”
My Friends and their Clay is proud to be selected for the October residency at The Project Space, Apollo Bay.
Artist Bios
Alexia Graba-Landry
Alexia Graba-Landry originally hails from the frozen plains of central Canada, in the regional city of Winnipeg where she grew up amongst prairie dogs, burrowing owls, and the occasional elk. She first made her hop across the Pacific in 2009 in an effort to finish her undergraduate degree in forest science in Armidale NSW. She then decided to stick around for an Honours in Marine Biology in Coffs Harbour - which was the launch of her 14-year career in marine climate change research - of which much of her inspiration for her pots stems from. She's recently abandoned academia for the greener pastures of threatened species conservation - of flora and fauna both above and below the sea.
She first started throwing clay near the end of her PhD in Far-North Queensland at first as simply a mechanism to unwind, which eventually evolved into a deep obsession. After following her partner to Tasmania at the beginning of the pandemic, throwing clay became a lifeline as she navigated lockdown, uncertainty and darkness during her first Tasmanian winter. Through the darkness emerged a blossoming creative - forever seeking to produce pieces which are true to her surrounding environment.
Happily on the other end of that uncertain year, and after recently clocking three years in the island state - her pots intend to reflect the wild Tasmanian land- and seascape. From the forest, to the coast, to below the sea - her pots are inspired by every ecosystem - draped in deep greens, moody blues or the rough edges of an unglazed surface to reflect the tree ferns, the Tasman, and the dolorite cliffs. @alexia_landry
An informal ceramicist who has recently taken up pottery on the back of a long career in interior design, Anna Skermer's natural creativity combined with determination has emerged a style true to her surrounding landscape and passions. She guarantees that no two pieces formed by her hands will be alike or result from a strict brief, instead preferring to allow the clay to emerge in response to her internal call at each very moment.
Anna currently practices from a makeshift studio created by the luck of an un-used woolshed on their rental property inland from the Surf Coast in Victoria. This space proving to be a perfect place to make and create with clay, removing any connection to ceramic’s technical world whilst feeling at home having grown up in a similar setting, on a sheep farm in Western Victoria.
Though refined and subtle, her work truly reflects the wild coastline of Western Victoria - her clay formations reflecting the countless hours she spends submerged in the Southern Ocean, dwarfed by sandstone sentinels, seeking waves, caves or abalone. Anna's ceramic practice has, in her opinion (but not to those close to her!), come out of nowhere, but continues to emerge as she absorbs herself with the inner need to keep creating and learning along this clay-based adventure. @anna.skermer
Grace Dungey is a potter living in the Kimberley—the remote, northernmost region of Western Australia. Having initially developed her skills in the temperate, southern reaches of Australia, Grace uses her ceramic practice as as way to ground herself in two starkly contrasted landscapes: the ephemeral marshland that surrounds the small, monsoonal town of Derby, her current base, and the Otway rainforest—her home away from home.
Drawing inspiration from both of these unique regions has been a way to reconcile her yearning for one place while being ensconced in the other. Living remotely, Grace experiments with wild clays sourced from local floodplains and is exploring ways of developing a closed-loop wood fired kiln system, using invasive species harvested from her bush block as a way of keeping the weeds under control.
In her time away from both the wheel and hand building, Grace works in marine park management with the Dambimangari Rangers, a role spent mostly in the Lalang-gaddam Marine Park with the Worddordda people, Traditional Owners of the land and sea Country north of Derby.
Grace previously lived in Yogyakarta, Indonesia and was a Hamer Scholar in Chengdu, China. Grace is a current participant in Homeward Bound’s eighth cohort, a global leadership initiative, set against the backdrop of an Antarctic voyage in 2024/25, which aims to heighten the influence and impact of women in making decisions that shape our planet. Grace is also a writer on environmental and Indigenous affairs throughout Australia and the Asia-Pacific. @graceceramics_
Samantha Lee
Gardener, Artist, Ethnobotanist, Researcher, Samantha Lee can’t seem to decide where to lay her head, instead embracing a multi-faceted approach to her artistic practice. Whether through science, storytelling or painting, Sam seeks to inspire those around her to appreciate Earth’s profound beauty and to see the ways all life emerges from within all else. She believes that many perspectives are needed to find ecologically-rooted solutions to humanity’s greatest challenges, and as a result has worked extensively with Indigenous groups across the Asia-Pacific through her ethnobotany and forest science work. Her art practice reflects her worship of nature and the sublime, whilst attempting to reconcile science, myth and wonder.
Hailing from warmer landscapes, Sam currently lives in the (almost) permanent mists of Beech Forest, but has found a wild sense of exhilaration living detached from most usual home set-ups, which is emerging as a key influence on her art practice. She is a National Geographic Explorer, New Colombo Plan Alumni, Host on Apollo Bay Radio, and mother to two sprouts absorbing everything in their world. @samaetha
Join us
Exhibition Opening Studio Afternoon Friday 06 OCT 6pm (FREE EVENT)
Open Studio Days TBC
(RE)Emerging + Growing Female Artists Residency
local creative women of the GOR + Otways of all ages and cultural backgrounds to exhibit at the project space with a monthly placement residency. Wonderfully creative women for all sorts of reasons may find that their lives get put on hold or displaced and their creative practice is quite often the first thing that gets put on the back burner. 2023 is the year to reemerge with help and love. You can re-emerge and grow at any age and in any place. This is a safe nurturing space for experimentation and community. Welcome.
Sponsored by The Project Space & Facilitated by The development Lab
Sponsored by The Project Space
Facilitated by The Development Lab