September 2008: This month highlights the 26th Gold Coast International Ceramics Award exhibition. Marea Gazzard curated and judged this year's exhibition. The selection of works were quiet and offered space for reflection. Marea summed it up in her opening remarks when she said she was drawn to the works through, I think her words were, 'feeling and material". The media release and a rambling impression of Marea's talk are offered for reading.

This month also sees the birth of Astrovision - a column for the astrologically driven. The grand event of 2008 is the demoted planet Pluto rocking and rolling from the sign of Sagittarius and is about to make its third and final entry into the sign of Capricorn. What are the implications for the arts?

1. Featured schmeetured
2. Must see exhibitions
3. Other happenings
4. Opportunities
5. Workshops
6. Off the bookshelf

26th Gold Coast International Ceramic Award
The Judge for this year's award, master Australian artist, Marea Gazzard has chosen Israeli artist, Simcha Even-Chen as the winner of the $10,000 acquisitional prize for her work comprising three separate elements in stoneware and porcelain entitled Illusion.

Astrovision
The grand event of 2008 is the demoted planet Pluto is rocking and rolling from the sign of Sagittarius and is about to make its third and final entry into the sign of Capricorn. As Pluto has an elliptical orbit around the sun of approximately 270 years, this event of a new collective direction has far reaching implications.

Margaret Dodd - Australia's Own Car
Famous for her iconic ceramic Holdens of the 1970s and 80s featured in her film This Woman is Not a Car, Dodd here embraces digital media to make screen-based 3D modeling and animation software works in which 'virtual' translucence inspires new works in porcelain. Dodd's works in this exhibition are dialogues between the 'virtual' and the 'real' and between her and her artist collaborators including Ian Mowbray, Pru Morrison and Alison Arnold.

Anita McIntryre
Anita has launched her new website. - "The Australian landscape in a number of manifestations - the local Brindabella Ranges, the Central Desert and the Kimberleys - has informed my practice for some thirty years. ..." Visit the online gallery to view her recent work.

Elaine Kong
Congratulations Elaine. Elaine and I studied together at the ANU School of Art in Canberra and since returning to Hong Kong has won first prize in the prestigous 2007 Teaware Competition for her work The Kingdom of Eternity. She says, "While enjoying a cup of tea, let us meditate on the inward voyage. The muted shadow of the teaware will carry you to another time and place."

White Heat
In conjunction with The Australian Ceramics Triennale 2009 Dr. Julie Bartholomew invites proposals for inclusion in the exhibition White Heat. The exhibition offers a space for discourses of social, political and cultural concerns - exhibitors are to be financial members of The Australian Ceramics Association.
Closes 17 October 2008

Art Unlimited
A competition embracing hanging art, photography and ceramics - Dunedoo, Central West of New South Wales. Interpretation of the theme My landscape.
Closes 29 September 2008

Strathnairn Exhibition Program
Strathnairn Arts Association is Canberra are now calling for proposals for their 2009 exhibition program.
Email info [at] strathnairn.asn.au
Closes 30 September 2008

Spring courses at COFA
With Julie Bartholomew
30 August - 27 September 2008
Innovative work with the surface of clay exploring drawing, painting and printing techniques.
Email e.burke [at] cofa.unsw.edu.au

Creative drawing workshop
With: John Lethbridge
This drawing workshop will focus on connecting to the inner spaciousness out of which an intuitive response to the creative process occurs. The morning sessions will consist of a series of fast drawing practices short circuiting the rational mind. The afternoon sessions will consist of developing a finished drawing using the flow developed in the morning sessions.
When: 4 - 5 October, 2008
Where: Strathnairn Arts Association, Canberra
Contact: avi [at] avicam.com or telephone 0403 905 278

Tea Bowls and the Te-Rokura
With Damon Moon
Spend two days exploring the world of the traditional Japanese hand wheel in the beautiful and historic surrounds of the Southern Vales wine district near Adelaide.
When: 22 - 23 November 2008
Where: Willunga, South Australia
Email mail [at ]australianceramics.com