Adrian Potter is an articulate, passionate man who speaks about his work and the issues that motivated him to create the various pieces in this very elegant exhibition with clarity and eloquence. Potter trained originally as a mechanical engineer, working for many years with a company manufacturing windscreen wipers. Inspiration, generated by reading a number of James Krenor's books, particularly A Cabinetmaker's Notebook , led him to leave engineering for a place in the wood working workshop at the Canberra School of Art. He trained with the late George Ingham, a man with whom he developed a strong bond, describing Ingham's work as having a level and quality to which he could respond. Following this, he spent two years at the Jam Factory in Adelaide as an associate designer in the furniture workshop before setting up his own studio eight years ago.
This current exhibition revolves around the theme of water the pieces speaking to various aspects of Potter's concerns with water in this country being both a resource and a political tool. Central to this, Potter plays with a number of concepts around ideas of Australians' relationship with water; how we use and view water and our geographical position inhabiting the largest island on the planet. A Certain Maritime Affair is a multi-layered piece. Taking its form from the Regency display cabinets of the period correlating with the first settlement by white colonists, it is a tall, elegant chest of drawers on fine legs, surmounted by a glass display cabinet containing a model of a three masted ship inspired by James Cook's Endeavour.
At its simplest level, this work relates to the fact that white Australians and/or their ancestors came to this country on ships. However, there are a multitude of further meanings to be found in the ship itself. As did the Endeavour , Potter's ship has three masts. However, Potter's masts are in the form of Christian crosses, representing Christian would-be immigrants who attempted to make their way here, but never arrived. Inspired by events around the 2001 Federal election, Potter's ship becomes an emblem of the ships turned away from our shores by a government attempting to exercise power over who could and couldn't gain access to this country. Carved into the stern of the model is an X', representing the SIEV X (Suspected Illegal Entry Vessel X), a ship that was making its way to Australian shores around the same time as the Tampa . That the ship was on its way was known to government authorities. The ship sank, with a loss of some 350 of the 400 lives on board.
The choice of timbers used in the execution of the piece is, like all the work in the collection, reflective of the connection to the theme. The main case of the cabinet is Australian Red Cedar, a timber much used by early Australian cabinetmakers for its similarity in appearance to European Mahogany. Potter has used the patterns in the grain on the sides of the cabinet to create the effect of waves, further adding to the imagery of the ocean. The geared mechanism, operated by turning a handle mounted on the side of the piece, echoes the novelty cabinets of the Regency Period with its fascination for things mechanical in this case, moving finely formed slats of timber to simulate the movement of waves around the ship.
The Real Gordon Dam is a tall chest of drawers, which is a symbolic, but tantalizingly direct portrayal of the Gordon Dam in Tasmania . The damming of the Gordon River and the subsequent loss of Lake Pedar was the issue that coalesced a burgeoning environmental movement into the political force we see today in the Green Party. Built entirely of Tasmanian timbers Huon Pine, Blackwood, Beech, Celery Pine and Leatherwood the chest offers us a view of the dam wall looked at from the river side of the dam. The front is a convex curve, with the double layer of concrete in the original dam wall replicated in the construction of the carcass, creating, in turn, finger pulls at the sides of the drawers. A fine veneer layer of Blackwood around the edges of the drawers signifies the earth, while the central panel of Huon, made up of narrow strips, is a direct appropriation of the layers of concrete forming the actual dam wall.
Potter himself holds no particular position on the rights and wrongs of damming the river, but sees the situation as an important part of Australian political history. He poses the question; what do you develop? Should we be looking to increase our manufacturing and industrial development, or should we be looking to maximise our tourism potential? Again, Potter offers no answers to these questions, contributing instead, via his work, to the discourse. That the dam is used to produce cheap electricity via a natural resource, is an important part of that discourse.
A third piece, Water Music , has no political significance. Instead, this is a whimsical cabinet designed to hold hi fi equipment and CDs. Housed within the cabinet is a fully programmable sampler with a range of water sounds, so that upon opening any of the doors one is regaled with the sounds of waves, rain and running water. As with the other pieces, the drawers feature delicate handmade dovetail joinery, and idiosyncratic knobs in this case, square knobs with turned concentric circles cut into the front surface mimicking the concentric circles on the top of the surface when a pebble is dropped into the water.
In an enormously ironic statement, Potter has entitled his drinks cabinet, Parched . A tall narrow cabinet, the primary feature of this piece is the surface, formed by cutting fine beech veneer with a scroll saw then moving the pieces apart slightly before attaching them to a mahogany base a particularly clear portrayal of the deeply cracked, dry mud in the bottom of an empty water hole in drought times. Potter has carried the irony of this piece further into the construction methods, utilizing steam bent joinery techniques in the formation of the carcass. The interior space is divided into a series of neat dovetailed drawers and a pullout serving tray. The silky smooth finish of the oiled surface belies the searing message behind this piece, the fine grain of the timber speaking of a degree of loving care not always accorded to our environment.
High Water Table is a collaborative piece. Both the concept of the piece and the title predate the final design. This is a tall side table made of River Redgum, a notoriously tricky timber with which to work, the tightly twisted grain very evident in the polished surfaces of the finished piece. The standing panel on the top of the piece is a black and white aerial photograph of the Murray River in the Waikerie region on stained glass, mounted over a layer of salt the salt being allowed to show through in the course of the river itself. From a distance, this has the appearance, almost, of a tapestry. It wasn't until I got close to it that I realized it's photographic origins. Potter's sense of irony surfaces again in his title, a play on the piece itself, with the rising water table bring more and more salt to the surface as irrigation strips the river of its natural cycles.
Notwithstanding the clear political statements inherent in this collection of very fine work, it is important to remain very aware that they are all fully functional pieces of furniture. First and foremost, this is Potter's aim to create the type of high quality, hand made pieces cabinetmakers have been renowned for throughout history. His choice of timbers is reflective of this careful thought Cedar of Lebanon being used, for instance, in the drawers of A Certain Maritime Affair for the delicate scent of the timber when the drawers are opened. It is his hope that the highly individual nature of these pieces will appeal to the discerning collector looking for something more than the mass-produced article so common to today's furniture design. He sees the potential for a connection between to the potential owner of one of these works and the piece itself beyond any of the meaning he has invested in the creative process.
Karen Finch is an Adelaide-based artist and writer currently completing a Masters Degree in Art History and Curating at Adelaide University
Last modified 28-Apr-2006
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