Jeff Mincham AM is one of Australia's most prominent ceramic artists. Hear what it was like to witness the birth of the Australian Crafts Movement, how Jeff deals with success and failure, and his characteristically blunt advice to makers.

Jeff is known for his large, coil built, earthenware vessels. On these vessels are his dramatic, painterly interpretations of the South Australian landscape - the patchwork fields of the Fleurieu Peninsula, the sand dune grasses of the Coorong and the leafy surrounds of the Adelaide Hills.

With over forty years of professional practice, he was awarded an Order of Australia for his services to the visual arts. Jeff’s work is held in over one hundred permanent public collections including the National Gallery of Australia.

As a master of Australian craft, Jeff was made a Living Treasure by Australian Design Centre in 2009, and his exhibition toured around Australia from 2009 to 2012. Jeff lives and works on the ancestral lands of the Peramangk and Kaurna people, in the Adelaide Hills of South Australia.

Guests

• Jeff Mincham www.jeffmincham.com
• Kylie Johnstone, who has worked with Jeff through Sabia Gallery in Sydney for fifteen years. https://sabbiagallery.com/
• Sandra Brown, ceramic artist and former Curator/Tour Coordinator of Jeff's Living Treasures exhibition http://www.sandralbrown.com.au/

Show highlights and takeaways

No tractor for me. [4:50 mins]

Jeff comes from five generations of farming in South Australia. He was the first to break the tradition.

Agriculture. I understood it.  [7:50 mins]

While Jeff never followed in his family’s footsteps, he sees his connection to agriculture as ongoing. After initially studying painting, he discovered ceramics and was overwhelmed. “It was blood and guts and real.”

Craft would be your profession. [8:20 mins]

The Australian Crafts Movement was underway when Jeff studied art and teaching. He describes how there was ‘no horizon’ and the accepted idea was that craft could be your profession.

Artists don’t retire. [10:18 mins]

People have often said to Jeff, “Jeff, are you retired?” And his answer to that is, artists don't retire. They just die.

People keep changing their mind. [12: 27 mins]

Jeff is firm about following your own core beliefs and path. He says that if you rely on people telling you what you should be doing, you're not going to last long because people keep changing their mind.

When you get lost, basic skills are your compass. [15:17 mins]

To recover from setbacks, Jeff returns to the basics. For him, it’s making Japanese tea bowls. “This is why that good, strong core of basic skills are important when you do get lost. They'll rescue you. They're the compass you can pick up and find your way again.

Dammit, we’re fashionable again. Never be fashionable. [17:37 mins]

Jeff has ridden the wave of ceramics being popular, and then for other mediums (hello, glass!) to take the limelight. Many ceramic artists gave up and only ‘’a core group of us remained.’ Sceptical of the current trendiness of ceramics, Jeff says, ‘’After the last time, I'm very cautious.’

You contribute to your profession. [20:20 mins]

“The growth and success of your profession and the success of others makes the field grow, and expands the opportunities for everybody.” This ethos saw Jeff take on management roles in many Australian arts organisations like the JamFactory ceramics workshop and the Helpmann Academy Foundation.

We need powerful advocacy for the arts in Australia. [21:33 mins]

Jeff argues that the arts in Australia are suffering from a lack of strong, powerful advocacy. “We're not playing the politics of the game strongly or determined early enough.”

Art is humankind’s big idea. [22:40 mins]

For Jeff, arts policy goes deeper, stressing the need to “put ourselves into a deeper frame of mind here, about the genuineness of art to the people of the country of Australia. It’s a big big big idea.”

Impact of being a Living Treasure: Master of Australian Craft. [24:15 mins]

When the Australian Design Centre recognised Jeff Mincham as a Living Treasure: Master of Australian Craft in 2009, he said it changed him a lot. So much, that he finds it “hard to imagine how the next ten years or so would have evolved without it.”

Explore the Living Treasures: Masters of Australian Craft Series

More about Living Treasures: Masters of Australian Craft/Jeff Mincham exhibition

Purchase a copy of the book Living Treasures: Masters of Australian Craft \ Jeff Mincham: Ceramics in Object Shop

TRANSCRIPT for the podcast Object: stories of craft and design

Season 1: episode 1 Living Treasure: master of Australian Craft Jeff Mincham

[introduction with music]

Lisa Cahill: Jeff Mincham grew up on the family farm. In fact, his family had been farmers in South Australia for five generations. It was expected Jeff’d be a farmer too. Then, when Jeff was a teenager, his dad told him something that would change his life.

