Sony Manning (1949- ) is a potter based at Brighton in south-east Melbourne. She became interested in clay and pigment inlay while studying for a Diploma of Fine Art (Ceramics) at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, and has continued to develop this technique over time in thrown, handbuilt and cast work. A year after graduating in 1978, she used a Crafts Board grant to learn the principles of mould making and plaster turning. She held her first solo exhibition, "The Secrets of the Hillsides and the Songs of the Forest", in 1980, and has exhibited widely across Australia ever since. Her beautifully detailed inlay designs, influenced by the landscapes of Arthur Boyd and, later, Gustav Klimt and Fred Williams, and coloured with metallic oxides, decorate simple bowl, cylinder and bottle forms. A hybrid horse-wolf animal is a constant motif identifying her work.
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