Pippin Louise Drysdale

by Margaret Moore

Pippin Drysdale is an artist emphatically inspired by her surroundings.  Hers is a creatively emotional and intuitive response to the landscape facilitated by considerable technical skill.  Margaret Moore gives us a critically informed insight into Pippin and her powerful work pointing out the subtle, poignant abstraction of the essence of 'the bush'. The 'beach' and elsewhere.

 

    Pippin Drysdale's ceramics are characterized by a formal simplicity enlivened by painterly application.  The bowl and plate or slab have sustained as the dominant forms providing sites for distinctive surfaces exhibition at The Door gallery Fremantle, clustered groups of bowls sitting as inverted cones and wearing radiant colours were entitled the Pinnacle Series.  Their installation suggested a heightened consciousness of the interactive potential of thematic vessels and a bifurcation into a sculptural rather than painting arena.  Through reducing the applied decoration to repeated horizontal lines encircling the forms, the Pinnacle Series exuded a restrained and quiet mood where previously Drysdale's work has overwhelmed in its unleashed exuberance. For followers of Drysdale's work a considerable shift, be it an exciting one, in the artist's practice.  Unquestionably it continued to display a virtuosic skill in applied decoration luster and glazing; the porcelain seemingly transfigured into glass, semi-precious stone or plastic, and more generically landscape itself.  In tracing some of her earlier experiences, key developments and inspirations, this perceived shift proved more exponential than aberrant in the continuum, which is Pippin Drysdale.  It also re-affirmed one of her strengths is as a colourist.

                In just over a decade of practice Pippin Drysdale has achieved a formidable resume of exhibitions, residencies and awards.  She graduated from Curtin University in 1985 after previously completing an Advanced Diploma in Ceramics at Perth Technical College in 1981.  During the intervening year of 1982 she undertook a study tour to the United States of America working at Anderson Ranch, Colorado studying with distinguished potters, Daniel Rhodes, Toshiko Takaesu and Rhoda Lopez.  She has maintained international activity with return invitations to lecture in America and invited participation in Art Fairs in  Chicago, Singapore, Surabaya and Melbourne and in the Perth International Craft Triennial.  In 1995 her work was included in the significant Australian exhibition Delinquent Angel: Australian Historical, Aboriginal and Contemporary Ceramics at the prestigious Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche in Faenza, Italy.  She was also a joint winner in the City of Perth Craft Award.

                The energy, consistency and maturing of Drysdale's work begs the question from where does her inspiration come?  Without doubt Drysdale's extensive travel and opportunities availed to her to work with a number of prominent potters has helped shape her directions and has influenced the character of her work.  This has not always been a visual influence, rather a philosophical or conceptual one.  As Dorothy Erickson acknowledges of the artist's ensuing friendship with Toshiko Takaesu and time in America.

                Her [Toshiko Takaesu] philosophy, work ethic and example still inspire Drysdale today.  The American experience was critical.  She was told to forget the fashionable rustic Zen aesthetic traditions, to create her own sensibilities and adapt her techniques to suit her environment.  This gave her the confidence to develop methods that suited her.  Comparatively, experiences in Italy and Russia where Drysdale took up extended residencies resulted in more direct absorption of style and motif into the figuration on her ceramics.  In 1991 she spent three months at the Grazia Deruta factory dedicated to majolica pottery in Perugia, Italy and three months at Tomsk University in Russia.  The Carnivale Series and Effigy Series 1992 which followed are each abundant in motifs reflecting the technical discipline of the majolica tradition and resonant with Drysdale's own holistic response to living amid these two cultures and two environments.  The work resonates with the ageing patina of icons, lustre of gold leaf, architectural references and folk and religious traditions.  Imagery and sensation which embraced Drysdale (and which she still describes effusively today) is modified to her own idiosyncratic style.  The refined repetition of the majolica pottery yields to a more fluid, bold interpretation by Drysdale.

                A similar process of translation occurred in the production of the Pinnacle Series, which had its conceptual beginnings in Banff, Canada, where Drysdale also undertook a residency.  She was deeply    affected by the verticality, majesty, inherent age and poise of the mountainous terrain of the Canadian Rockies.  This seems manifest in the vettical, conical shape of the final works, but their vital hues of cerise, fuchsia, cinnamon, yellows, blues and browns implies a more local palette.  These abstracted peaks could as readily be associated by Australian audiences with various rock formations throughout the country including the haunting Pinnacles of Western Australia.

