I am impressed by the local landscape of central western Victoria – from my windows I can see a series of low hills which were once volcanoes. The hills change colour over the year from browns to greens. They sit low on the horizon and give way to a dome of sky.

Not far from here are the farms, some with green potato plants and rich dark red soil, others with canola that is luminescent yellow in spring, like something out of a picture book.

Living in an old gold mining area I have access to different clays and ochres and I have learnt over the years to use these, mixed with ash from my fireplace, to make glazes.

I have two lines.

My commercial lines are eminently practical and are made from dark iron-rich clays which I blend together. To these I add different clays forming strata, as a cut escarpment might show strata of different oches and clays. I fire them to stoneware temperature and use iron-rich glazes. They are food safe and hardy without being chunky. I like the way they are non precious objects. Food can be served in them, heated in them, kept cool in the fridge, and they can be cleaned in the dishwasher.

I sell these pots and dishes locally.

Then there are the pots I think a lot about. These tend not to be very practical or useful. At the moment I am making containers and I’m thinking about the essence of containing - how to contain, the pot needs to sing the song of what it is going to contain. And what can we contain? Memory, the earth, landscape, happiness, ideas…. These things are more interesting to me than flour, sugar, tea…

I want the containers to sing the landscape, to remember the place, the coordinates from where it was dug. And so I want the viewer to be reminded of the landscape. I will keep the neck rim uneven, I will wipe back glazes, make marks, rub in ochres, and allow the different clays to strata the pot.

I make these pots on the wheel and they take several days to evolve. The walls are quite thin so I need to let the clay settle after I have added each coil. It’s a slow process, a conversation between me and the clay. I listen carefully and coax the clay. If I go too fast, or if I’m careless, inattentive, the whole pot slips away from me and I need to go back, begin again by kneading the clay, feeling its strength, plasticity, and temperament.

Once the pots are made and leather hard I push and pull them, altering the shape from the perfect circle of the wheel. I do this because the landscape has another perfection, one not caught so easily by pure geometric shapes.