Our home at Yellow Rock, like many others, was destroyed in the 2013 Blue Mountains bushfires.
The installation “56 Houses in Yellow Rock” is an attempt to create something positive from the experience, with each cup representing a home lost at Yellow Rock.
A cup, like a home, is an intimate vessel, meant to be used, touched and enjoyed. These cups are are made on a potter’s wheel, with the clay textured and stretched and distorted to represent the forces that can change life in sometimes sudden and unpredictable ways.
The house was carefully dismantled, originally we werehoping to reuse at least some of the stone in a new home. There wasn’t really much left suitable for building, but there was enough material that could be salvaged and used to make glaze for a few new pots.
Wood ash from the timber ceiling, window glass, quartz from the sandstone walls, even melted glass from a camera lens was collected, ground and blended to make various glazes. Copper from the electrical wiring gave colours from green to a vivid red, and iron oxide collected from my rusted tools gave a range colours from soft blue to honey.
