Hi, I’m Alexis Tacey at the University of Southern Queensland and welcome to the Ceramics Studio.

The Ceramics Studio here is quite a vibrant studio for students to be in. We’ve got the pottery wheels, we teach wheel throwing, we have wood fired kiln, gas and electric kilns. But the fundamental thing about studying ceramics here is that we are particularly interested in your story, what it is that you are trying to develop within your own practice. So there is quite an emphasis on materials, understanding clay, the processes and techniques that are important to that process and also what it is that you want to try to say within the work.

One of the beautiful things about wood firing is that you get this fantastic flashing. You just don’t get with any other type of kiln and of course when the build up of this ash hits the pot, it melts and forms the glaze, hence that variation.

Ultimately what I am interested in with students who come to the studio is to see how your work develops because we do enable emerging artists here and we follow through on that career path. So it is important for students to consider their exhibitions, their profile and really to be able to articulate their art practice.