Craft Lab 25 practitioners

Sylvia Aguirre is a multi-disciplinary artist who has a deep connection to the ancient craft of ceramics. Having spent her infant years in Chile, her work is deeply influenced by her heritage and has a discerning connection to the natural world.

During the exhibition, visitors can expect to see a display of Sylvia's figurative sculptures and raw sculptural vessels, showcasing her mastery of texture and form. Additionally, Sylvia will demonstrate a variety of works in progress, from preliminary drawings to the hand-building of sculptural pieces, giving a behind-the-scenes look at her creative process.

Anzara Clark is a Ballarat based multidisciplinary artist and designer who combines traditional craft and contemporary experimental approaches in her studio practice; exploring and stretching the limits and intersections of paper and fibre manipulation, textile processes and paper textiles. At Craft Lab 25, you will be able to see the transformation of paper into cloth and then into wearable garments and accessories where paper, as a textile, is both the foundation and hero of the work.

Based in Daylesford, Alison Cowan is a sculptor primarily working with  slumped, cast and blown glass. Working across a variety of media and experimenting with techniques, Alison’s practice incorporates images from both the mechanical and the natural world, often using objects found at second hand stalls. Playing with visual balance of shapes, the opaque and transparent, natural and artificial, solid and light, Alison is more recently drawn to shadows created by glass in her ongoing practice.

Jen Crossley is a mixed-media artist who has called Miners Rest, Ballarat, home for the past 39 years. Her artistic practice is rooted in repurposing antique items; breathing new life into forgotten treasures of the past.  Jen encourages others to see the beauty in the forgotten and to discover their own artistic talents along the way. Her classes are a place of creative exploration and support, offering students the chance to engage with art while preserving the stories of the past.

Bryan Cush is the Irish-born designer/maker of Sawdust Bureau, whose workshop is nestled amongst the Stringybark’s of the Woowookarung Forest. The studio fuses his 15 years of studying and practising Architecture around the globe with his passion for sculptural craft and local indigenous timbers. With influences from Scandinavian and Japanese craft through to modernist and brutalist architecture, we strive for unique design with a distinctly Australian accent.

Stuart Davidson is a passionate, multi-disciplinary artist and furniture designer dedicated to creating intuitive, handcrafted pieces as unique as the materials that inspire them. Craft Lab 25 visitors can expect to see Stuart in action, wielding traditional hand tools like a drawknife, spokeshaves, and shaping tools to carve the perfect stool seats. He’s also ready to dive into the technical side of things, showing off the angled drilling process that creates those iconic tapered mortices and tenon joints, the backbone of his stool designs.

Sarah Jane Hall is a proud Narungga artist with Celtic ancestral ties living on Wadawurrung Country. She blends Traditional cultural practices with modern art, spending time and sourcing materials on Guuranda (Narungga traditional lands). As a strong advocate for mental health education and creating change in community, Sarah Jane believes art can be a powerful tool for healing and connection. Sarah Jane’s work reflects her passion, creativity, and unwavering dedication to preserve the cultural heritage of her ancestors, honour ceremony and a celebration of her Aboriginal Identity.

Debbie’s art practice has primarily focused on drawing, including working with books and other 3-dimensional objects. Over the last 7 years, she has been creating hand- formed ceramic sculptures from porcelain. In recent times, she has combined her drawing practice with her ceramic forms. At Craft Lab Debbie will be demonstrating the construction of her forms and the process of creating the intricate details that she utilises to complete her pieces

Rose Hudson commenced her millinery life in 1979 working for some of Melbourne’s top millinery houses before starting work at the Melbourne Theatre Company. During her tenure of 20 years at MTC, she undertook freelance work for the Australian Ballet, Australian Opera, The Victorian State Opera and worked on numerous film and television projects creating hats and headwear for hundreds of productions. In 2010 Rose opened her own business in Hampton where she continued her freelance theatre work and private millinery commissions. In 2019 Rose moved to Ballarat where her work continues.

Dr Louiseann King is a sculptor/installation artist and academic, whose work over the past 20 years has examined notions of transience, the environment, mutability, metamorphosis, value and the domestic, nationhood and time. King’s work is inherently about the construction of meaning over time and how this is produced through the re-imagined familiar. Working with poetic nuance King evokes time, place and memory through material, making processes and sound.

Since learning the trade in 2001, Paul has mastered his signature style of Australian furnishings, inspired by the clean and simple styles of mid-century design and architecture. With the belief that furniture should look as good from the back as it does from the front, Paul, under his business name Clampdown Woodworks, creates high quality products, eliminating the use of plywood and metal fixtures. From design to delivery, Paul ensures his clients receive a genuine experience as he crafts unique and personalised furniture. 

Jessica Larm is a Finnish-Australian artist and jewellery maker with a studio in Ballarat, regional Victoria. Heavily influenced by the visual language of Finland, her arts practice is driven to capture the feeling and connection with the motherland and this aesthetic. Jessica’s vision is to create handmade jewellery that explores the art form as an intimate sculptural object held close to the human body, that conveys personal meaning to the wearer.

A participant in study at School of Mines Ballarat under Neville French and by association with potters through the Ballarat Ceramic Group and the Victorian Ceramic Group, John O’Loughlin’s ceramic work deeply reflects his Catholic beliefs in miracles and spirituality. 

Through use of crusting, crazing and different materials, John creates pieces that appear aged, antiquated and archeological.  Experience more of John’s award-winning practice at Craft Lab 25.

Pigment and paint maker Jeremy Parker has a passion for the relationship between colour and alchemy. The very foundation of his work is an attempt to preserve the arcane and traditional methods of pigment and colour making, many of which are historically linked to alchemy. Jeremy’s mission is to help artists understand where their materials come from and rekindle their interest in the origins of colour.

Ellen Sørensen is a New Zealand-born artist and musician living and working in Australia who creates multi-dimensional paper-cut dioramas and expresses a relentless obsession with dangerously sharp scalpels. She began working in the medium of paper cutting while completing her BFA at Elam School of Fine Art (NZ) and continues to implement the medium both in her handmade light boxes and through projections alongside her live musical performances. Ellen will be demonstrating her meticulous craftsmanship at Craft Lab 25, expressing her value of artistry and handmade. Image by Hannah Connell.

Maddison Trezise is an emerging Ceramic Artist living and working on Wadawurrung land. Her hand built and wheel thrown works are whimsical, otherworldly expressions of form and materiality. The sculptural works she produces are akin to mystical landing places or altars that can be used to hold jewellery or as objet d’art. She enjoys playing at the intersection between fine art and functional craft. 

You can expect to see her working on her hand built sculptural works or on the wheel during her time at Craft Lab.

Ballarat based artist, textile designer and maker, Kirrily Urquhart is passionate about colour, texture and patterning. Finding rich sources of inspiration within the urban and natural environments, her creative process begins with photographing details that catch her eye.  Textures, architectural features, flora and fauna, all come to life in a new way on Kirrily’s ‘computer canvas’ in the form of digital collages. She has completed several commissions, working with private clients and larger organisations. Her most recent collaboration was for White Night Ballarat 2024.

Tas Wansbrough is a sculptor and stone carving artist, with a Bachelor of Visual Arts from Federation University Arts Academy. After being awarded the Overseas Artists Travel Grant, Tas attended the British School in Rome and in Carrara, Italy where she developed advanced techniques working with Carrara’s iconic marble, a material that has been central to the tradition of stone sculpture for centuries.

Tas’s work continues to build on the traditions of sculpture while engaging with contemporary themes, offering a perspective that is both rooted in historical techniques and reflective of the artist’s connection to the regional landscapes of Ballarat.