This is an account by our daughter, art teacher and budding journalist of hauling two North East Victorian Ceramicists to a primary school in remote Northern Territory, for a 3 week artist in residency at the Borroloola on the Gulf of Carpentaria. Borroloola? Where on earth is that? Remote, you say? Just how remote is remote? These questions now seem silly, but for a teacher from North East Victoria, who had just two days prior, landed in Darwin and immediately been offered a job in the remote Darwinian suburbs, just 1000 km down the road ... they were pertinent!

I have since discovered that remote is where a punnet of strawberries costs $9.75, you cannot buy Carlton Draught (I know!) and you can drive for 6 hours without seeing a single structure. Remote is where time moves slowly, and everything takes a week. Not anywhere I've been, nor can I foresee anywhere that I will go, has the phrase "ahh, a couple of days" been such an understatement. There are eagles circling my back yard, and there are crocodiles around the corner. There is no newsagent, and I have to wait a week for my coffee beans, and I have to order them a week prior to that!

Being welcomed as a 'townie' comes with its strict rules; catch a 'Barra', eat something you have hunted (yikes!), and understand all of the rules of the State of Origin. The last rule is obviously unrealistic, but the locals don’t seem to mind as long as you shout, usually "smash ‘em", between beers. Was it the intrigue of the indigenous culture, the mystification of the surrounding landscape or the chance to challenge myself by teaching children in a place 1000 km away from our nearest urban centre, and 375 km from the nearest road corner?

Left: A very proud outstation student, Lewis Raggett, holding his bull tile. Right: Colouring a frilled-neck lizard

Ric and Judy Pierce were greeted by a school full of very enthusiastic children, armed with their designs and plenty of questions. What is snow, how far is it to their home, and did they know how to ride a bull, were foremost on most children's mind. However, bringing out the clay, and some very impressive photos of Ric's crystal firings and Judy's dog sculptures, we soon swung their attention to the matter at hand. We gave the children a wooden frame and a block of carefully weighed clay. Their first task was to push, prod and poke the clay into the frame, to make a smooth, square tile of pre-determined size. Translating their 2D design into a 3D sculpture was a task that had many hiding under the table. Maybe it was the paddle-pop stick, plastic fork or corrugated cardboard that unnerved them. Fortunately Ric, Judy, (now affectionately known as 'The Clay Mob') Clara and myself were not so timid, and demonstrated how the push, prod, poke method can also be used to build up an animal of distinction. The children had a wonderful time, as, I think, did most of the adults!
In the second session, we used a selection of under-glaze colours, divided into background and foreground colours. Following our landscape painting teachings, we painted the background first on the raw, nearly dry, tile and, to fit in with our overall design, restricted the children to green if the tile related to the river, red-brown for land, or blue for the sky. Foreground colours were then added and, surprisingly, very little dot painting techniques were employed. Ric, Judy and I then transported the tiles to my home, where we just happened to have a small, portable gas-fired fibre kiln set up in the back yard. Our evenings were spent glazing and firing the kiln, and reflecting upon the children's work over a glass of Chardonnay.

Ahh, the hard work is done, we can rest easy and go back to Borroloola time, Ric, Judy and I said in unison, after the final group of children had painted their tiles. Little did we realize the hard work, the frustrating work, the kind of work that causes phone calls to help lines, lay before us that weekend. We had to fit these few tiles into a plan. We had to understand, interpret and put the right way up, over 260 tiles, whilst trying to follow our original plan of the river within the Borroloola landscape. We began this endeavor early in the morning, to beat the searing heat (the mercury is pumping out an impressive 42 degrees in middle of the day up here), and much to our surprise, (although by this time we could not even raise half an eyebrow), we were still rearranging, by car head lights, at 10 o'clock that evening. Finally, it was done. We agreed, albeit forcibly, and through gritted teeth, that what was lying before us in my carport, was the final design. Then came the grouting and gluing. The mural was built in manageable sections, gluing the tiles with rubberized adhesive, to six cement sheets creating a 3.5 metre by 1.5 metre art work.

Fortunately, Ric was an engineer in a previous life, and Judy and I were well adept at having coffee and watching men do men's work so it got mounted, and with hardly an expletive (except at one point when the drill wouldn't drill and the hardware shop was closed due to the lack of interest). The mural frame and it’s six sections were up at the school on Wednesday, 28 September, two and half weeks after the first bag of clay was opened. A host of family, friends of the school and children came to see the mural unveiled. We hosted a BBQ for the kids, and mounted an art exhibition of the landscape paintings the children had been working on. It was a very successful day, enhanced by the children’s excitement upon seeing and touching their tile, in amongst so many others.

From all accounts, this project has both increased the children’s confidence in their artistic and environmental knowledge, and increased their sense of pride in the school and town. We were able to draw in some parents who had never visited the school before. The headmaster was speechless, and the locals thought we captured the feel of the area exactly. It just goes to show that art has its place, in schools and within our communities.

As part of this project, a DVD was produced. Contact us, if interested in details, through www.onetreehillpottery.com.au