Yackandandah potter John Dermer has revisited a technique he first used on a Parliament House commission in 1987 for his new show later this month.
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His 41st annual exhibition will feature terra sigillata, a process of applying a fine clay coating to pots before firing that dates back thousands of year.
Dermer’s innovation is to wrap each piece separately in a ceramic-fibre blanket for the second firing, encasing materials such as salts, oxides and casuarina fronds.
He employed terra sigillata in the large pots he created for the Prime Minister’s suite and cabinet entry at the new Parliament House in Canberra 31 years ago.
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The show at Kirby’s Flat Pottery, to be held November 24 and 25, 9am to 5.30pm, will also include salt glazing, a “frustratingly difficult but addictive process”.
A potter for more than half a century, Dermer said “dogged determination” kept him going.
“If I get a really, really good pot out of the kiln tomorrow, all the other firings seem to fade away into the background,” he said.
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