Angie Russi’s first ceramics project was to research Chinese tea bowls and now the artist comes full circle in her practice with her winning teacup.

Growing up in country Victoria, Angie Russi says the importance of sharing a cuppa was instilled in her young. “One of my earliest memories as a child was being tasked with the job of taking the basket of scones, flasks of hot tea, sugar and milk to the shearing shed where everyone would stop work and gather around, seated on the wool bales for a cuppa,” she recalls. “My treat was to be hoisted onto the knee of a shearer where I would be transfixed by a story that was told amidst the aroma of hot sugary tea and lanolin.”

Little did young Angie know that her life would circle back to tea in numerous ways. In her final year of school, for example, her art teacher gave the class a project to research and create Chinese tea bowls. “It was the beginning of unfolding different ways of having tea, that ceremonial aspect of it and cultural aspect of it.”

Although the results – a series of hand-pinched “really badly decorated” cobalt oxide bowls – were less than stellar, she loved the experience and ended up studying fine art.

“I was more interested in painting, this romantic idea of painting in the attic somewhere,” she confesses. “I went everywhere to try and get into fine art painting and kept getting sent off to the sculpture and ceramics department, which was always downstairs, so it was this feeling of being demoted all the time. At RMIT I found that I could actually do an entire fine arts course and paint and sculpt and do print-making and cinema and major in ceramics.

“Working with ceramics actually gave me much more freedom than working on canvas and paint on a flat surface. It didn’t take me long at all to be beguiled by that lovely meditation of working on the wheel. And also, being able to sculpt and being able to paint it.”

Having just stepped away from a career in arts management where her time in the ceramics studio was limited to just one or two days a week (“you start so many things that never get finished”), Angie is now doing what she loves full time.

“The difference with being back full time is that that I can follow through,” she says. “I’ve come back to the studio with an absolute sense of gratitude. I’ve been tempered through the fire and I think I’ve come back to my practice in a more authentic way.”

The making of a cup winner

The Australian Tea Cultural Society’s Ceramic Cup Competition was the first contest Angie entered following her return to the studio. “I certainly make a lot of drinking vessels – tea bowls are a staple for me – and thought ‘maybe I could enter this and just see what happens’,” she says. “I was so thrilled at getting this gig because it’s a lovely welcome back to the studio.”

The winning cup is distinguished by its delicate lip and calligraphic brushstroke design – a feature she almost didn’t include. “I toyed with the idea of using typeface to write ‘AUSTCS’ but I decided to stay with my brushwork. It’s a nod to Sumi painting, that the brush, through your hand, has something to say each time that’s slightly different. It has to be mindful but free.”

The Japanese influence is drawn from her time creating a program at the Shepparton Art Museum some years ago, which she built around the philosophy of wabi-sabi, “the notion of the beauty of incompleteness and imperfection which honours nature in the ebb and flow of life to death and all the nuances of change in between – ‘the perfection of imperfection’,” she describes.

“The teacups for the seminar all obviously belong to the same family but each one is subtly different or ‘imperfect’ in our contemporary way of valuing a mechanised sameness. The brushwork is done with the hand and in its sweep across the white surface invites a spontaneity of movement. The human and the natural forces unite in a dance between brush and pigment.”

As for the lip, she says it’s all part of the connection between the maker and the drinker. “The act of making and drinking tea is an intimate and sacred act in all cultures and the vessel from which we select to drink is an important part of this ritual. In making the cups I pay attention to the rim of the vessel as it must feel pleasing when placed against the lips – it must be sensual and natural and at the same time deliver the tea to the mouth without obstruction or imposition.”

And her own drinking habits? To this day, Angie prefers cups without handles. For her, tea is “the drink that revives, nurtures and calms”.

It’s a sentiment she hopes will carry through when AUSTCS seminar delegates unbox their bespoke vessels. “I hope that each cup that is cradled in the hands of seminar participants is pleasurable to hold, warming and smooth against their hands, fostering an awareness of the subtle tactile nature of the brushwork and that the flavour of the tea is enhanced through the experience. I feel honoured to be chosen to make the teacups for the 2022 seminar and proud to be able to supply my work for this beautiful event.”

This article originally appeared in AUSTCS enews 28 July 2022. Mailchimp no longer allows external links to the original newsletter.