Craft / “Variations” by Susie McMeekin. At Canberra Potters, until July 9. Reviewed by MEREDITH HINCHLIFFE.

SUSIE McMeekin is from ceramics nobility.

Her father, Ivan McMeekin was invited to set up a pottery at Sturt Craft Centre, Mittagong, in 1953, after studying and working in the UK and Nigeria. Susie McMeekin took up an apprenticeship with him in 1978 when he began working full time as a potter.

Susie McMeekin creates simple, well thrown, functional forms in stoneware and porcelain. She generally uses Chun, Celadon, tea dust and ying ching glazes, and most of these are on exhibit in this exhibition.

Glazes from the Chun family are light blue through to pale grey-blue that feature opalescence and refract light. Apparently, Chun glaze is very similar chemically to the opal gemstone. Celadon glazes are usually light green through to pale greeny-blue.  Sometimes the glaze is a light green, and when the surface beneath has been carved, the glaze breaks to form a lighter design. Tea dust is a sparkly, dark-brown glaze that breaks into light yellow-brown over texture. The sparkle shifts subtly from silver to copper, giving the glaze an iridescent quality.

This is a gentle, calm exhibition. There is similarity in each of the works, and each pot is a work of art. This potter generally relies on the results from the kiln for her surface decoration. The way the glaze breaks over the surface of the clay, the positioning in the kiln and make-up of the glaze itself, and the clay used all cause variations.

McMeekin has used a dark clay body in many of the works. As a result, the rims of the bowls and vases are highlighted and crisp.

“Large Bowl” is a Chun-glazed stoneware bowl which has been woodfired. The foot is perfectly turned, the walls are finely thrown.

“Fish Vase”, is a porcelain spherical vase, which McMeekin has decorated with a larger fish that swims across the surface. It is also a pale blue, Chun glaze.  Smaller fish also swim around it.

There is no prize for guessing why McMeekin has titled this exhibition “Variations”. As she tells us, the variations in her work are gentle and not abrupt.

If you want to see the work of a leading Australian potter, who is making understated works that are beautiful, this is the place to go.