Women in Art 278 Magazine October 2014 | Page 58

australian artist Susan Simonini ceramics After more than a decade of painting and screenprinting, I needed to find a new creative outlet. I took a class early in 2013 at my local potters studio and fell head over heals in love with clay. Most of my pieces develop organically with just a loose idea of a shape or design in mind. I use hand building techniques - slabs, coils, pinching - and a variety of clays. I like to use minimal equipment and prefer to hand roll the clay, rather than mechanical methods such a slab rolling and extruding. I allow the process itself to determine the end product, whether it be a piece of art or a functional object. Each individual form and each type of clay lends itself to different surface treatments, so some pieces are simply glazed and others become highly decorated with my art. I am thoroughly enjoying the multitude of processes and unpredictable outcomes of working with clay. When I am not pottering in my studio you can usually find me riding my longboard skateboard at the beach. I hold a Bachelor of Fine Art from Griffith University and a Graduate Diploma in teaching. I painted and exhibited for over a decade before taking up pottery early in 2013. I have artworks in private and public collections in Australia and overseas.