Amanda Shelsher, Western Australia: Carving Out Shelter, Motherhood, Home…

~ Meryl Streep

“Suddenly she was here. And I was no longer pregnant; I was a mother. I never believed in miracles before.”
~ Ellen Greene

F ew emotions come anywhere close to the experience of becoming a parent. Yes, there are other powerful milestones in life, many of them so profoundly meaningful we are moved to write songs about them, compose poetry, choreograph entire ballets, operas… And then there is that moment when you hold your newborn in your arms and it hits you: Wow. This is the real thing. This is…life with a capital “L.” Why we search so hard to find one other. Why we love. For…this. This moment. And all the moments that will proceed after, from this day on. You get it.

Such a universal experience, this business of becoming a parent, of accepting all the responsibilities that come with taking on this role. The weight of it. And yet…ultimately, each mother, each father, is also traveling this journey alone.

And so to try to capture the complexity of this journey in a work of art, say, in a sculpture, is at once an impossible undertaking ~ because, truthfully, each of us is figuring this out anew as we go, as if no one had ever parented before we came along ~ and yet at the same time, what could be more primal? Because when it comes right down to it, being a parent is, as writer Elizabeth Stone expressed it so well, “to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”

INTERVIEW WITH AMANDA SHELSHER, SCULPTURAL CERAMIC ARTIST 

Perth, Western Australia ~

Amanda Shelsher: Yes I have a soft spot for this one too. I’ve always loved surreal art and this was also the first work where I featured two children, which I made when my own kids were very young: four and two years old. While working on that solo show, I was torn between working those excessive hours six months solid and yet also wanting to be with my kids.

Ever since I became a mother, my children have just naturally become central to my work. That instinctive and nurturing relationship between mother and child.

The large figure in this piece is, of course, myself, and I have placed my children on the safety of their mother’s back. As art critic Judith McGrath said to me once, this piece sums up the burden of motherhood with her bent back but also the love we have for our children.

Deanna Phoenix Selene: Did your perspective on risk versus safety change for you after becoming a mother? How do you resolve that tension in your own work?

 Amanda Shelsher: Yes it did but mainly due to my son being sick for the first fifteen months of his life and requiring rather huge amounts of doctor visits and emergency surgery. I felt very let down by doctors and specialists who dismissed his health issues until we finally landed on the right doctor who knew what to do. Looking after my son who was not eating or sleeping, and all-the-while fighting health professionals and having to just go by my gut really brought out my protective instincts.

Continuing to produce my art throughout this period kept me sane and became a powerful way of expressing what I was going through.

Amanda Shelsher: I love mixing things up. These pieces came about in the development of my solo show, “Garden of Curiosities” at FORM Gallery in Perth Australia.

They were documenting houses around my street in Inglewood. We were living close to Perth ~ four kilometers out from the inner city, living in a lovely 1930’s art deco Californian bungalow style house. I love architecture and dreaming of house design. But I was also yearning for country life and wanting to be able to allow my kids to run around freely, surrounded by nature. I felt my kids were disconnected from nature.

As a child, I grew up in the hills of Perth, and my husband grew up on a wheat and sheep farm out in Corrigin, in rural West Australia.

I couldn’t help comparing the childhood I’d had to what my own kids knew. So I started to document houses and draw on the figure as a way of battling this issue in my consciousness.

I really enjoy drawing on the works as it allows quiet contemplative time for me, especially at nighttime when the kids are in bed. These pieces are porcelain and they have slip painted on them, and then I engrave onto their bodies using a scalpel. This process is called sgraffito: the white clay is revealed underneath and creates the image. I was very proud when this piece was acquired by the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra and know it has a good home.

 

 Safe as Houses | Amanda Shelsher

Amanda Shelsher: Yes. Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve had a love of birds and winged creatures. I collect nests, and birds always appear in my works. For me, they originally were about the freedom I’d experienced when I spent three years traveling around the world, which inspired a hunger for travel. So I compromised and created birds with human faces talking to me.

For this one: Settling down in Perth and knowing the time was nearing to have kids, made my birds take on new meaning. In this piece, the nest sits precariously on her head as she’s trying her best to be a good mum and provide a good home. But of course, the reality is that in our house it’s usually pretty manic.

Amanda Shelsher: Yes, I completed a Bachelor of Visual arts degree, then went on to to become an art teacher, so I earned a graduate diploma of Education. My mother took up ceramics when I was eight, so I learned an enormous amount from her and had the freedom to work with clay since that young age.

I have created clay animals and people since I was a little girl. Creating each of these individual works can take ages or be quite fast, depending on one’s mindset. I hand-build everything using slab or coil and build up the bodies. Then, while drying, I typically will start another piece as well. The first part is very physically demanding, but once I get onto the details I can sit and work in a very meditative state. Each piece typically takes about six weeks to complete. Yes, I have my own huge kiln in my studio.

Deanna Phoenix Selene: Who or what has most deeply inspired you?

Amanda Shelsher: I would say my mum has been a huge influence on me, allowing me to create and nurture my talent by enrolling me in courses and allowing me to study art and recognizing how important the arts are in society. My dad too is a painter and both parents were very encouraging and to this day are my biggest fans.

I was also particularly inspired as a child traveling to Europe to visit relatives, and seeing the amazing artworks in the churches and museums. These first memories as a five-year-old are still as strong today. I loved learning about art at school and had a fantastic art teacher, Mrs. Tooke, and we lived and breathed all the different artists and learning about all the different art movements.

I collected art books nonstop and loved reading about art and soaking everything up with my special group of friends, who to this day are involved in the arts. We had a great group of kids who loved and respected art. To this day, I love looking at the American figurative ceramic artists and UK ceramic artists. Too many to mention but I would love to be closer so I could travel and do workshops with some of these artists.

Deanna Phoenix Selene: What themes do you plan to explore next in your work?

Amanda Shelsher: My works are now changing to reflect the older ages of my kids and the sense of fun cheekiness and outdoor play that they are constantly engaged in. I will always have my family as the basis of my works and reflect on what’s going on in my life. So as they grow, my works will also change.

My works are getting larger and exploring new scales.