Throughout his career, production has been a central concern of Hobart-based Les Blakebrough. He began as a pottery apprentice at the Sturt workshops in Mittagong, NSW, in 1957. Now based in Hobart, one of Blakebrough’s recent concerns has been combining the handmade with limited industrial production.

In 1993 Blakebrough won a Churchill Fellowship to experience industrial processes in the factories of Royal Copenhagen (Denmark), Arabia (Finland) and Royal Worcester (UK).

Between 1995–97, along with colleague Penny Smith, and with grants from the Australian Research Council, he established the Ceramic Research Unit at the University of Tasmania. This is capable of producing domestic ware in runs of up to 10 000 items. The porcelain clay used is Southern Ice – a clay that Blakebrough developed in the 1990s and is now manufactured by Clayworks Australia in Victoria.

You can see Blakebrough 's work in the new exhibition Smart works: design and the handmade, until 4 November 2007 at the Powerhouse Museum.

Smart works: design and the handmade




TAGS
+ Smart works: design and the handmade
+ Handmade
+ Mass-production
+ Studio production