                The Pinnacle Series is an excellent example of the accumulative nature of inspiration and production, and in context, registers the work as more a progression than a shift in Drysdale's career While the Canadian experience may have provided the impetus, the lineal patterning can still be traced to the majolica training combined with Drysdale's continued interest in her Australian landscape and declared interest in defining Australia by motifs.  In an interview in 1992 in relation to the impact of the experience of  Italian Russian majolica traditions, she stated;

                I would like to develop the equivalent Australian symbols - of landscape, history, both social and  Political…I'm sure the influences of many cultures on modern Australia will enable this process to move .away from the more obvious symbols of our flora and fauna.  However, the 'bush' and the  beach are strong influences in my works and will continue to be so.

                The decorative lines on the Pinnacle vessels, some broken and some continuous, are such a quintessential emblem of so much that is Australian - from the line demarcating water and land which edges the island to the illusion of the horizon curving in an arc due to the vastness of space, or the age rings in a tree. The abstraction is subtle and poignant.

                It is undeniably an Australian immersion which has seeded the most recent work culminating in the audaciously scaled Aurora Australis 1996.  In this magnificent vessel Drysdale has enlarged the conical form and painted a cataclysmic fusion of energies around its exterior.  The surface strikes a sophisticated balance between the evidence of brushed passages controlled by hand and the bubbled and cracked refuse at the whim of the kiln. Most significantly it achieves a depth of colour and texture which invites readings as the ravaged textures of old land, perhaps the result of volcanic forces.  Just as these earthly associations settle imagination leaps to the imponderable caverns of the sky or universe.  The russet reds and browns give way to metallic blue-grays broken by hints of yellow, which in the words of the artist provides 'sun or optimism'.

                Travel and dedicated training alone seem not entirely responsible for the inspired character of Drysdale's vessels.  Yet inspiration, true to the divinity the work connotes, is not necessarily tangible or instantaneous.  Drysdale works in a way which is determined, dogged and sometimes protracted before a work is truly deserving of the inscription 'inspired'.  Artistic inspiration for someone such as Drysdale seems more accumulative, more subliminal and abstract, although she willingly points to a number of forces and shared experiences which are definite sources for her work.  She recognises the impact of the artistic vision of the Australian landscape by Richard Woldendorp and Fred Williams.  More concretely she recently enjoyed slides of the North West of the state taken and shared with her by Dorothy Erickson.  She recalls a childhood spent regularly on stations in the Kimberley.

                In review Pippin Drysdale has been artistically driven by factors which shape much creativity and which are increasingly becoming the subject of greater analysis in contemporary art.  Her work evidences the effects both subliminal and real of transcultural experience, and a phenomenological interest in the land rather than necessarily a literal or narrative one.  While she acknowledges quite specific sources such as the images of fellow artists, the Canadian Rockies and trips to the Fremantle Markets to photograph produce, her underlying motivation and inspiration is an holistic one which brings nature and culture together rather than placing it in opposition.  Drysdale is aware that her 'themes' are living forces and although they may be of the earth they cannot be grounded by an earthly art form.  Aurora Australis exemplifies this - simultaneously an object of the earth and an object of mediating power made possible through Drysdale's informed approach to an art, a fine understanding of colour and application, and the confidence to allow a compulsive, intuitive element into the precision of her pottery.

NOTES:

1.        Erickson Dorothy "Big Bold and Beautiful" .chapter for Hewitt's Art Bookshop's Women of the Nineties for the
internet.

2         Drysdale, Pippin. "A Creative Journey" in Pottery in Australia, Vol.31. No 2, 1992, p.59.

3         Interview with the artist 18 April, 1996

Margaret Moore is Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the Art Gallery of WA.                        

 

