Mount Martha ceramic artist, Tracy Muirhead, likes to let the clay do the talking. “Each type has its own unique plasticity. You have to learn to listen to the clay,” she says. Working with up to seven different varieties produces unique challenges and interesting effects. She makes her pieces with minimal manipulation resulting in organic forms that speak for themselves.
“The work is about play for me; finding out how shapes and colours work together. It’s a process of discovery. I don’t try to be in control. The clay has to express itself. I don’t get involved until the glazing. I love to play with different firing techniques,” she says.
“Gas kilns and electric kilns produce completely different effects even when using the same clay and glaze,” Tracy says. The chemical transformations of the glazing process fascinate her. It’s then that the true personality of each piece emerges.
Her functional ware is crafted from a slab. She rolls out the clay like dough with an enormous rolling pin. Then she puts it onto a mould to create its shape. For her signature nesting eggshell bowls, she wraps the clay over a rock. While the pieces are made to be used, they are also beautiful, colourful sculptural works.
Tracy learned all of the various ceramics techniques – pinching, coiling, hand building, slip casing and throwing – while completing a Diploma of Ceramics at Box Hill TAFE in 2010. While most students gravitated to the potter’s wheel, Tracy wanted to work in a more organic way.
She likes to find out how the pieces speak to one another.
Her joy comes from experimenting with form and building by hand. It’s the sculptural element that most interests her. She likes to find out how the pieces speak to one another. Tracy has been working as a full-time artist since she left TAFE. She entered her first ceramic art award that year and has won many more since for both her functional ware and sculpture.
Experimentation runs in her family. Her father was a carpenter by trade. He left that to become a professional jazz musician before deciding on a career as an architect. Her mother always made original things: stitching and sewing and crafting. When her father built their family home, her mother helped make the furniture and furnishings.
Tracy was born in Cape Town, South Africa. At four the family moved to an idyllic coastal town called East London. When she wasn’t enjoying the outdoors, she was inside making clothes for herself and her dolls. She enjoyed sewing and crocheting. In high school she made an impression with her experimental top fashioned from Chux wipes.
When she finished high school, Tracy went back to her home town to attend the University of Cape Town. She planned to study Education and become a school teacher, but changed her mind. She completed a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology because she found it more interesting. She still maintains a great interest in that field as well as in holistic health.
After graduation, Tracy travelled across Europe for a year. When she got home, a friend suggested she become a fashion buyer. It resonated and she spent the next twelve years working as a fashion buyer in Cape Town. Looking at shape, colour and how things went together proved useful later in her art practice.
Standing in line to vote in Cape Town in 1994, heavily pregnant with her first child, Tracy and her husband realised that, even being on the pro-equality side of the voting line, political uncertainty signalled it was a good time to move their young family out of South Africa. They emigrated to Australia in 1998.
Tracy focused on raising her children after moving to Australia, but when her daughter entered school, she felt it was time to start something new. She began her ceramics course. It wasn’t even really a choice; she felt it was a compulsion. The clay was calling! Her work is heavily influenced by Africa as well as a reverence for the Japanese aesthetic.
She finds it interesting that people in different geographical areas are drawn to different colours.
Living on the peninsula has added a new layer to her colour palette. She loves the colours of the of local bush, beach and sea. She finds it interesting that people in different geographical areas are drawn to different colours. Peninsula people gravitate to whites, sandy colours, pastels and greens whereas city people choose blacks and earthy tones.
Last August Tracy joined the Peninsula Studio Trail and went right into an exhibition. She enjoys the camaraderie and support of the group as well as participating in their exhibitions and artist open-studio days. She never expected to be a ceramic artist, but her open-mindedness has led her in many interesting directions.
Her work can be found locally at Tingo in Mount Martha and the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery gift shop.