Jeff Mincham: My father sat me down, and my brother, sat us down at the good old Laminex kitchen table and said, ah well, there's no future for you farming here. You need to find your own way.

Lisa: Suddenly, Jeff had options. And a way out of farming.

Jeff: I went to art school, which is what I wanted to do.

Lisa: He went to study painting, and while he was there, Jeff Mincham discovered ceramics.

Jeff: I met the Potter's wheel for the first time, and ceramics just completely overwhelmed me. Bugger painting. Agriculture, you know? It was a farmer. There was nothing airy-fairy about this. It was blood and guts and real.

[music and introduction to podcast]

Lisa: This is Object … a podcast about design and contemporary craft in Australia. I’m your host Lisa Cahill from the Australian Design Centre. In Series 1, you’ll meet the master craftspeople we call Living Treasures. What makes a Living Treasure? What has driven them to a lifetime love of their craft?

Is it the material, or the process, or both? How do they contribute and advocate for the arts?

And what’s their advice for makers who follow in their footsteps?

Let’s meet Living Treasure and master potter Jeff Mincham. Jeff is one of Australia's most prominent ceramic artists with over forty years of professional practice. He was awarded an Order of Australia for his services to the visual arts. Jeff’s work is held in over one hundred permanent public collections including the National Gallery of Australia.

Lisa: In this episode of Object, you’ll hear what it was like to witness the birth of the Australian Crafts Movement, how Jeff deals with success and failure, and his characteristically blunt advice to makers.

Jeff lives and works on the ancestral lands of the Peramangk and Kaurna people, in the Adelaide Hills of South Australia.

Today we're meeting in Canberra where Jeff is in residence at Watson Art Centre with the Canberra Potters. Welcome Jeff.

Jeff: Well, it's very pleasant to be here.

Lisa: Fantastic. Can you, um, take us back to Adelaide where your home studio is and tell us what it looks like.

Jeff: Well, I'm very, very fortunate to live at a place called Cherryville in the Adelaide Hills. It's a very beautiful part of the Hills, a very rugged part of the Hills, and a magnificent view, out across the Eastern ranges of the Adelaide Hills. As a practicing artist, I couldn't possibly work anywhere else, but there.

Lisa: So, how does the landscape of this part of south Australia connect to your work?

It was never ever about an imitation of what you see. It was about, projecting through your work, the ethos or the experience of the landscape and what was taking place in it. Growth; loss; things changing constantly.

Lisa: Was creativity and making in your family important as you grew up?

Jeff: (laughing) This is a really interesting question. I'm a fifth generation South Australian and there are now seven generations of my family. I'm the first one to not be a farmer.

Lisa: A disappointment?

Jeff: I think it's widely understood that I'm a great loss to farming. But look, the situation’s like this. I grew up in a small country town on the edge of Lake Alexandrina.

Lisa: So why art school? Was that creativity and making inherent?

Jeff: In my school years and primary school and high school I'd shown an aptitude for it.

And I was encouraged by a marvelous art teacher by the name of Helen Panell. She encouraged what she could see that I was interested in. And the art room became a place of refuge for me, frankly, You know, it was a robust country high school. It was cricket. It was footy, it was that sort of stuff and I was attracted by the art room.

Jeff: And it stayed there with me. And the inclination, it was just an overwhelming inclination that I couldn’t seem to manage without it.

Lisa: So, was it at high school that you first discovered ceramics?

Jeff: No, no. That's interesting. It was really painting and watercolor painting in particular. I was very fond of it because of the wonderful, accidental qualities and spontaneity and all that sort of things. It was great.

So I had a scholarship that I’d won and the art teacher program was there. It was a very robust program, in that you really had a basic humanities course with an art school course tacked onto it.

Quite a number of prominent South Australian practicing artists in my age group went down exactly the same path. The advantage was that you've got a very good humanities education. You've got a very good art education. You've got the two.

