The work I've made most recently, 'Been here and gone', began during my residency in Glasgow School of Art in 1996, with the benefit of a Samstag visual arts scholarship. Its starting point was a large collection of pen and wash drawings on paper, which were coated in wax and pinned in disorderly grouping on to the wall and titled For a long while there were only plants. They were mostly based on images from reference books of human anatomy, and I intended, initially, to keep the drawings as a notebook of works which I'd make in other materials, possibly ceramic, at a later date. I made one work in the ceramics department of the school, which consisted of a set of enlarged human teeth in relief white clay with clear glaze. The forms looked like vegetables with long tapering roots.

My practice for many years, prior to this, had been based on production pottery taught in an art school.

Left: Been here and gone, 2006, ceramic, 2 pieces, h.8 cm, w.38cm, d.35cm; Right: Been here and gone, 2006, ceramic,
3 pieces, h.5 cm, w.53cm, d.42cm

From the early 1990s, these utilitarian objects gradually become less usable, especially since they were often no longer glazed, but also because they were usually part of a group or sequence which would not really work together if there was a piece missing. They were really there to look at, maybe to touch, but not to use, not production pottery.
There are links between these two threads of my practice, apart from the material used. The objects remain small in scale, often in a group or sequence, and quiet in their nature. The colours and textures are similar. The objects in Been here and gone frequently draw on imagery from human, plant or animal forms. I'm interested in images, or shapes and forms which are not too easily identifiable and could be interpreted in a number of ways. In Been here and gone I have also looked for links between images from human and plant material. These objects are made from clay because of its versatility and adaptability to the ideas I have at the moment, and because I have a good technical knowledge of the material. For me, clay is just another material, with its own particular qualities and limitations.

Sometimes, I think there is not much difference between making functional or non-functional objects, especially when I look at the end product. There is the same care and pleasure in making the objects and I do not see one as more valuable than the other. The difference for me at the moment is that these are the objects I want to make and I do feel a little more freedom in not always making reference to useful items. The objects in Been here and gone are not made to be handled everyday, like a cup or bowl would be, but they have a weight or earthiness to them which reminds me of my earlier works.
I started my studies in the South Australian School of Art in the mid 1970s, and the first full year of the four-year course was a 'common course', where basic art training in a variety of disciplines was taught. I mention this because I think it is unfortunately a part of art school courses which is disappearing although this is a loss which is perhaps harder to defend. Since then I have been a full time practising artist with much of that time spent making pots. In the mid 1990s, I returned to study in an art school, and during this time I expanded my practice to include non-functional works made from mixed media. Over the past ten years, I have also worked with my partner, Hossein Valamanesh, on a number of public art commissions, An Gorta Mor, the Irish Famine memorial in Sydney's Hyde Park Barracks and more recently 14 Pieces, on North Terrace in Adelaide.