Diamando fires up Australian ceramicists for Open Studios weekend

Tell me about your career and how you became CEO of the Australian Ceramics Association.

I’ve been working in the field for over 30 years now, and my career as an artist is multidisciplinary, so I worked with a lot of community organisations to deliver art programs and projects. That led me all along the spectrum of working with people on the ground from all different community types, to being part of decision making, whether it be through grants or local council or government bodies. About four or five years ago, I was a board director of the Australian Ceramics Association and the EO left, and they asked me to step in and take it on temporarily, then asked if I’d stay, so I sort of fell into the job. Because I was in a lot of different leadership roles before and different art processes and making works and art projects happen, it felt connected, and because I’ve been a board director before, I knew a bit more about the ins and outs.

The Australian Ceramics Association is 70 years old, right?

It is. It’s the peak body of Australian ceramics, and we also have The Journal of Australian Ceramics, so we’re an organisation that assists people that have ceramics in their lives, whether they’re the makers or they’re in the industry, or they might be stockists, suppliers or anyone that's linked to ceramics. We assist them to be able to really develop their businesses as well as the cultural context of art and community engagement at the same time. We do a lot and it’s grown over the years. It’s quite an amazing organisation.

Ceramics always seems to have such a strong social or cultural side, a real sense of community.

There’s a direct correlation with ceramics, because often making can be in community contexts, and our community of people very much like to share information. They work together at times, there are studios that work together, as well as independently. That’s really at the core of a lot of the things that we do in the arts. It’s definitely really important, as well as the fact that a lot of our members also deliver programs and projects to the wider and broader community, and the cultural things like the exhibitions. From teaching to showing their works to markets, it’s quite varied. It’s quite a big community of people and through every state and territory across the country. We have more than 1600 members, plus 50 stockists of the journal, and about another 400 subscribers.

What’s happening this weekend for Open Studios?

This year, we’ve got about 170 studios that have put their hand up to open their studios for a weekend, so people can go into their place of work, whether it be a home studio or a warehouse or wherever they’re actually making, or it could be a community group, and they can sell their stuff or they’ll explain to people about their kilns or they’ll do demonstrations. It’s about spreading the news of ceramics, as well as demystifying the medium, so people can understand more about what clay is, because it’s such a major thing in our lives. Ceramics is very multi-dimensional, with so many different ways to approach it, whether through the way that you make things, the firing temperatures, the clay bodies; the processes are really varied. It gives people an opportunity to see some of that really interesting technical element to clay.

The open day has been running for 13 years and it’s a fabulous event. A lot of our people do it every year and it’s an opportunity for them to sell their things as well.

The ceramics community seems welcoming to people just starting out.

Definitely. It’s a very welcoming community. Clay is a medium that is quite tricky, so I always say to people that if they are still doing it in 10 years, they’ll be there for life. The more you do it, the better you get. It is definitely a long game of learning if you want to become a professional. They talk about it in different fields but the ‘10,000 hours’ theory [that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at any skill] is definitely relevant in ceramics.

Personally, is your passion for ceramics as strong as ever?

Yes. I still work as an artist three days a week, and then the other couple of days, I’m running projects or doing public artworks, or teaching communities about ceramics. I still have a multidisciplinary practice going on.

Your day job is a lot of people’s hobby. What do you do as a hobby when you step away from everybody else’s hobby?

Ha. I walk my dog, I go on bush walks, hang out with friends, spend time with family. But not this weekend.

More information

The Australian Ceramics Association’s Open Studios weekend is on Saturday and Sunday, November 8 and 9, across the country. Participating studios and events can be found here.