I was in my second year, I was training in painting, and enjoying it. I duxed my year. And I was able to go home to Dad and say, “Well, look, ok, you know. No tractor for me.”

Quite by accident I came across a book on ceramics on the library shelf and was terribly excited by what I saw. We had a Latvian teacher there at the time called Regina Jugietis.

And she was very inspiring. And we went into this little short course thing with her, and I met the Potter's wheel for the first time, and ceramics just completely overwhelmed me. Bugger painting. Ahh forget it. And away I went.

Lisa: What was it about the clay that overwhelmed you at first?

Jeff: Agriculture. I was a farmer. I understood it. This you could do, there was nothing there airy-fairy about this. It was blood and guts and real.

There was a lots of stimulus and lots of us working our way into the clay world that was expanding outside the art school. The Australian Crafts Movement was just taken off. We were going through this and stepping out into a world well ready to receive us. That's an important little point.

Lisa: So it was a burgeoning time, for the craft world, as well as for you, at art school?

Jeff: Well the landscape seemed endless. There was no horizon, it just went on. There were so many opportunities. The Crafts Movement was underway and the crafts as a livelihood movement, now forgotten, the idea was that you would learn to do this. You get very good at it and it would be your profession. It could be your life. You make a living at it. It wasn't just a hobby or something you would do to make yourself feel more comfortable with the world.

It was not like that at all. We really saw ourselves going out there, into a profession and being successful at it. And we had all the drive, ambition and commitment that we needed to go down that path.

Lisa: What does success mean to you?

Jeff: Success means you can keep going. In order to achieve success, there are failures. In the ceramics world, plenty of them. The best piece that you’re ever going to come up with is always the next one. I look forward to it. Keep going forward. Keep getting on.

Success… It gives you the support and the encouragement and the financial support to keep going. To go on to the next one. Eventually, you're missing an action and that's the way it needs to be there. People have often said to me, “Jeff, are you retired?” And the answer to that is, “Artists don't retire.” They just die. You don't retire.

Lisa: We hope that’s a long time away. But what about those failures? Have you been down a creative path that didn't work out that sticks in your mind?

Jeff: Even things that didn't work out very well eventually later on to my surprise, provided information, or something that I didn't expect.

There'll be little ‘essays’, I call them, ‘side journeys’. I was asked to make a piece for an exhibition in Adelaide, eighteen odd months ago. Somewhat reluctantly did it. And it turned out very well. And opened a door.

Okay. There's a whole set of ideas here stretching out in front of me. I can do all sorts of things. And I had a repertoire of glazes and surfaces - some I hadn't used for years and years - that were brought into play. Some of those mistakes in the past, all of a sudden had meaning in the present. It’s been a very exciting journey, not really aimed at a commercial outcome, but from an artistic point of view, very, very stimulating and rewarding for me.

Lisa: Yeah. I think failure is often the start of something new, isn't it? And, you know, you never kind of discount those failures because they will perhaps come back around and turn into something fantastic.

Jeff: That's something I've learned, particularly in the ceramics world. The setbacks are just part of a bigger process. I’ve survived by selling my work in exhibitions and to clients and collectors and so forth.

I've managed to do it all my professional life. I've only ever had rather scattered teaching situations, usually only part-time and not for that long. I've done workshops and demonstrations, lectures, all that sort of thing. But my financial survival has been based on the public acceptance of my work and the willingness of people to to buy it.

Now unfortunately I've never been market driven. You've got to live within your own creative presence to survive in the modern, in the contemporary art world.

Relying upon people telling you what you should be doing, you're not going to last long. They keep changing their mind. you've got to have your own core beliefs and follow the path. My idea is to keep pushing forward, and try and take people with me.

[music]

Sandra Brown: One of the special moments that I remember is the opportunity to visit Jeff in his studio in the Adelaide Hills.

Lisa: Sandra Brown is a ceramist and was the touring coordinator and curator of Jeff’s Living Treasures exhibition.

Sandra Brown To see him physically working in his studio on these pieces, truly monumental in size, in shapes of what he was trying to do these flat shapes. Those flat pieces in those days, that was really innovative, groundbreaking.

