SMH ‘My Best Worst’: Ebony Russell

SMH ‘My Best Worst’: Ebony Russell

Feature by Lissa Christopher.

Each week, SMH asks someone to tell them about the upside of a bad experience or rough patch. This week features NAS alumna and staff Ebony Russell.

To practise ceramic art is to court disaster, says Ebony Russell, a practising artist and a lecturer at the National Art School in Sydney.

There are so many opportunities for things to go wrong: collapse during construction, getting knocked before being put into the kiln, melting in the kiln, exploding in the kiln, sustaining damage from someone else’s work exploding in the kiln, being dropped coming out of the kiln …

“Every step along the path is fraught with danger,” she says. “You are constantly aware that you may lose the piece at some point in the process … In my studio, I have to carry work downstairs to a kiln room and I’m sweating bullets every time I do it.

“You become a bit resilient or you may as well not stick with it.”

Ebony can still vividly recall the moment 20 years ago when the head fell off the final piece she had been working on for weeks during her second year at art school. It was a bust with “this huge elaborate headpiece with orchid flowers … Basically, I had made the head too heavy and the neck was very thin and elongated; [it was] a very Modigliani inspired female form. I was working on it and it fell, and I caught it in my hands. It was a sickening feeling, gut-wrenching.”

It also happened in front of her peers. “In ceramics, catastrophes are happening all over the place, that’s part of the learning, but it’s quite humbling when it’s you,” she says.

“I could have just lost [my mind], let it defeat me or given up and started again,” she says, but she decided to push on and attempt a repair, yet another risky step with ceramics that “often comes back to haunt you later”.

In this case, however, the repair was successful and later in the year, it would become the first piece of her own art Ebony sold.

“I will never forget that piece,” she says. “I think the first piece you ever sell really sticks with you. So I was quite pleased with myself but I also learnt a lot about building better.

“It’s funny though … sometimes the discovery has been in the accidents. If you’re too controlled I think you miss out on things, you lose that avenue to discover something new.

“And when you work with porcelain especially, you have to work in the current moment. You have to deal with what the porcelain does, as it does it. You have to let go a bit.

“I always laugh because most of my close girlfriends say I’m really calm in a crisis. I think when a catastrophe happens I just give in to it and think, well, what’s the point of fighting it? With ceramics, at some point, you have to give in to the medium and you get used to being able to accept the way things happen because you can’t change it.”

Image: Ebony Russell in her studio. Photo: Simon Hewson.
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Opening night: The Neighbour at the Gate 

Join us on Thursday 10 July for the opening night of The Neighbour at the Gate, a major exhibition at the National Art School Gallery, curated by a guest curatorium led by Clothilde Bullen (Wardandi Noongar and Badimaya Yamatji), with Micheal Do and Zali Morgan (Whadjuk Balladong and Wilman Noongar).

Bringing together newly commissioned works by leading Australian artists Jacky Cheng, Elham Eshraghian-Haakansson, Dennis Golding (Kamilaroi/Gamilaraay), Jenna Mayilema Lee (Gulumerridjin (Larrakia), Wardaman, KarraJarri), James Nguyen and James Tylor (Kaurna, Thura-Yura language region), the exhibition reckons with the echoes of immigration policies and the legacies of Colonialism in Australia, unravelling how these forces continue to shape First Nations and Asian Australian experiences and relationships.

Across various mediums and perspectives, The Neighbour at the Gate charts the entangled legacies of exclusion and resilience, drawing vital parallels between the past and present, memory and nationhood.

The Neighbour at the Gate has been made possible with the generous support of the NSW Government through its Blockbusters Funding initiative.

RSVP at the link in bio.
Burned trees build no homes. 

Today we acknowledge World Environment Day with this work by alum Una Foster, now in the National Art School Collection.
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Una Foster, ‘Burned Trees Build No Homes’, c.1945, commercial print on paper; image courtesy the artist and National Art School © Una Foster. From the National Art School Collection.
This end of financial year, support the next generation of artists through the National Art School’s Pathways Program.

Your donation will be vital in helping us build a more inclusive and vibrant arts community — creating crucial pathways for talented artists to become leading international artists, regardless of their background.

Support our EOFY campaign via the link in bio and help us to break down barriers to art education.
In June, we celebrate World Pride Month. Like many other culturally significant times, it’s a month that’s meaningful to our community and the Oxford precinct we are part of. 

In 2015, NAS alum Todd Fuller (@fuller_todd) sent members of the public black and white drawings depicting two men engaged in a passionate kiss. The participants were encouraged to respond to the image by colouring in the figures, with the resulting images compiled by Fuller into a mixed media video animation. 

Fuller gifted this work to the National Art School Collection, a collection that performs a major role within the National Art School as both a teaching resource and a historical record. Visit our website to find out more about the works in our collection.

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Todd Fuller, ‘The Unite Project - 3rd generation ‘, 2015, mixed media animation, colour and sound, 13.35 mins loop; image courtesy the artist and National Art School © Todd Fuller. From the National Art School Collection - Gift of Todd Fuller.
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