about me

I’m a Kamberri/Canberra-based ceramic artist. My work draws on my local landscape the the journey that brought me here, in forms influenced by the Brindabella range, the night sky over Canberra, and the boats that nestle in the Lake Burley Griffin shoreline.

I continually explore vessels to hold local flowers and foliage. I love the dynamic of this form - it invites us to bring the changing season inside and to co-create a living sculpture. In Japanese Tea practice, ‘the flower chooses the vase’ - the work is animated by its relationship to nature.

I particularly love wood firing - the raw and very physical collaboration with the natural environment and the surrender to frame. My ash and Shino-style glazes show the reich properties of Canberra clay and wood and my textured surfaces recall the marks left by human hands and tool on Australia’s landscaope.

influences from Tea

In high school, I spent a year on a Rotary exchange to Gifu, Japan. It led me to a lifetime of working in Japan and Asia. My artistic practice for decades was Japanese Tea - curating artisanal works and meditative experiences. I switched to making pottery in 2020. You can see my ceramics CV here and my other professional work here.

Gifu is the home of oribe and shino wares and I am intrigued by the unpredictability of those glaze surfaces. To me they have a density and embodied energy that transmits from the maker to the person receiving the vessel .

potter’s mark

My potter’s mark (紅) (Beni, crimson) is is the first syllable of ‘Veronica’ in Chinese characters: 紅露仁香 (as read in Japanese) to mean, ‘a flash of crimson kimono underskirt and the trace of perfume as a figure passes through the dewy garden’.

Tea bowl: Kondō Takahiro (Japanese, b 1958) Courtesy of Lesley Kehoe Galleries; kobukusa (silk coaster) in seiha (‘Refreshing waves’) design: Veronica Taylor. Photo credit: David Macarthur

Veronica Taylor 紅           

ceramics teaching

2025       Interpreter/teaching assistant, Canberra Potters’ Masterclass (Masaru Nishikawa)

ceramics training

 2026      

Canberra Potters’ Soda Firing Masterclass (Maryke Henderson) + Tableware (Chris Harford)

2025      

Old St Luke’s Studio, Gundaroo (Moraig McKenna)

Canberra Potters’ Masterclass (Aaron Scythe)

 2024      

Slow Clay Centre, Melbourne (Pru Venables) (Jane Sawyer)

Canberra Potters’ Masterclasses (Kazuya Ishida) (Rob Linigen)+  Continuing Clay (Chris Harford, Maryke Henderson)

Balmoral Pottery, NSW (Simon Levin)

Online intensive (John Dix)

 2023      

Stoker Studio, Victoria, Intensive (Malcolm Greenwood)

Online Intensive (Akira Satake and Ken Matsuzaki

Sturt Craft Centre, Anagama Firing (Jann Kesby, Steve Harrison, Ben Richardson, Joey Burns)

Canberra Potters’ Electric and Gas Kiln Licences

 2020- 2023

Canberra Potters’ Beginner, Continuing, Glaze and Kilns courses (Anna O’Neale, Georgie Bryant, Joey Burns, Chris Harford, Maryke Henderson)

 1980 - 2020  

Practitioner, Chadô Urasenke (Way of Tea)

 awards and recognition

2023     Canberra Potters’ Student/Teacher Exhibition (Best surface decoration)

2020       Tea master, Chadô Urasenke (artistic name: So’i 宗衣)

2017       Japanese Foreign Minister’s Citation

 exhibitions

2025       Canberra Potters’ Members’ Exhibition

2024     Canberra Potters’ Student/Teacher Exhibition; Canberra Potters’ Members’ Exhibition

2023     Canberra Potters’ Student/Teacher Exhibition

 curation

2019        

Concept and Curator, ANU Japan Institute + SOAD, Symposium and Display:  OBJECTively, National Museum of Australia

1997         Australian Teawares Exhibition, Tsuta Gallery, Tokyo (with Margaret Price)

1996         Australian Teawares Exhibition, Australian Embassy, Tokyo  (with Margaret Price)

 exhibition openings

2025         Canberra Potters’ 50th anniversary Members’ Exhibition

2021       Opening remarks, Golden Shells and the Gentle Mastery of Japanese Lacquer Collection of Dr Pauline Gandel AC, National Gallery Victoria

2019         OBJECTively, National Museum of Australia

films and videos

2023         Teabowls: the aesthetics of ‘feel’  (Alistair Whyte, Master Potter)(15:00) (Direction and editing)

2022         Invitation to Tea (2:38)(Script and editing) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vSDKL6CNpc)

 service

2024-     President and Board Chair, Canberra Potters’ Society Inc, Watson Arts Centre ACT

practice development

2025 -    Evolve and Evolve Next Level (Amy Kennedy

memberships

2025 -    The Australian Ceramics Association

                  Canberra Craft + Design

                  Strathnairn Arts, ACT

2020 -   Canberra Potters’ Society Inc.