John Ferguson is a ceramic artist based in Adelaide, SA, who specialises in saggar fired ceramics. He trained as a thrower at Old Ballarat Pottery from 1977-1978, then spent two years with Joan Campbell in Fremantle, WA through a Crafts Board traineeship grant. In 1980 and 1981, he travelled and worked in New Zealand experimenting in low-fired saggar ware. From 1983-1987, he worked in the Pitjantjatjara Freehold Lands, first as a field officer then as community craft administrator and educator. He has also worked as a production thrower for several South Australian potters and as artist in residence at Parks Community Complex, SA, and The Ballarat University Arts Academy. In 2001, he began a two-year collaboration with the artist David Bromley, throwing large pots for Bromley and other painters to decorate. Recently, he has exhibited and conducted workshops in India. In his own work, his self-contained doughnut and cycladic forms expose an internal energy under their burnished black surfaces. Pieces are thrown, turned, sprayed with terra sigillata, polished with lambswool, encased in sawdust in a tightly-sealed saggar and once-fired. Work may be marked with an impressed 'JF'.
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