40 years on.

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LAST YEAR I TRAVELLED TO KOBLENZ IN GERMANY FOR one of the highlights of my career as a potter. I was awarded the Salzbrand Keramik 2006 prize. This achievement meant much more to me than the mere award. It manifested itself as the culmination of a 40 year love/ hate relationship with the process of salt-glazing. As any potter who struggles with this fickle process knows, it can be an expensive, frustrating and often soul-destroying exercise. I have often opened the salt kiln to find that months of work has been destroyed by any number of catastrophic events: floor blowouts, misplaced snotters, shelves melted or collapsed. It takes a strong constitution and a healthy degree of tenacity to persist with such an unforgiving process. However, I have always found salt-glazing to be an addictive challenge. I needed to push the boundaries and discover its secrets and vulnerabilities.

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When Dr Karl-Jurgen Wilbert, chief judge for the Salzbrand Award and Director of the Galerie Handwerk Koblenz, asked me how I felt on receiving the prize I answered that I at last felt understood. The Saltzbrand Keramik International Award takes place every five years in the heart of the region which is known as the birthplace of salt-glazing. When I learnt that the judges decision had been unanimous and that I was the first non-European to receive the award I felt both pride and vindication.

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During my time in Koblenz I was fortunate to be taken to the excellent Westerwald museum of ceramics, which is a short drive from the city. The highlight of my visit there was admission to the Aladdin's cave of treasures in the vast storeroom area. I felt overwhelmed and privileged when faced with the thousands of pots collected and stored to represent 700 years of salt-glazing history. The pots reflected the changes in industrial and domestic design over the centuries but the rich and basic honesty of the glazes linked them proudly through these generations. The experience was humbling and even more so when the museum's director, Monika Gass, expressed the desire to acquire two of my pieces from the exhibition to add to their collection.

Although salt-glazing is my first love, I also have a passion for the terra sigillata process. In 1987 I received a major commission from Romaldo Giurgola and Pamille Berg for the New Parliament House in Canberra. During the completion of these massive pieces for the Cabinet entry and Prime Minister's suite I had to invent and develop methods for decorating and firing the pieces successfully. The whole process was costly, fraught with disasters and distressing at times.

However, the completed pieces are still considered by me as one of my finest achievements. I continue to explore and refine this process, although on a smaller scale these days. I have also had some exciting and encouraging success while exploring the possibilities of combining the terra sigillata surfaces with the salt-glazing process. This is one of my current passions.

I am unashamedly a product of the Leach/ Hamada tradition. For 40 years I have been inspired and encouraged by potters such as Peter Rushforth, Reg Preston and Harold Hughan. Some might say that this is an old school, which is somewhat outdated. To me, it is a tradition that represents the essence of working with clay. The lines are pure and balanced, the forms are honest, proud and passionate. The skill involved requires technical ability, respect for tradition, a practical understanding of function and design, together with humility and reverence for the material and the process.

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About 30 years ago I was struggling to produce the work for an upcoming exhibition. Feeling stressed, exhausted and vulnerable I collapsed in front of the TV. A timely program showed the simple forms which were made in Indonesia some 3000 years previously. These timeless well-balanced, simple forms reinforced the fact that it had all been done before. As with music, architecture, painting and sculpture there are classical traditions that can still stir the emotions hundreds of years later. I went back to work the next day inspired by the program and comfortable in the knowledge that I didn't have to invent the wheel. I only needed to nurture the process and the work would evolve more naturally and honestly.

I moved from Melbourne more than 30 years ago to establish my home studio (Kirbys Flat Pottery) in the picturesque Yackandandah valley. I have not regretted the move away from the city in which I had established my reputation even though it has meant that I work in total isolation from others in my field. Occasionally a collector will visit my gallery--they thought I had stopped making pots years ago.

My passion for clay and for the process is just as strong as it ever was. I think my recent works are the best pots I have ever made. Even though the property has been devastated by bushfire, drought and a tornado within the past five years and firings still fail, I think I have grown as a person in this time and my work has evolved more richly because of it.

Two other important sources of inspiration and fulfilment for me arise through my passions for the Australian outback and photography. I endeavour to travel to the desert each year. This recharges my creative battery, nurtures my love of photography, inspires my pottery and reinforces the focus on traditional values. It is a humbling experience, as the seasoned traveller would understand. My studio gallery exudes my love of the desert through my photographs on the walls and the forms and surfaces on my pots.

John Dermer holds a major exhibition on the last weekend of November at his studio gallery every year since moving to Yackandandah. This year there will be a special celebration to mark the 30th Annual Exhibition and 40 years of making pots. Peter Rushforth, will open the show, which will feature 40 special pots together with recent photographs. www.johndermer.com.au.