Local potter Chester Nealie will launch a new book this weekend, which examines his 50-year career in wood fired ceramics through essays, interviews, photos and excerpts from his sketchbook.
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The launch will be held at Mudgee’s Butcher Shop Cafe on Saturday, July 2, from 6pm to 8pm, with gourmet pizza and Miramar wines.
Chester Nealie: Etched in Fire had its international launch in New Zealand in May, and Chester has received a positive response to the book’s engaging content and beautiful design.
The book is edited by art historian Damian Skinner, curator of Applied Art and Design at the Auckland Museum, whose interviews with Mr Nealie are also included.
A dozen essays by Australian and New Zealand curators, writers and artists cover subjects including Mr Nealie’s working process, his travels, and the collections that hold his work.
The book has benefited from Mr Nealie’s tradition of keeping the best pots from each firing, allowing highlights from his entire career to be photographed and included in the volume.
Photos also depict the artist at work throughout his career and the wood firing process.
The book contains a lot of detail about wood firing and the discoveries that the artist made through practicing the technique, along with contributions from other writers that range from poetic musings and larrikin anecdotes to rigorous scholarly essays.
The four sections – making, firing, exhibiting and owning – each start with a page embossed with shell imprints reminiscent of those used in Chester Nealie’s pots.
The book’s innovative design also includes reproductions of Mr Nealie’s watercolour designs for pots, inserted at actual size as though they’d been pulled from his sketchpad and slipped into the book.
Chester Nealie: Etched in Fire will also have a Gulgong launch, at the Greatest Wonder of the World building on Friday, July 8, from 4.30pm to 6.30pm, with the building also opening on the Saturday morning.
