Kerrie Lightbody

As with many potters, Kerrie’s career started with a hobby class. Not content with that, she went on to do an Associate Diploma in Ceramics at Casey TAFE, finishing with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in ceramic design at Monash University Frankston campus.

In her Honours year at university she started working with bone china and continues to do so today.  Kerrie loves the fragility and translucency that can be achieved with this medium. Her body of work at this time consists of piercing and sandblasting the bone china pieces after slipcasting them into moulds she designs and makes herself. The piercing is done at the leather hard stage; this can be tricky as bone china is thixatropic (meaning it returns to a jelly-like state with vibration). After a low bisque firing at 700oC they are polished with wet and dry sandpaper (for hours!). The work is then fired at 1220oC and re-polished.

Living between the ocean and the bay at Rye on the Mornington Peninsula, Kerrie continues to be inspired by her surroundings and the flotsam and jetsam of everyday life. As she was in her 40's when she started this wondrous journey with clay, her only regret is that the journey didn't start earlier.