In the mid 1950s a group of potters banded together and formed The Australian Ceramics Association. Peter Rushforth, Ivan Mc Meekin, Ivan England and Mollie Douglas were the Society's founding members and came together out of a desire to exchange ideas and aid each others developing ceramics practice. Now, their names are firmly cemented in the ceramics history of this country and The Potters' Society of Australia is still providing professional support and camaraderie for potters Australia-wide.

One of The Potters' Society's supportive measures is an annual exhibition of selected members' ceramic work. This year, in conjunction with the Manly Art Gallery and Museum, it is presenting the sculptural works of twelve of its national members in an exhibition curated by Marian Howell titled Cerebration.

Cerebration is a fitting name for this exhibition. Maybe it's misspelt, a typo. Read it out loud and it's a slip of the tongue but no, its a happy coincidence. In 2000 we are encouraged to celebrate after a decade of millennium doom and gloom (the earth hasn't jumped from its axis, y2k didn't destroy The System as we know it and Sydney has the Olympics). But "cerebration" is not "celebration" (though the curator is happy to confuse them). Cerebration is defined as the "Working of the brain, esp. unconscious, of results reached without conscious thought."1 The artists of Cerebration have been asked to examine their sources and processes. This has meant, for some, a new approach to artmaking; for others, an excavation of their reasoning and better understanding of their ceramics practice.

In a recent interview in Ceramic Review the British sculptor Antony Gormley was asked his opinion of the direction of contemporary ceramics; he answered briefly that there were perhaps, too many forms of ceramics. However, it is specifically the diversity of ceramics that is exciting and bodes well for the future. Students of ceramics in Australia, whether they be institutional, apprenticed or self-taught, are generally exposed to the gamut of ceramics history. They are taught processes and techniques that have been used for thousands of years and they live in a world proliferated by images and ever new technologies. They are fortunate, and the development of ceramics is fortunate. The contemporary ceramicist has become a thief, borrower and illusionist. For example, they will happily combine the imprecise chances of woodfiring with the considered spatial relationships of installation or the manufactured form of a nineteenth century teapot with media text from the twentieth century. One could consider this erratic shuffling a 'bad thing' for art in general but history reveals it to be the exact opposite. A couple of centuries ago an event occurred that changed our lives forever; it was called the Industrial Revolution. Manufacturers went mad - every known form of ceramics was copied and bastardised in the name of wealth and because they could. A couple of thinking fellows, John Ruskin - and A.W. Pugin started whingeing about the state of craft, the loss of the handmade and the demise of the craftsmen. They wrote many books and were very critical of contemporary art and craft. Some artisans began to take notice and the Arts and Crafts Movement was born. Artists began to consider their materials, sources and processes.

Out of this emerged the individual studio potter and the exhibiting artists of Cerebration are some of their grandchildren. The diversity of sources, processes and approaches that are to be found in Cerebration are similar in number to the manufactured forms of the Industrial Revolution but hopefully herald a future that again values the handmade. The exhibited works fall into well-trod categories of ceramic art - the figurative, the environment and the domestic. However, each artist's work contains threads of commonality. The viewer will find that categories have become entwined reflecting contemporary society's dominant trends towards hybridity and repetition.