The unstoppable creativity of ceramicist Pippin Drysdale
SOURCE:ABC Australia|BY:Emma Wynne
The first retrospective of the ceramic artist's work has gone on show in Perth at the state gallery, telling the story of an extraordinary career.
At 82, artist Pippin Drysdale brims with energy and humour.
The renowned Western Australian ceramic artist's major retrospective, Infinite Terrain, opened in December at the Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA), and its creation is due, in part, to a spirited encounter with Colin Walker, AGWA's director.
The two met at a private gallery opening several years ago but Drysdale had no idea who he was.
"He said 'oh do you go to the art gallery much?' and I said 'no, they don't give a rat's arse about me'," she says.
"And then he wrote me a note saying 'oh, we'll have to change that' or something. Colin's never let me live that down."
Pippin Drysdale grew herbs and made paper flowers before turning to ceramics. (ABC News: Emma Wynne)
The subsequent exhibition has involved a mammoth effort by curator Isobel Wise, tracking down work from a prolific 40 years and bringing them together to tell the story of Drysdale's creative arc.
"Isobel has done an amazing job," she says.
"I was battling with her in the beginning and somehow, it's like the taming of the shrew — I'm not easy.
"She has pushed on and for me to have that privilege of suddenly feeling that my whole journey has come together; it's creating for me a wonderful sense of how much I've done."
One of Pippin Drysdale's early pieces, Irregular slab form, 1985. (ABC News: Emma Wynne)
'I just fell on my feet'
Drysdale is the first to admit hers is has not been the career of a struggling artist.
She was born in Melbourne in 1943 and grew up in Perth, and, as a child she always loved art.
She had several enterprises before turning to ceramics, including growing herbs and making and selling paper flowers in Melbourne before the urge to go into pottery seized her in 1981.
She and a friend enrolled in a three-year diploma at what was then Perth Tech.
"Anyhow, well off we went on this three-year madness," she says of her TAFE course, which was followed by a decision to go to the US to study at Anderson Ranch, an arts centre in Colorado, which she funded by selling off work she'd made at Fremantle Arts Centre.
"I filled the car up, took them all down to the Freo arts centre to flog them came home with $5,500 cash and threw it on the floor and said 'I'm going to America'.
A piece from Drysdale's Eastern Goldfields series III, made in 1998. (ABC News: Emma Wynne)
"I went by Hawaii, had a wonderful little affair there then rushed off to America and then ended up in the Anderson Ranch with all such a diversity of cultures and we had the most amazing lecturers.
"I just fell on my feet everywhere I went, and then I finally came home from this amazing journey after nearly a year."
After settling back into the cottage in Fremantle her father bought her, where she still lives and works, she went to Curtin University to complete a degree in Fine Arts.
"I then started at Curtin, had three extraordinary years there, and the rest is history," she says.
A piece from Pippin Drysdale's 2017 Pilbara series III - Ominous clouds. (ABC News: Emma Wynne)
Inspired by travel
In the years after her studies, Drysdale embarked on a series of journeys that shaped her work. These included, in the early nineties, spending months in Italy at the Grazia Maioliche di Deruta factory before going onto the Siberian city of Tomsk for a residency at the university.
She recalled a hair-raising series of events involving a stolen handbag, a missing passport and arriving in the previously closed city shortly after Russia opened up to the outside world, along with visits to Moscow and Saint Petersburg.
A piece from Pippin Drysdale's Russian series - OTT, 1993. (ABC News: Emma Wynne)
"It was like living in a Fellini movie — it was crazy stuff and we were the first English-speaking people to arrive in Tomsk and Tomsk had only been opened one week," she says.
"They'd send a bus and take us out to a dacha [summer house] where they'd make great big vats of wonderful chamomile tea where we sweated like crazy then they'd come in and whip you with birch leaves."
The result of everything she saw in Europe was what she came to call her OTT (over the top) series, using blacks and white and lustres of silver and gold in her work.
She then had another change of style in the late 1990s, with trips to remote parts of Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
"I was just blown away. I felt so humble at the age of 50 to go out and walk in gorges and camp in the Bungles and even took helicopters."
The result has been multiple series of work deeply infused with the landscapes she sees in her travels.
Drysdale doesn't take photographs or sketches on her trips.
"I'm lousy, I just seem to absorb everything visually and emotionally really.
"I'm not one for writing, I think after Curtin University, having to have a stupid book and write down what you're thinking and doing, which I hated.
"I just experience it and then whatever comes, comes."
Three pieces from Pippin Drysdale's 2006 series, Tanami traces series V. (ABC News: Emma Wynne)
A pivotal collaboration
Since 1992, Drysdale has worked with fellow potter Warrick Palmateer, who throws the exquisite porcelain vessels which are her canvas.
"He has been a pivotal part of my practice. I'm sure I would never have existed if I hadn't had Warrick in my life," she said.
It was Palmateer who sparked a major shift in Drysdale's work in 2016, encouraging her to look at the Karlu Karlu/The Devil's Marbles, a series of large, precariously balanced granite boulders in the Northern Territory, south of Tennant Creek.
Two sets from Drysdale's Breakaway series IV - Elephant Rocks (front) and Wolf Creek Crater (back), made in 2025. (ABC News: Emma Wynne)
That signalled a shift from symmetrical, open vessels to more organic, closed pieces that reflect the natural formations.
"Warrick was the one that said, 'let's look at the Devil's Marbles' and that was a big influence on me," she said.
"As much as I love the pure form, I was ready to create something more sculptural, and he was amazing."
It took a year of experimentation to produce the smooth, asymmetrical boulder forms without cracking.
It set Drysdale off on a new creative roll.
The resulting series now form superb landscapes in AGWA's first floor gallery, set on wide plinths that allow visitors to see the work without it being behind glass.
Works from Drysdale's 2024 Breakaway series III - The patterning of light: Swift parrot installation, a response to the plight of the critically endangered parrot. (ABC News: Emma Wynne)
Never in the safe zone
Drysdale's work is now sought after all around the world, including by a friend she refers to as Stoker Devonshire (real name Peregrine Cavendish, 12th Duke of Devonshire, who resides at Chatsworth House), who has amassed a substantial collection of Drysdale's work.
"He's been such a catalyst. They did become wonderful friends (and) I've been to stay there many times over the years," she said.
At 82, Drysdale has no plans to slow down. The backyard studio she has worked in for forty years is stocked with pure white porcelain vessels ready for the painstaking work of glazing, etching and sanding.
After a short break in December, she will be back in the studio, preparing work for another show.
"I'll start working in January, I've got a lot of blanks down there that I need to work on."
Pippin Drysdale's Fremantle studio with pieces reading for etching and glazing. (ABC News: Emma Wynne)
Each piece involves hours and days of work.
"There's so many parts to it and you can never rest on your laurel. You have a little run where it's fabulous then the kiln starts playing up and you just aren't getting the glazes to fuse.
"You're never in the safe zone, I can tell you, it's always a drama."
But she's under no illusions about how extraordinary her career has been.
"I have been born under a lucky star," she says.
"I've been so loved and somehow one door opens another shuts, and I've just had the most amazing journey of a lifetime really."
Pippin Drysdale: Infinite Terrain is at the Art Gallery of Western Australia until April 6, 2026.