Pippin Drysdale: In Camera Lucida
By Janice Withers
Photo by Adrien Lambert. Licensed by Viscopy 2005
Imagination, energy, enthusiasm, risk taking, an entrepreneurial style and thedesire to create the perfect vessel are attributes that Pippin Drysdale, AustralianCeramic Artist, possesses. They are the basis for this exploration of her creativity.
Formative experiences cannot be separated from Pippin’s life as an artist. She is not and never has been daunted by convention. She is highly motivated and persistent in her search for knowledge. Her early successes, culminating in an invitation in 2003 from Marianne Heller of Gallerie Heller, Heidelberg, Germany for solo exhibitions in Frankfurt and Heidelberg, are due to her unflagging determination. Creative Development Grants, Fellowship and Travel Grants through the Australia Council Visual Arts and Crafts Board and Arts Western Australia, have enabled her time for research and development for many new
projects, the most recent being her Red Earth Series: Tanami (Desert) Traces, which she exhibited for the first time with Gallerie Heller. It was the outstanding success of those exhibitions that led to the invitation to exhibit at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London with Collect V & A Fascination Porcelain in 2004 and 2005.
Pippin makes the distinction between the processes of creativity and exposition. “Both require a huge amount of commitment,” she says, “but they never conflict. An exhibition deadline is often the catalyst for the creative urge, and it will generate quite extraordinary output, but the ultimate audience can never compete with artistic integrity. However, once you have established an audience, the prospect of collectors choosing your work, is enhanced. The more exposure, awards, curatorial inclusion in both public and private collections that one achieves, the more the challenges will confront you. It can be frightening, yet one must be fearless - the dichotomy of flight or fight. It is the adrenalin, the driver of
my creativity.” Pippin’s artistic life began long before clay came into her life. As a child, imagination was paramount. Her parents encouraged her to pursue that side of her temperament. They were always enthusiastic for her to reach her full potential, whatever it may be. In Western Australia, where she has spent all but the earliest few years, Freshwater Bay and Mosman Bay - with peppermint trees weeping over the waters edge and melaleucas shedding their bark like slabs of parchment - was her childhood playground. She spent time exploring limestone caves around the bays, dangling a line off the jetty, tackling the tides - rowlocks
and oars, a wooden dinghy; and often, in the early evening, fishing in the river’s shallows for cobblers and prawns and crabs with just the light of an oil lantern swinging across the water, a crab net and gidgee; all these things contributed to Pippin’s unrestrained pleasure in nature. The constant movement of the water, changes of light, and the distant views to the Pre-Cambrian Darling Range would have insinuated themselves into her very being. On the coastal strip, Pippin could choose between river and beach. Both were within easy walking distance from home: Tea tree and Casuarina thickets, coastal tussocks, and the fleshy, iridescent pigface, a green palette to contrast with sand dunes; cuttlebones and shells, seaweed and driftwood, were random sculptures; Rottnest and Garden Islands suspended above the sea - a trick of light inversion; and passenger liners and cargo ships sailing across a sun-fired
western horizon. This was a place where children were free to explore, an
endless idyll to feed a perceptive eye. Pippin’s family had a beach house on the south west coast of Western Australia. In those days, it was mainly dairy farming, forestry and fishing that kept those South West communities buoyant. Pippin loved the country life and revelled in the opportunities to go bushwalking and horse riding; collecting the milk and clotted cream from the farm, home made butter and jam, autumn mushrooms and hot bread; whiting and garfish cooked over an open fire; and spending
Saturday nights at the district hall, where everyone congregated for the local “hop”. In her mid teens, Pippin sailed on the MV Kanimbla to the North West Pilbarra region to stay with friends on a pastoral station. It was an exciting time and she had uninhibited freedom to roam the wide-open spaces on horseback. Life on a sheep station then was rather like living in a colonial compound. Culturally European, but influenced dramatically by the indigenous people, who lived and worked there, and inescapably by the landscape. The experience was essential to her enduring fascination with this red and remote country. In 1998 when on an Arts WA Fellowship, Pippin spent three weeks visiting Central Australia and the Kimberley Region of Western Australia, flying to the remote Aboriginal Communities of Balgo Hills, Turkey Creek, Yuendemu and Melville Island. Six of those days were spent flying over and into such spectacular and significant
landscapes as the Mc Donnell Ranges and the Bungle Bungle Range. The
ochres, the outcrops, the water falls, the palms, the Spinifex, the chasms, the lizards and the screeching corellas – lasting images to be drawn upon.
“You are never aware of the effect your experiences will have on you,” she said”you just know that when it is happening, you feel exhilarated, and that you don’t want things to stop.”
Pippin’s first foray into an artistic career was in the 1960s whilst she was living in Melbourne. It was a time for Flower Power, the blossoming of the women’s movement, ethnicity, graffiti, paper flowers and free love. Australia was importing Mexican paper flowers and they were everywhere. They were fun and colourful. Pippin decided she would make some. Her flowers were unusually subtle, the materials worked and stretched into complex contours – tight buds opening, opening, full bloom. Each colour treated to simulate the changes through the life of the flower. They bore the mark of perfectionism. It wasn’t long before the demand for her flowers called for major production. She took the leap and imported a container-load of German crepe paper. She had petal dies cut for
production speed. The paper was of the highest quality, the colours capable of the subtlest changes in the hands of an artist. Her designs were crafted but spontaneous. She had an exclusive business. She was trading. Organization and coordination were added to her skills.
When Pippin returned to Western Australia in the 1970s, she began a
