1975 – The Potters Wheel, Neutral Bay 1979 – The Old Bakery Gallery, Lane Cove 1982 – The Potters Gallery, Darlinghurst 198? – Manly Art Gallery 1982 – The Mayfair Ceramic Award Exhibition, Sydney 1984 – Craft Expo, Sydney 1986 – Blaxland Gallery, Sydney 1986 – The Potters Gallery, Darlinghurst 1986 – New England Regional Art Museum, Armidale 1987 – Craft Expo, Sydney 1991 – Weswal Gallery, Tamworth 2007 – Clay & More Clay, Northern Beaches TAFE, Brookvale 2008 – Coffs Harbour Regional Gallery 2010 – Christine Ball : Pattern Maker, Maitland Regional Art Gallery
2014 – Manly Art Gallery, 501 little dishes : a childhood memoir
Christine Ball : Pattern Maker
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Pattern Maker Essay
The works you see here are largely inspired by the patterns of my youth in the 1950s and 1960s. Among the patterns I remember and have used are:
The ceramic tiles on the bathroom floor, the lino tiles on the kitchen floor, the brickwork around the garden beds and in the chimney and fireplace, the beautiful markings of my first cat, the cast terracotta ventilation bricks, the shadows left on the walls by trees and leaves through the venetian blinds in the bedroom of my first home, Collaroy Plateau.
The polygons in simple geometry and Anthony’s fair isle jumpers at Collaroy Plateau West Primary School.
The stone walls and buildings where Grandma worked at Hunters Hill. The feathers from Auntie Jean’s peacocks. Auntie Dorothy’s crocheted rug, muumuus and the tiles on her bathroom floor.
The patterns in Mum’s cotton summer dresses, our beach towels and the raised up patterns on all our rubber thongs.
The intricate patterns in Mum’s camellias and ferns. The christmas bells, banksias and grevilleas in the bush around our house. The Big Rock near the bottom of Rose Avenue and Mrs Cunningham’s waratahs at the top of Rose Avenue. The flannel flower on our school badge.
The wooden spoked wheels and the radiator of Dad’s first car.
Geoffrey next door’s agate and rock collection.
Mum’s teatowels. Stoffels handkerchiefs.
The sandstone in the war memorial at the War Veterans’ Home, Collaroy Plateau
The fish, shells and fossils at Long Reef. The cotton shirt bought on a school excursion to Noumea.
Auntie Toni’s brick paths and leadlight windows at Randwick and Auntie Em’s tessellated tiles on her verandah at Northbridge.
Auntie Shirley’s Persian rugs, the Attic red and black figure pottery and ancient mosaics in her Italian art books.
The cast metal PMG and utility covers and grates in the concrete paths and roads of Sydney. Pressed metal ceilings in some of the old Sydney shops.
The stained glass windows in the church at Dee Why and in Aunt Flora’s kitchen cabinet. The colourful artwork at Manly Amusement Pier, snakes and ladders and comics.
The study of art history at Narrabeen Girls’ High where I first saw the work of MC Escher and Salvador Dali.
Christine Ball May, 2010
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