A couple of lovely ying ching tea cups have gone to the British Royal family as a gift from the Australian Duke of Edinburgh Awards.

Leading Us Where? I am a potter. I do not consider myself a ceramicist. I have been working with and developing my skills for the past 30 +years. It has been for me a source of enjoyment and frustration. It has been a lonely journey which at first I enjoyed but as I grow older I find that it has isolated me and taken me out of the mainstream of public profile. It is becoming clear to me that one must remain in the forefront of people?s minds if one is to earn a living AND get any kind of feed back that is required to move onwards. Since I began to pot with my father Ivan McMeekin in 1978 the world and the pottery world has moved on a pace. With the ease of internet communication and the access of so much knowledge available on the world wide web it seems that the technical base which I held in great respect ,has to a certain extent, been diminished and has taken away the devotion and commitment that the producers of great glazes of quality and beauty *had to have. The re emergence of China as an international ceramic manufacturer that produces high quality ,cheap, if not particularly aesthetically beautiful china again deals another blow to those of us who have spent our working lifetime at the wheel making domestic ware for discerning clients to purchase and use. The craft/hippie movement of the 60?s and 70?s lies in tatters and debate still rages as to why the general public no longer seem to care or take much interest in hand made quality goods? Is it the demise of the education institutes particularly in ceramics, or is it that we have failed to keep up with changing trends and fads that come and go faster than our ability to perform the necessary research and development to produce the latest trends. I must at this stage put up my hand and say that I am not interested in doing any such thing. We live in a world where it seems that most things are throw away quality, even to my amazement power tools. Tools that I used to grave and save for to make my work a little easier are now in cheap abundance. But it does seem that this place our community is in now, so far as commodities goes, is eating into our artistic soul and is leaving us reeling and confused about our place in society and our expression. Do I now see at the shows of our art schools a leaning towards the quirky rather than the quality? Is it *the curriculum and the change of the necessary ?outcome? that has moved the schools in this direction. Is it that the teachers at these schools are trying to break new ground and if so why and where has the simple skill base gone? Do we now accept that we as craftsman will only be treated as ?artists? in the rarefied world of contemporary art? Is that actually what the new generation of potters want? I pose this question with absolute sincerity and hope that we can open up some form of communication on this subject because it causes me a great deal of consternation and I want some answers not only from the teaching profession but from the students undergraduated and graduated, from buyers and camp followers. I await the following issue of the magazine with interest and hope that people will take the time to write some thoughts on this issue. Susie McMeekin

The opening on Friday night the 8th October on a beautiful spring night in Sydney was a success.I sold well and the pots were well recieved and that did much to bring up my happiness levels. The show remains on display until the 26th of October and I have been asked to speak on a radio show called Arts and Tarts, I believe some time in the next few weeks. It is on a station Triple R which covers a good chunk of Sydney. I would like to thanks Piers Laverty for opening the show and being so supportive in the last few months. Also to thanks all those who came on Friday night . It was lovely to see you and to those of you I met for the first time it was great to meet you and meet new people interested in pottery. Also thanks to my family for putting up with my moodiness during the preparation for the show.

New pots are in the process of being finished for this show. I have been working on the double gourd shape and I am fairly pleased with process.

This year has flown by. The show that Su Hanna and I had at the Clay Energy Conference in Gulgong was quite the success. Su and I spent most of our time talking to interested potters about our work and for me it was pushing the barrow that wood fired work does not have to be brown. We were interviewed by a couple of students for assignments and basically sold pots and talked our heads off.

I am now in the process of preparing for a show at the Kerry Lowe Gallery at Newtown in Sydney in early October and then a group show at the Cudgegong Gallery in Gulgong in November. Between now and then I will be in a group show with the people who I worked with in China. The show is at the Masterworks Gallery in Ponsonby , Auckland , New Zealand opening on the 21st of July.

I'd like to appologise to my clients at Huntington for leaving two days early after having assured them that I would be there selling for the entire festival. I had a medical problem early Saturday morning and had to pull out. Please contact me if you had a pot you were intested in purchasing or come to the Christmas sale on the weekend of the 5th and 6th December.

