What do a poet and a potter have in common?
Isn’t the daily task of working with clay, be it plugging, glazing or trimming pots ready to be fired in the kiln much the same as writing zero drafts in a journal and moulding these entries into poetry for publication?
After many years of taking notes at Fergus Stewart’s pottery studios, Kathy Kituai and Fergus Stewart, who both endeavour to capture the ordinary moment in their art, came to the conclusion that the main difference between pottery and poetry, was only an extra ‘t’.
Deep in the Valley of Tea Bowls, then, sets the process of craft into a fluid dialogue between art forms – pottery and poems – with pleasing and sometimes surprising results.
Poet, diarist, founder and facilitator of Limestone Tanka Poets, Kathy Kituai has facilitated creative writing workshops in Australia and Scotland. Her numerous commendations include two Canberra Critics Circle Awards, St Kilda Poetry Award, Banjo Patterson Poetry Award, Somerset National Poetry Prize, Tea Towel Tanka Award, Fuji Award, and an Arts ACT Award to work in Scotland, which inspired this book. Kathy has worked with dancers, visual artists, a musician, a potter, and is published in Japan, UK, USA, Canada, New Zealand, PNG and Australia. President and Vice President of the Fellowship of Australian Writers (1987-1990), Kathy was also an editor for the Institute of PNG Studies and Muse magazine, a peer panelist for Arts ACT, and on the steering committee for the Weereewa Festival. She has judged literary competitions over the years, the latest being the Brockman Poetry Competition for Manning Clark House, 2013.
Fergus Stewart has been a potter for over 35 years. Born in Aberdeen, Scotland, Stewart trained in Scotland and Australia and established his first independent studio practice in Perth in 1983. He helped to establish the ceramics workshop at the Strathnairn Arts complex in Holt ACT and lectured at the Canberra School of Art (ANU). Stewart travelled widely in Australia exhibiting and teaching workshops, building and firing wood burning kilns, and demonstrating at ceramics conferences.
Eventually Stewart returned to Scotland, where he continues to produce wood-fired functional pots in his studio in the North West Highlands. Stewart has been a regular guest teacher for The Danish Design School and Glasgow School of Art and has exhibited around Europe, notably in Germany at Salzbrand and in Hungary at the International Ceramics Research Center. Stewart’s work has also been regularly exhibited in Denmark and the UK, and in 2012 he was invited to the Mungyeong Traditional Tea Bowl Festival of South Korea. His work is represented in many institutional and private collections.
