FOR the past five weeks,  Japanese ceramic artist Miki Oka has been artist-in-residence at Watson Arts Centre. 

In Japan, Oka spends most of her creative time in her studio near Hiroshima. She crafts functional items such as tea bowls, sake cups and plates but also hand-builds sculptural pieces, often animals.

During her stay at Watson Oka today she has been taking inspiration from what she can see from her studio, including the real life swan family with its five cygnets on the pond behind the centre in Aspinall  St.

This is her fourth visit to Australia, but her first to the Arts Centre, where she has and worked with some of the Potters’ society’s teachers and students during the recent school holiday pottery program.

She is a graduate in ceramics from the Kyoto Saga Art University of Fine Art. with a ceramics major. Miki has been a very welcome visitor to the arts centre and Canberra Potters’ Society community

This weekend Oka is having a studio exhibition and sale of items she has made in Canberra.

She hopes the proceeds will help her fund the replacement of her MacBook, (sadly stolen during her first weekend in Canberra) but this is also a rare chance to acquire a piece of Australian-inspired work by an up-and-coming Japanese artist.

Miki Oka’s studio exhibition and sale, studio 3 at Watson Arts Centre, 1 Aspinall Street, Watson on Saturday  and Sunday  November 27-28, 10am and 4pm.