Craft / The Places we Inhabit: Vessels from the Villages. At Canberra Potters Gallery, Watson, until October 20. Reviewed by MEREDITH HINCHLIFFE.

Canberra is surrounded by many smaller settlements or villages, where ceramicists are able to work freely, particularly if they fire their kilns with wood.

Three artists are from Gundaroo: Moraig McKenna, Ian Jones and Joey Burns. McKenna and Jones are well known in Canberra, and exhibit regularly. Indeed, McKenna recently held a very successful exhibition at this gallery.

Burns is a wood-firer, and his pots capture the textures and colours of the surrounding landscapes. They are robust, with the charm and unpredictability of the wood-firing process. The forms are strong, all with natural ash glaze – which gives an appealing, uneven surface.

Kate McKay has a fascination with blue on white glaze, on a dark clay body. She has recently discovered a dark clay body on her farm in Collector and is pleased with the way the blue reacts on the white slip on her vase or jar forms. I find the forms heavy and feel they need to be a little more refined.

The patterning made during the lifecycle of the Longhorn Borer Beetle on the trunks of eucalyptus trees is the inspiration for vessels and a wall piece made by Robyn Booth, from Sutton. She presses the clay into the tree trunk, allowing the process to form the tiles. Works titled Trunskscape I and Trunkscape 2 are delicate and understated. The colours are subtle and the porcelain clay creates an appropriate canvas for them. Several works titled Tree Pressings, with a flat tile supported vertically, are less successful.

Malhala Hill, from Wamboin, is showing several thrown and manipulated porcelain pieces, glazed in a rich deep blue. The night sky in Wamboin has inspired her. She has carved into the surface creating textures that reflect the changing skies.

Braidwood offers Lea Durie a landscape full of inspiration, with a sense of warmth and creativity. She is showing a large group of forms which are evocative of a child’s interpretation of a house – a pointed roof and four walls. They are arranged in a row across the end of the gallery. Each is decorated differently, and each has a slot in the roof – similar to a slot for a money box. She uses wild clay – which I assume is clay she has dug – with slips and oxides. The most successful work is titled Home is Where I Belong, in commercial and wild clay, with slips, oxides, and glazes. The surface is lively, light in colour, and more inviting.

Another potter from the Braidwood area is Lisa Madden. She is showing numerous sets of works – a bottle, or a cup, or a beaker – sitting on a free form tray. Unfortunately, many of the objects do not sit evenly on the surface of the tray, or hang over the sides: an interesting concept fails on this ground. Even if it is not the artist’s intention for the pieces to be functional, I believe they should meet some basic requirements. In Set 1 a cup with an interrupted rim sits well on the free form tray.

Ian Jones and Moraig McKenna are the two remaining exhibiting potters. Jones’ work is gutsy, with all the hallmarks of a successful wood-firing potter. The textured surfaces are lovely, with warm colours. McKenna’s work is sophisticated and elegant. The decoration on Long Tray depicts the hills on the horizon of her studio.

It is such an interesting idea to have an exhibition of ceramic artists who live in villages surrounding the ACT – surprising perhaps that it is the first. The show is a chance for us to see what is happening outside the city.