September 2nd, 2024Artists of the Central Highlands

with Eve Lamb

Taradale potter Ian (Ox) McColl unearthed a passion for pottery while still in his teens. It was a discovery that has shaped his life’s path ever since. Now Ian and his wife, Leanne Manniche who is also a talented and accomplished ceramicist, run Oxart at Taradale offering a unique gallery attraction full of functional and aesthetic creations as well as the opportunity for others to learn their time-honoured functional craft and multi-dimensional art.

Eve: G’day Ian. How did you get into pottery?

Ian: I was in year 10 at school and chose ceramics because I thought it would  be easy and wouldn’t require exams. I loved it from the first moment I got on the pottery wheel.

Eve: What has been your path since then?

Ian: I went to uni in Bendigo and studied ceramics and then went into the industry, working on a large commercial scale. Then I became a school teacher, woodwork and ceramics, but I’ve been working as a potter full-time now for about the last four years.

Eve: Now I know that your wife, Leanne, is also a ceramicist. How do the two of you go working together? How does your work differ?

Ian: Yes, Leanne got into making pottery, hand building and also working on the wheel, after meeting me. She also does a lot of the firing and also a lot of the marketing and selling through the gallery. Leanne is much more into painted decoration. There’s no competition at all (laughs).

Eve: I know that a lot of your own work is functional, but how do you incorporate art and artistry into your practice?

Ian: The eternal question that arises with ceramics is function versus artistry. My main thing is form. Every time you create a new form that’s where the artistry is. I love working with form, using the wheel at the same time, creating objects and from there I use glaze to enhance the form so it’s also about the glazes and the colours. I use a lot of the Japanese style glaze called shino.

Eve: Well that leads me to ask you whether your practice has taken you to some interesting places?

Ian: Yes. It has. I did a short stint in Japan. Everywhere I travel I try to reach out to potters in the area to try and learn from them. At the moment I am in Narooma (NSW) learning from a friend, Cameron Williams,who specialises in making enormous pots. I’m learning a lot.

Eve: Are they for outdoors? Garden urns?

Ian: They’re suited to either outdoors or indoors.

Eve: Do you have any special events or exhibitions coming up?

Ian: Yes I will have work in the Ross Creek Gallery group show at Smythes Creek over October 5-20. I will have some of the big pots that I am learning to make now in that exhibition. I will also be part of the Australian Ceramics Open Studios weekend event over November 23 and 24. And we also have our annual Friends of Oxart Christmas market on December 1 at our gallery in Taradale with a lot of other makers and artists.

Eve: How are your classes that you offer at Oxart going? Who do you get participating?

Ian: We’re doing loads of classes, and also workshops, and we’re getting everyone from kids to people aged over 90. We have one student in his 90s. We haven’t had anyone aged 100 yet. We’ve had a class with mums and their toddlers. We also get kids and teenagers. We have regular classes and people can learn what they want to learn whether it’s wheel work or hand building.

Eve: How do you find teaching?

Ian: I think the act of teaching refines your own practice all the time. It really, really hones your own skills.