relationship with plants and clay. Mark Burt, her boyfriend at that time, was a potter and “Hippiedom” was in full swing. Living simply but productively they made pots and planted herbs. They bought their first wheel, and while Mark made terracotta planters, Pippin raised seedlings and plants of every imaginable herb. She sourced rare seeds from all over the world. And like the trueperfectionist, she tended them with lavish generosity. Their “Comfrey Herb Garden” was more than an idea; it was a hive of industry. Herb charts, potions, oils, plants, markets and, as always, loads of colour. These were the hallmarks of their enterprise.
It was when that enterprise ended, that Pippin began seriouslycontemplating her future with clay. She loved working the wheel. That symbiosis that comes when forming clay, the ability. to allow what you feel and see to dictate outcomes, and then to follow through the process of firing and decoration. These are defining and seductive moments in creativity. In 1979 Pippin enrolled to study for the Diploma of Advanced Ceramics at Perth Technical College. It was a fortuitous move. Her teachers were hard taskmasters. David Hunt was Head of Ceramics. Under his tutelage, and other technically skilled and inspirational teachers, Pippin received not only the grounding and impetus to pursue her future as a potter, but also the expertise to acknowledge her own accomplishments.
She recalls being shown a short film on contemporary American Potters. The excitement of pursuing the company of such accomplished practitioners was irresistible. So, after completing her Diploma, Pippin spent 1982 on a study tour of USA, in particular Anderson Ranch, Snow Mass Village, Aspen Colorado, and later with Associate Potter, Rhoda Lopez at Clay Dimensions, San Diego. It was a revelation to attend master classes in the company of such eminent contemporary American potters as Daniel Rhodes Paul Soldner and Toshiko Takahaizu et al. She learned much from their instruction and work practices, techniques and methodologies Many things contributed to her experiences at that time. The stimulation of meeting new and interesting artists was one part, but
the natural environment was inspiring, too. Long walks in the mountains, the wild flora and fauna, a landscape so amazingly different to that of Western Australia - they were defining moment in the life of the artist, and gave Pippin the initial drive to accept Daniel Rhodes’ challenge. “Late one night I’d been working alone in the studio,” she recalls. “I was endlessly throwing tea bowls off the hump.Unbeknown to me, Daniel had come into the studio, and had been watching me. He told me I had the makings of a great potter and that I should go home and complete a Fine Arts Degree, then come back to America.” Pippin went on to complete her Bachelor of Fine Arts at Curtin University, Western Australia in 1986. She immediately set up a working studio from her home in Fremantle, where she remains to this day. It was with the same energy and enthusiasm that she has always pursued her ambitions that Drysdale Arts Studio evolved. They were heady days. It was an artistic community and it shared, generously. But Pippin didn’t forget America. She returned there in 1991 as Guest Lecturer at Princeton University, Skidmore College, Boise State University and Washington State University. In 1994, she returned again asGuest Lecturer, Washington State University, Seattle, after spending 3 monthsas Artist in Residence at the prestigious Banff Centre for the Arts, Calgary,Canada. Set in the Rocky Mountains, artists from all disciplines - writers,musicians, photographers, potters and painters - have the opportunity to meetand exchange with other practising artists from all over the world.“This was a most inspirational time for me,” she said, “as one of the mostimportant things I learnt was how interdisciplinary collaboration between artistscan open and stretch the imagination. The outcomes can be cutting edge!”Pippin ‘s early work was recognised with both awards and exhibitions. It wasthose successes that led to invitations in 1991: as Artist in Residence at DerutaGrazia Maioliche Pottery, Perugia Italy and Swansea Art College, Swansea,Wales; and in Cultural Exchange with the Artist’s Union of Russia at TomskUniversity. Siberia. Her exposure in such prestigious institutions and theexperience gained not only in arts practice, but also arts administration, wasimportant to her future development. She realized that it required a huge amountof energy not only to be a practising artist, but also to ensure that one didn’t workin a vacuum. It was important to develop her skills as a potter at home, butequally to travel, to mexperience other cultures, to exchange ideas with other artists.
Over the past 20 years, there have been many phases of development, eachphase culminating in a body of work that has been critically acclaimed. Pippin’svision and foresight, in opening up opportunities to participate on an internationalscale, has lead to her ultimate success as an artist of world renown.“It is not easy”, she says. “I have meticulously recorded all my work and nowhave a photographic file covering 20 years of my work. It is important to havephotographs of the highest quality. My web site is my marketing tool. Galleries,institutions, individual buyers, researchers all have access to my CV andpublications plus the photographic images of my work. I can forward CD or hard copy if that is what is needed. Gallery and Museum Directors are always in
contact with each other across the world. They talk and discuss an artist’s work,so it is imperative that when one’s dealing with them it is at the highestprofessional level. Success is a roller coaster. Once you’re moving, it seemsimpossible to get off!” She has developed a team around her. WarwickParmateer, Potter, Robert Frith and Adrian Lambert, Photographers - all havebeen instrumental in her achieving her goals. Pippin and Warwick Parmateer,who throws her bowls, have worked for many years refining the forms that sheglazes. But it is that indelible inscription of colour and line on rich and unctuousglazes that is the rare note of her creativity. It is a continuous process, foreverevolving, always challenging. Only a retrospective of Pippin’s work willdemonstrate the evolution - the inherent transition from traditional tocontemporary forms - that the bowl has taken in her hands. Each period andseries of her work is definitive, but each transition is possible only through herprior exploration.
It is the bowl that has become the metaphor for Pippin’s creative life. The vessel:- empty, half full and full to overflowing; its rim, like the equator, a point fromwhich one can see and move in any direction - a natural inclination towardinfinity. All these images describe the creative process of an uncompromising artist.