Sandra Brown And him doing it, watching him coil-build a large pot. And I can still look at the photograph today that I took back then. And there was one, there were a couple that I took of his hands, actually teasing and pushing the clay into the shapes. And it was really moving and it was very intimate in a lot of ways. And I think that was what really brought us together into a much more intimate curatorial relationship, if you can have that sort of thing.

[music]

Lisa: What do you think Jeff essential skills of a master ceramicist?

Jeff: Patience, timing, your ability to survive disappointment and a sense of humour.

Lisa: Fantastic. I think that they are the essential skills for survival in many things, many things. Yeah. When you get creatively stuck, you know, I think as an artist, you reach an impasse, how do you move through that?

Jeff: Writer's block? Look, that does happen.

So many things coming together to produce a successful outcome. Sometimes it goes a bit wrong and you slipped back and you put it out in front of the public and you get a disappointing response.

To really survive in the Australian art world you need to be very strong within yourself. If you're desperate for public approval, you're not going to last long. The wave settles down and the momentum can be lost and you've got to regain it. The answer is to go back to the beginning. I make tea bowls associated with the Japanese tea ceremony and when I'm really lost, I go back and sit down and do that. Not many of them really work out, some work out absolutely wonderfully. Some don’t, many don’t.

And you gradually regain your confidence, and, you go back to your basics and this is why that good, strong core of basic skills are important when you do get lost.

They'll rescue you. They're kind of, they're the compass you can pick up and find your way again.

Lisa: In the past, you've described some of your pieces as being like a poem or a message that those works tell a story, to the audience, or the user. How does storytelling figure in your work?

Jeff: Sometimes I've described that little tea bowl there in a poetic way and I say, it's a sonnet. Over there is a very, very large powerful work, and there's your epic poem. It's really simply about engaging the viewer and ok, they’re on board.

In fact, you are providing the components for them to tell the story. It reminds them of this, of that, of something. You're writing a story for the people to read, but it's their story. You are giving them the bones of it, and I let the viewer put the flesh on the bones so they develop an intimate relationship with the thing.

Lisa: You talked earlier about your time in Scotland. But how has living and working in Australia influenced your work?

Jeff: I've always felt a sense of mission about being what I am an Australian, we take from many different places. We gather it together. We create a complex strand. We draw from many sources, but we’re trying to come up with our own special consciousness.

What I've noticed is we started out with a boom. We start out with a wild enthusiasm and, uh, away we go. Fashions come, fashions go. There was a long period, 98 onwards into the early two thousands where Australian ceramics suddenly, sort of dropped from view.

It went off the agenda. Glass came on, into being. Everything glass, all the galleries are showing glass, glass. Ceramics drifted off and we became unfashionable. Well that was a good lesson. Never be fashionable. As we, we then got into a period, I suppose where ceramics started to get some grip again. Along the way, a lot of passengers had jumped off. A lot of people had thought, “Oh, this ceramics caper, give it up.”

And there was at the end of that period, a kind of core group of us left.

Just as well, we hung around because ceramics started to pick up again. Over the last four or five years, it's all back. Everybody's going to classes and everybody's doing ceramics and all of a sudden we're absolutely back on the agenda. Dammit, we're fashionable again, which is quite exciting. But after the last time I'm very cautious.

[music]

Kylie Johnstone: Ceramics was very much all about porcelain and fine work, and refinement and perfection. And Jeff really was playing his own game.

Lisa: Kylie Johnstone has worked alongside Jeff at Sabia gallery for sixteen years, and was the gallery manager at Australian Design Centre during his Living Treasures exhibition. She remembers when Jeff’s work was not in fashion.

Kylie: He was making very rough textural, earthy, earthenware. Lots of corrosive textures in the glazes. So he really was a point of difference and I think there was a time where he felt quite on the out.

Eventually people would see what he saw. And I suppose he was speaking in a language that really resonated with him and he kind of had to wait for us to catch up.

[music]

Lisa: As well as being a master ceramicist, you've contributed in many other ways to Australia's cultural landscape and you've been awarded an Order of Australia for your contributions. Can you tell us about your many years of work as an advocate for craft?

