As a North Queensland potter, Mollie Bosworth has had to work hard to achieve national recognition. She graduated last year with a Diploma in Art (Ceramics) from the Canberra School of Art Distance Learning program and her successful development of a body of fine porcelain bowls uniquely decorated has brought her into the national spotlight. In that final year alone, Mollie received seven awards: The National Gallery of Australia Shop Showcase Award; Canberra Potters’ Society Exhibition Award - ANU Graduating Students Exhibition; Pottery Award - Innisfail Biennial Art Competition; The Judges Choice Award - Innisfail; Fourex Clothing Award - Townsville; Theme 3 Award - Dr Koch Foundation Art Competition, Cairns and the Deborah Nunn Memorial Award - Cairns National Ceramic Competition. In 2001, Mollie received a Merit Award in the Gold Coast International Ceramic Art Award.

She had her first solo exhibition, titled Luminous in the Showcase Gallery at Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville, in October, 2003. Mollie has also been invited to present a solo exhibition at the Cairns Regional Gallery in 2005. All this recognition coming after more than 15 years as a potter. Over the years, Mollie has worked with local and regional groups to gain recognition for artists in the region, through the Cairns Regional Gallery, Arts Nexus and the local tourism industry. She has had a long association with the Kuranda Arts Cooperative and is currently its chair.

Mollie’s studio is part of her rainforest home in Kuranda, which although on the tourist trail in North Queensland, is a long way from the major markets in Sydney, Melbourne and even Brisbane. So after years of attending ceramic workshops and seminars, learning new skills in marketing, business planning, arts accounting and sales, she decided to take the big leap and enrolled in the 4 year, part-time, Distance Diploma in Ceramics through the National Institute of the Arts, Australian National University. “I wanted to change my direction and revitalise my practice”, says Mollie. “I have been mostly self-taught and my work has been generally functional tableware - plates, bowls, serving dishes and the like. The ANU course gave me a chance to develop a body of translucent porcelain. Although I was not aware at that time of a specific interest in porcelain at ANU, I was aware of the reputation staff members had.”

The distance diploma course includes an intensive nine-day residency each semester at ANU’s Canberra campus providing a wonderful opportunity for interaction with other artists working at a similarly high level. Mollie says: “It gave me more confidence. I met local and international artists and set up a network for on-going support. It was very beneficial to my professional practice. I think I got a wider view of ceramics as art.”Travelling to and from Canberra provided an opportunity for stop-offs in Sydney and Brisbane to check out the shops and galleries.

Keeping abreast of current trends through ceramic magazines published in the UK, USA and Australia and local interior and design magazines is a useful practice but they also help to challenge her own ideas. Mollie says: “I have little chance to see ceramic exhibitions and the local and tourist markets I usually supply don’t necessarily follow these same trends.” However, her relative isolation offers her the choice of making these connections or focusing more directly on her own technical concerns. She takes advantage of these disconnected moments to work in a space of her own:

a space to explore ideas through a well conducted series of experiments with materials and results of firings, all documented, and then to consider and reconsider where these tests might lead.

She says: “Technical considerations have been at the forefront of this new work. Before I began working on this project using coloured clays in porcelain, I tested all oxides on hand in both oxidation and reduction firings. I wanted to reduce the use of stains. The stronger oxides, cobalt and chrome, use less additive material to make coloured clay and the reduction of plasticity isn’t as noticeable as it is for say, 10 per cent of stain. “I have worked with coloured clays before I began this project and I was able to apply much of that knowledge.

“ Over the years I’ve gathered collections of tropical plants from the garden. I have photographed and sketched the patterns on leaves, bright red veins, dots, the textures and light. This interest has resulted in the green, white and red combinations which I’ve introduced in these series of porcelain bowls. I’ve tried to get the brightest possible red for inlays because I think it has added vibrancy to the work. Until now my palette has been limited.” North Queensland with its tropical cyclones also produces brilliant atmospheric effects. One series of Mollie’s work is called Atmospheric Currents, inspired by the regularly issued weather maps of cyclone movements and the sky during these periods - luminous with layers of clouds, white, blue and gray tones.

In this series the pots are thrown and the surface decorated by spraying layers of white slip over patches of slip with oxides and allowing the strength of the oxides to penetrate to the surface resulting in various shades of greys and blues. Mollie said: “I think it is magical how pieces light up as they come out of the firing. Even without glazing they seem transformed. The Southern Ice porcelain has more translucency than any clay I have used before. There are many potters using resist techniques for white on white effects so I set myself the challenge of integrating colour as well.”

Yet another exciting development has been the introduction of vanadium pentoxide. Mollie says: “It is water soluble and some of the colour migrates to the surface and I discovered it gave a halo effect around spots with only a small percentage of vanadium pentoxide. The halo is quite startling in the pure white of the Southern Ice porcelain. You might say I use vanadium pentoxide to get that element of the unpredictable in very controlled and precise work.” This is particularly true of the series with green dots inserted at the throwing stage. Mollie explained that at the thick cylinder stage of throwing, circular holes are cut all the way through the wall of the pot. The hole is dampened and a coil of coloured clay is inserted, compressed and cut off. Then the throwing continues until the wall of the pot is as thin as possible. Mollie says: “This movement aspect of the dots is very important to these pieces. They relate to my previous wave bowl series where cut-outs swirled around. The direction of the dots sets the direction of the patterning. The pots would be static without this visual movement which reflects the process of making. Movement also comes in the firing, when the rims warp on some of the pieces. At first I was disturbed by this. Others thought it was the most engaging aspect. This has taught me the lesson of taking time to consider the piece as it is and letting go of my expectations.”

Last year’s ANU Graduating Student’s exhibition brought Mollie Bosworth’s work to the attention of the manager of the National Gallery of Australia shop. Her work is now on display in the Gallery shop. In Sydney, Object Gallery, at the Australian Centre for Craft and Design, has invited Mollie to submit work for possible selection in its upcoming New Design 2004 exhibition showcasing the most exciting contemporary designs selected from art and design graduates at universities throughout Australia. Mollie’s tableware has been selling for more than two years at the All Hand Made Gallery in Bronte. The gallery can’t get enough of it. Likewise the porcelain bowls sell as soon as they come in.

Over the years there have been many influences which have helped to develop Mollie’s practice. One she recalls was during an earlier period when she was living at Conway in the Whitsundays in the late 1980s. She joined the Mackay and Bowen Potters’ Club and participated in workshops with the Australian Flying Art School. “That’s how I met Gwyn Hanssen Pigott who really influenced me,” says Mollie. “Everything we did with her had to be precise and that’s when I realised ceramics was a refined art.”

Translucent porcelain is much in favour nowadays but Mollie’s decorated porcelain bowls manage to combine that elegance associated with fine porcelain and a playfulness. Her references are many: jellyfish, such as the deadly Irukanji jellyfish of North Queensland, are essentially transparent but part of their structure diffracts light and produces a range of colours; skeletal leaves on the rainforest floor; microscopic life forms represented as squiggely lines and amoeba-like forms. The result is elusive and captivating. In fact, elusive and captivating just about sums up Mollie’s porcelain bowls and the response at all levels, including the national level, has been to gather them in for closer examination.