The dusty green and silver of the eucalypt is a majestic part of the Australian landscape. For Melanie Sharpham it is the tree’s intricate flowers that are the real gems. Melanie’s current body of work is inspired by the colour, form and spirit derived from the flowering Silver Princess Eucalypt.

“I wanted to try and capture the colour and the presence the tree has with its exquisite, perfectly formed flowers,” Melanie explains from her home studio in Perth. Surrounding her are boxes of her ceramic work recently returned from the kiln. As she unpacks the pieces a distinctive style emerges: slender bottles, delicate gumnut teacups and leaf shaped bowls pay subtle tribute to the princess gum. Some pieces are pure white; others are pastel pinks, greens and blues. All of them are delicate, calm pieces finished with meticulous care.

“I admire ceramic work that has that feeling of being finished and clean and the form is perfect,” Melanie says. “It’s a real discipline for me – I’m messy, clumsy, I break things all the time and I have been known to throw clay across the room in a rage! I have to really work at it. But part of the attraction is the discipline."

“I also really like the fact that it’s dirty and messy and you get covered in clay and you’re exhausted after it. And then you fire and finish the piece and you put it with a spotlight on it in a gallery, and it’s like a butterfly

transformed from a caterpillar. Working with clay is a real process from the dirt to the beautiful object at the end. That’s something that has always really attracted me.”

Melanie’s fascination with ceramics began after watching a potter throw mugs on a wheel in New Zealand. She returned home to Perth and began a course part time at TAFE, although she was so heavily pregnant she had to get her teacher to centre the clay for her. Now over a decade later Melanie has finished an Advanced Diploma in Art and Design (Studio Ceramics), got married and is about to give birth to her third child with husband David.

Most of Melanie’s early work has been on the wheel exploring textural work and Raku firing effects, but her current work uses slip casting.

“After I had my last child three years ago I didn’t have as much time to do what I was doing before. I found with slip casting that once I’d made the mould I didn’t have to spend as much time in the studio in one session. Also I was moving away from the round form, I wanted to explore organic forms. It’s moving into a new feel all together. Recently I also decided to

play around with coloured slip as it’s more predictable than working with glaze and produces the quality of colour I want.”

Melanie is part of Clay Feet, a group of ceramic artists who regularly meet to critique each other’s work. The group exhibits once a year in non-traditional venues like foyers and museums. Melanie also exhibits her work at Gunyulgup Gallery in the south west and retail outlets and galleries in Perth, Brisbane and Sydney.

“I want people to desire my work, and want to take it home. It’s really important to me that there’s an aesthetic there that people are drawn to. My work is really quite quiet; it has to be displayed in the right way or it gets swamped. It’s small, a lot of it is white (although I’m starting to use colour), and it’s the sort of thing you’d have on a little shelf with a down light on. I hope it’s like finding that beautiful flower on the tree – it’s not till you get up close to it that you notice how exquisitely beautiful it is.”

Exploring perfection and beauty has a spiritual aspect for Melanie.

“You know when you go into the forest and you have that presence that you feel, and you think God is so amazing - it blows me away.”

“That concept of beauty for me is about where you see God working, in the good things. It may not be in nature, it may be in people, but definitely when you look at something amazingly beautiful and creative you think there HAS to be a God, there’s no other way around it. Because I’m a Christian and this is what I believe it pervades what I do. “