Jeff: I wanted to think of it as a profession, not just a hobby. I still have to say that to people, this is my profession, not my hobby. And you contribute to your profession, the growth of it, the success of it and the success of others makes the field grow, expands the opportunities for everybody.

Jeff: And I've always, from the very beginning, been committed to doing it. I've had a lot to do with a lot of arts organisations. You get an insight into a whole lot of things you wouldn't otherwise,

The isolation of the studio; that can be difficult for you can cut yourself of off from the world and miss out on a lot of information. You're missing out on the ability to put a whole lot of things in context.

I've tried to make a contribution there. I've often guided organizations through tough periods. But, whatever contribution I've made, I've been richly rewarded in my ability to understand the context of a whole lot of things, uh, about the practice of art and the nature of it and society and I’m grateful for it.

Lisa: Do you think we're at a time now when advocacy is possibly even more important?

Jeff: Absolutely. The arts in Australia at the moment are suffering from a lack of strong, powerful advocacy. I'll be absolutely blunt here. We're not playing the politics of the game strongly or determined early enough. We’re short on the kind of dynamic of leadership that so much influenced the early days of my professional life.

There were strong and powerful voices in the arts that spoke with conviction and the politicians were scared of them. We're in a very different situation now. The advocacy for arts and what it does for humanity and for our society and our culture is lacking at the moment. That'll get me into trouble.

Lisa: So what do we need? Do we need an art summit? Or do we need a cultural policy?

Jeff: Cultural policy, the art summits can ….God, another Talk Fest. But, arts policy is a deep... we’re putting ourselves into a deeper frame of mind here about the genuineness of art to the people of the country of Australia. It’s a big big big idea. Art is a humankind's really big idea.

And if you can harness the power of it, there are so many benefits that flow out into the community. That in turn, bring benefits back again.

Arts as social repair, as a social dynamic that give people a sense of wellbeing - all that sort of stuff that's quite superficial. Art is deeper and far, far more profound arts policy needs to deal with it at that level.

Lisa: You have a long list of accomplishments across your career. What would be the one that you're most proud of?

And we all came up here, Australians, international visitors, and we worked together for a month and it was a very, very, very. Big thing in my life. Influenced me for many years. Gave me connections for, for many, many years. I got exposed to the world of international ceramics, European ceramics and English ceramics.

Lisa: So for you, Jeff, what's the purpose of having this recognition as a living treasure master of Australian craft?

Jeff: It puts a lot of information out there into the community in a very successfully packaged format that people can enjoy and see and, and bring to bear, uh, as inspiration, if not into their own practice, into their lives. You get an exhibition which has created a very special way, for very special purpose, and through the Visions (of Australia) program, it has been very successfully delivered into the Australian community, right across Australia. Every state has participated extensively. In my national touring show, there were fourteen shows. There's been nine.

I think the average is about nine living treasures. That's probably put ninety odd exhibitions out onto the Australian landscape. The way it's prepared means the artists themselves, making a huge effort to produce a body of work. Really a culmination of their experience up to that time. It's very intimidating.

You really do, you know, feel the pressure, but it delivers a beautifully designed and very well supported with, uh, documentation and support material into the community.

Lisa: Fantastic. What's your advice, Jeff, to other makers?

Jeff: Never give up. No matter how disappointed I have been, no matter how many setbacks there are, no matter how bad the bank account is. Don't give up.

Lisa: Thank you so much for talking with me today Jeff.

[music]

Lisa: That was Jeff Mincham, looking back on over 40 years of practice. Some of his words of wisdom that I took away were to follow your own path. When you’ve failed, go back to basics. For Jeff, it’s making Japanese tea bowls. And whatever you do, don’t be fashionable and keep going - don’t give up.

See the Show Notes for images and videos of Jeff being interviewed on the Show Notes page, on our website http://www.australiandesigncentre.com

[music]

In the next episode of Object, you’ll meet Tasmanian Aboriginal shell necklace maker Lola Greeno.

Object is a podcast by the Australian Design Centre. We’re on Gadigal country in Sydney Australia, where this podcast is made. We’d like to thank the Australia Council for the Arts for funding support for Object. You can follow the Australian Design Centre on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Object is produced by Jane Curtis in collaboration with Lisa Cahill and Alix Fiveash. Thank you for listening.

[music] END.