At last the winter months seem to have left us behind. I know it has been a very mild winter but I do much preferr the warmer times of the year. I have been keeping my self entertained by firing with Chester Nealie and then just last week with my friend in Victoria Su Hanna.I have yet to see the pots from that firing but feel sure there will be some good results. It was interesting to travel to Bendigo where Su is based. I have never been to that part of Victoria before and was very admiring of the architecture of Bendigo or at least the little I saw of it. It looks like a beautiful city. While we were there we took the opportunity to visit Kylie and Hayden and the first family grand child Matilda. Now that is one of lifes greats. On our way home we stopped in Canberra over night and went to see Owen Ryes show at the Watson Pottery Centre.Well worth a look and then went out to a place called Stathnarne [ not sure about the spelling] to see Owen who is in Canberra for 3 weeks. Don and I had a good prowl around all the kilns there as I desperatly want a wood kiln of my own . I am having alot of trouble choosing which type to build. Too much choice I suspect!!

I will be part of a group exhibtition at Studio Alterburg in Wallace St Braidwood in July. The show will be opened by Gail Nichols and looks like it will be very interesting with a broad selection of work on show. It is about jugs. Wonderful things they are. I enjoy making them very much and using them in a number of ways.so get along if you can.

I have almost finished an unbelievably busy month or so. Not to say that it hasn't been extremely enjoyable.Started with a wonderful invitation to the races at Randwick for the Autumn Carnival. Oh I do love going to the races. So that was really good fun . Then my Aunt Bet turned 100,so cousins out from U.K.and many family gatherings and lots of late nights and very good fun. Don and I have also been up at Mooramaju fixing up the lovely house that we have on 14 acres and trying desparatly to work out how we can afford to have two houses going rather than let the house to a tennant. Not possible at this stage but how spoilt for choice are we. Two lovely places to live. At this stage we will remain in the mountains. It is so, so dry up there no water in the creek so the garden is dead such a shame. There used to be a great lawn all around the house, but the last tennant had ponies and the nieghbor has goats ,need I say more. This week we will finish all repairs and put in new carpet. Then I will go out to janet Mansfiels to help fire her racer kiln and when that is finished that should be the end of our madness for the time being. I did fire the kiln last week and that seems to have been a reasonable success. I haven't really had a good look at it yet as I have been doing an Advanced Fire Fighters course this weekend and that was really great I just have to knuckle down and study some of the new skills shown to us so I pass the assessment in about 6 weeks.

The last few months in the lead up to my show in Melbourne were very busy. I must thank Bill Samuels and Janet Mansfield who both kindly offered me large amounts of space in their kilns and allowed me to fire with them and have some very beautiful pieces to take to the show I had at Skepsi Gallery in Melbourne in August. We fired out at Bills in all kinds of weather. The first day was very cold and raining and then fined up to be breath takingly shiny bright and warm[ after the sun came up] I got some beautiful soft fired tea dust bottles, a stunning chun vase and some beautiful soft fired chun bowls that sold before I could even clean them up properly. Also out of that firing came a facetted vase fired hot in a sagger so it had glorious glaze quality and all sorts of things going on with chrystal growth in some spots. That is of course why I find wood firing such a blast . Shortly after that I went to Gulgong and fired with Janet Mansfield and Judy Boydell. That was a 40 hour firing and fired much hotter than Bills kiln. From out of the back of that kiln I got what I felt were some of the best pots I have ever made. The tea dust was varied all over some of the bowls and two Chun jugs that really made me swoon. The glaze quality was just wonderful. I really cant thank those two generous people enough, and of course the other kiln firers who helped with those firings. After the opening at Skepsi and giving a workshop for Ceramics Victoria, Don and I went out to Gippsland to fire with Owen Rye. That was wonderful as ever and it was good to meet up with Su Hanna again and to meet Sue Acheson , Bruce Pryor and an American lass Cilla all of whom were involved with the firing. It is such a team effort a 5 day firing. Made my way home over the Snowy Mountains. What a fabulous drive. So here I am preparring for Huntington and the Christmas Sale with one more wood firing for the year with Chester and I am looking forward to that. Have a new computer coming in the next week or so, so hopefully I will get on top of my image problem and be able to post some up.