Volume 39 No. 4 - Dec 2000

Focus on contemporary porcelain

Judith Lesley - White Earth / Red Earth: Spiralling Towards Perfection - p5

Judith Lesley reports on recent work of Victor Greenaway using porcelain and Italian bucchero

Geoffrey Charles Allen - Godisgreat.com - p10

Geoffrey Charles Allen’s opening speech from Pippin Drysdale’s exhibition of contemporary porcelain inspired by the Pakistani landscape, held at Quadrivium Gallery, Sydney

Stephen Bowers - Porcelain: A Loosely Potted History - p14

Stephen Bowers talks about porcelain, and the qualities of porcelain ceramics, as well as reviewing work of ceramists Kirsten Coelho, Stephanie Livesey and Phillip Hart

Helen Stephens - Variations / Transmutations - p19

Helen Stephens reviews the work of ceramist Patsy Hely

Fleur Schell - Preserved Sound - p22

Fleur Schell’s artist statement from her recent series of work, ‘Preserved Sound’

Petra Murphy - Exploring Porcelain - p26

Petra Murphy talks about using porcelain in her recent exhibition ‘Balancing Act 1’

Neville French - Porcelain Bowl Refined - p29

Aleida Pullar - Discovery and Journey, Metaphor and Reality - p31

Prue Venables - Simplicity - Refinement - p33

Ashlee Critchley - Porcelain and Primitive - p36

Kaye Pemberton - Speaking for Myself - p38

Jeff Shaw - A Fine Focus in Recent Work - p40

Bridgette Power, Ruth McMillan - Utility - p42

Alistaire Whyte - Hands On - Australian Porcelains - p44

Alistaire Whyte - Glazing Porcelain - p46

Sandra Black - Midfire Glazes - p48

Mathew Blakely - Pots to Live With - p50

Melanie Forbes - Ned Kelly: Outlaw / Inlore - p52

Susan Steggall - A Matter of Balance - p53

Sue Stewart - Yengo Dreaming - p56

Clay Treasures 2000 - p58

Geoff Crispin - Papua New Guinea - p60

Hedley Potts - Royal Melbourne Show Bushells Teapots - p62

Bill Sherman - Cherry Blossom Time - p63

Iznik - p67

David Coggins - Fibre Alert - p68

David Coggins - Q & A: Kilns - Firing a Gas Kiln - p69

Jan Barnes - A Decoration Feast! - p72

John Chalke - How to Produce a Slump Moulded Plate - p75

Ken Oestroff - Pottery in Mexico - p78

Sue Buckle - Well Read - p80

Sue Buckle - Well Read - p81

Ann Storey, Jane Crick, Maggie Smith, Margaret Hornbuckle, Wendy Bainbridge - Australia Wide - p82