Les Blakebrough

In December 2010 Les sold his Hobart house, packed up his studio at the Centre for the Arts and stored the two containers. So came to an end the teaching and research at The Tasmanian School of Art that had spaned thirty-eight years.

The Bett Gallery exhibition Five Decades of Wonder and the publication of the Bett Gallery monograph Les Blakebrough – Ceramics was the conclusion of that long association with Tasmania.

The move to Sydney to join Anne Ferran in Darlinghurst saw in the new year of 2011, and later a house was rented at Thirroul on the near south coast to explore the possibilities of buying a house/studio.
In September we found a house at Coledale with space that would convert to a studio. This is an ongoing project along with developing a new garden, putting a stamp on the house that was big enough to also house daughter Cybelle and her two girls Claudia and Helena.
Commuting between Darlinghurst in Sydney and the Coledale house is an hour’s drive, or an hour and twenty minuets on the train.

A new garden has been a challenging project and the rain forest vegetation and climate of this stretch of coast a new experience. The sea is warm enough to swim and the 50m ocean rock pool is five minuets walk from the house.

Meanwhile there is stock at Bett Gallery in Hobart and Sabbia Gallery in Paddington Sydney and the monograph is available from the Bett Gallery.

An update to early 2015

The studio is ‘settled’ and a lot of work is being made for coming exhibitions. The studio has now been functioning since 2012. Several large groups of work for exhibitions in 2013/14/&15 have been completed. Work from the latest exhibition at Sabbia Gallery in Sydney November 2014 went into a national collection of The Australiana Fund for Public Buildings.

A two week residency at Bundanon in early 2015 allowed work to begin on preliminary writing for an auto- biography.

Later in 2015 accompanying partner Anne Ferran to the Australia Council Studio in Helsinki will enable Les to re-visit The Arabia Factory where he worked in 1993. A project is planned for that visit.