Biggi Spiro has a conspicuous presence in Melbourne, selling her production range of functional and decorative ware in a range of prominent locations. This work is notable for its signature black and white decoration, skilled, fine making and idiosyncratic design. In September 2004, Spiro’s Silent Conversations solo exhibition at Craft Victoria was a culmination of 20 years of study, work and international experiences. This potter’s considerate concern to create a stimulating installation and visitor experience challenged my expectations and pricked my curiosity. This review also offered an opportunity to explore the place in which ceramic installation sits within contemporary practice.

Spiro utilised the architecture of Craft Victoria’s three galleries by partially closing a sliding wall, adding drama to the approach and concealing any sight of the show until one had rounded this barrier. As is often the case with plinth-based exhibitions, scrutiny is given to the first object one encounters. In wonderful contrast, Silent Conversations demanded that the work be experiences as panorama. Upon entering, I immediately stepped back to take in a sweeping curvaceous structure suggesting a black calligraphic swoosh, reflective of the Japanese-inspired brushwork decorating Spiro’s Black and White functional ware. A range of small vessels no higher than 20 cm were lined single file upon this narrow plinth. The plinth could be negotiated as a journey beginning with the first piece and travelled consecutively along until the end. However I found that I moved in and out of this tableau, giving time to works that caught my attention then returning to works missed. Each pass by revealed new details, relationships and textures.

Each of these ‘bottles’ has been hand thrown and treated as a functional object with all interiors and some exteriors glazed. The clear gloss glaze combines well with the luscious creamy-white body that radiates warmly. Spiro has used Keanes White Earthenware for many years admiring its lack of harsh whiteness despite its semi-vitreous state when fired to 1100ºC. This uniform construction material proves a consistent foundation upon which Spiro has explored an abundance of decorative techniques and constantly shifting form and scale.

Surface treatment begins with Spiro’s familiar black brushwork, a lingering painterly heritage from her initial apprenticeship training with Morisato Toraku, master pottery in Kyoto Japan in the mid 1980s. However this traditional reference is only a glancing nod. Spiro pushes the possibilities of surface with the stark use of contrasting black engobe in bands with fine, loosely applied sgraffito or organic sections of black texture, stamped in a Max Ernst-like frottage from found objects. More tactile surfaces have been achieved through piercing, impressed marks, runny dollops of slip and rubbed back shellac resist. The latter technique gives the illusion of deteriorating lace or paper-thin skin.

Colour has been used sparingly as if gathered from some precious stone. It makes a quiet appearance on the interior of wide mouthed flute shapes and punctuates an occasional foot or neckband. The range is limited to the crisp fruity colours of yellow, orange, and green, some blue and is a chalky-matt in finish. Spiro uses underglaze colours in slip, which achieve a density of colour in this pastel range.

Spiro has consciously employed her years of production experience to establish the working parameters for Silent Conversations. Five vessels were thrown each day, 150 all told. A borrowed digital camera recorded each sequence and enabled Spiro to return to decorate in accurate progression. This expansion of production practice raises interesting questions about the position of a craft material presented within a gallery environment.

It is no secret that ceramic techniques such as throwing and mould making are traditional and persistent methods for producing many of the same. In Silent Conversations the effect of the multiple has moved beyond that of commercial efficiency and presentation of utilitarian wares, in other words, beyond an exclusive retail experience. Glen R. Brown’s thought provoking article chewed over the ambivalence created when the ceramic multiple presents itself within the privilege of the gallery context. He states, “Multiplicity remains a trait of ceramics when it is linked to the traditional concern for utility embodied in production vessels. However when these vessels are removed from the context of utility - when the potential for their use is suspended - their multiplicity may become significant not as a material but rather as a conceptual trait ... central to contemporary art.” 1

Before looking more closely at Spiro’s installation, it may be interesting to reflect on the work of an another example of ceramic installation. I am thinking specifically of contemporary English potter, Edmund De Waal’s porcelain room installation at the Geffrye Museum, London in 2002. Here was presented repetitive groups of squat cylinders, 500 pieces in total, installed within specifically constructed rooms and shelves. Individually, the works reflect quietly on the ever-changing rapport, measure and scale created between grouped thrown forms. These vessels allude to function; they may contain, may be purchased solely or in groups.
Nevertheless this is an ‘installation’ of ceramic objects and De Waal’s intent is to speak loudly on other concerns for the craftsperson. Despite De Waal’s installation imitation of a contemporary art show with its “hands off the work” stance, the exhibition’s conceptual essence tells of western ceramics history and commerce. De Waal’s gallery wall shelves were bumper to bumper full of pots, mimicking 18th century European porcelain rooms where the rich and illustrious flaunted their status through the ostentatious collection and display of Eastern ceramics.

This nod to the legacy of western ceramics is an acknowledgement of past and present practices in ceramics and suggests that De Waal has steered clear of any attempt at privileging his practice by dressing it in the cloak of contemporary art installation. By this I mean the use of the multiple in installation where the artist intends to challenge the notion that there are no absolutes in the

presentation of the visual image. This theory is based on contemporary art’s ongoing concern for the deconstruction of means of communication. In De Waal’s exhibition the multiple ceramic piece clearly signifies the cultural, historical and technical traditions identified with ceramics practice.

So let’s return to Silent Conversations. In her exhibition catalogue Spiro writes of the exhibition, “It is a glimpse into a shifting sequence of inter relationships. All these separate entities then come together to form a ‘network of conversations’, behaving much the way a human community behaves.” This is a perceptive description of how humans behave when required to conform into a rigid, singular line; one dares not break rank but waits patiently. Eventually, through a combination of boredom and predicament small groupings of conversations arise. As the title states there is literally no sound made by the display however I sensed these groupings chatter ardently as they noisily bow, sway and nuzzle in order to relate to each other.

There has been a concerted effort by the potter to communicate a conceptual premise in this exhibition. The eloquent title states this clearly, the catalogue speaks of “... pieces [that] are complete in themselves with unique shapes, characteristics and personalities - like people...” and the evocative installation layout, in fact all elements of this show convey a sense that Spiro’s pots relate with human-like traits.

Like De Waal, Spiro uses the multiple in Silent Conversations to elaborate on one’s reading and experience the exhibition. While this concept may allude to conceptual art concerns, core to this exhibition is the virtuosity of ceramics skill and practice.
Finally, Spiro has identified and transformed the management rigour required of the production potter to present a daily journal of making. One can witness a periodic shift in form as one day’s works, a set of five bottles, influences then intermingles with the next, creating a sweeping timeline of purpose.

“Every journey conceals another journey within its lines: the path not taken and the forgotten angle. These are the journeys I wish to record.” Jeanette Winterson, Sexing the Cherry. p. 9-10

It is this journey of making and how this ‘journal’ was presented that I found most appealing and most refreshing about Silent Conversations.

Robyn Phelan has recently started a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Ceramics) at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology after working as Program Manager at Craft Victoria.

1 p.8 Glen R. Brown. Multiplicity, Ambivalence & Ceramic Installation Art Ceramics: Art and Perception No. 54 2003