POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

Pot by Peter Rushforth

Object No. 97/7/1

After WWII Rushforth trained (as part of a rehabilitation scheme) at RMIT from 1946, and moved to Sydney in 1951, setting up studios at Beecroft then Church Point, then Shipley (in 1978). He was the first fulltime appointment in the ceramics department at East Sydney Technical College (part of the National Art School), and ran the department until retirement in 1979. He was a founding member of the Potters Society of Australia; was awarded an OA in 1985, and an Australia Council Emeritus Award in 1993. (See attached file notes for more details). Rushforth has always been interested in Japanese ceramic aesthetics and philosophies, and the way these can be interpreted in an Australian context. (See NGV retrospective exhibition catalogue and articles in Pottery in Australia). He currently fires the woodfired kiln this jar was fired in, three times a year. There is another anagama kiln that is fired once a year as it takes five days to fire. This jar was fired for 26 hours, using radiata pine (not as good as cedar, but abundant and a weed in the Blue Mountains, needs constant stoking to enable a temperature to be reached over 1300 degrees C). This pot is made from a stoneware clay from west of Gulgong. (He often blends this clay with a local sandy clay). It has good plastic qualities, and fires to a light buff colour. The jun (previously called chun) glaze was developed in the Song (previously Sung) period, and comprises felspar, magnesium, bone ash, ash (in this case rice straw ash, mainly silica). Why his continuing interest in jun glazes: 'I like its opalescence, and blue is a mysterious colour; it is peaceful and tranquil too.I like the way it contrasts with the red glazes - it is vibrant. The variables in woodfiring can produce many nuances of colour. It also evokes a feeling of the landscape, particulalry my own environment up here - the mountains, the mists and snow; but at the same time I don't want to go beyond what comes out of the materials and processes by superimposing a decoration that isn't relevant. It must be integrated, and come out of the materials and processes themselves.' (Discussion Nov. 1996) The form: he endeavours to get a dynamic quality, to swell it as far as he can take the clay and still convert it to a narrow neck. All the pots, because of the type of firing, vary considerably because of the placement in the kiln; the colours and textures can change dramatically with the time it takes to increase or decrease temperature. 'Many variables in wood-firing affect the final outcome of glaze quality and colour. These include the type of wood, the rate of increase and decrease of temperature, in the case of the firing of this pot and others, a fierce westerly wind affected the rise of temperature, bringing the final temperature to 1300degrees C'. (See notes supplied). 'Every so often, there are some in a firing that do seem to have a special quality that might make them unique'. (Discussion, November 1996). In this firing he believed three pots, two blue, one brown, did seem to have this special quality. The other blue jar, with a large bowl, is to be included in a memorial building [on the Thai/Burma border?] in memory of soldiers who died there in WW2. Rushforth was been commissioned by the architects to supply these. He had been there in WW2, and in Changi prison.