By Jenel Hunt
Tall, clean-cut and sporting a tidy clipped beard, Lindsay Muir is hardly stereotypical. But make no mistake, he is an artist to his very bones.
About 35 years ago, Lindsay left Stanthorpe to follow his budding artistic passion. Now at last he has come home, well established as a potter-sculptor and ready for the next chapter of his life. It will, of course, include his work … which is also his abiding love.
Lindsay is already well integrated into the local pottery art scene.
“Yesterday was the Stanthorpe Show judging. I don’t see it as awarding prizes, really. It’s more about encouraging people. Tomorrow I have a workshop to do in Warwick,” he said.
“I can’t imagine ever retiring. I can’t imagine a time when I don’t want to come to my workshop to throw pots and to make my dioramas. I get a bit antsy if I’m away from the workshop for too long.”
Lindsay and his wife Em still have at least one more move to make to find the perfect place. Their vision is to find somewhere on the Granite Belt with a bit of bushland, enough workshop space to please both of them and perhaps a gallery. Lindsay’s wife is a respected artist in her own right, so a gallery of their own would be a wonderful mix of their personal styles.
“Em does beautiful work,” he said. “She’s very good at anatomy and that really shows in her sculpted work. We don’t compete. We complement each other.“
Over the years, Lindsay’s work has built up a dedicated following, with many people being keen collectors of his work. It could be a glazed outback-themed pot, a free-form platter, a clay-coloured strata pot or an inspirational clay-and-glaze scene featuring a rainforest floor complete with stream. His work has been featured outside of galleries, too. He has created wildlife sculptures for National Park displays, featured on TV shows including ’Totally Wild’ and his work has even been made into a children’s picture book, ‘Green Air’.
People call Lindsay ‘the frog man’ because of the little amphibian that keeps cropping up in his work. That came about from one of the potteries for which he worked, the Green Frog Pottery. But frogs have only been part of the journey. His passion reaches into many corners of nature and his diorama work shows sculpted snakes, platypus, plants, rocks, timber, geckos, berries, fallen leaves, moss, fungi and the occasional butterfly. The more you look, the more you see. But yes, you can usually find a little frog peeking out from under the curl of a leaf somewhere.
The first Lindsay knew about having an artistic bent was when he was about 13. He had a friend whose mother was a potter so he had a chance to do a little clay work but the real game changer was when he entered an Australia-wide competition for art to discourage drink driving. His entry, which won the competition, was a beer can driving a vintage car with wording along the lines of ’Booze drives you to death’.
“That spurred me on. At school the only things that interested me were art and sport and English. My art teacher was Barbara Philp.”
He completed a Diploma of Visual Arts majoring in ceramics at the University of Southern Queensland and worked at a number of potteries including Norfolk Island Pottery, Montville Pottery, Flaxton Gardens Pottery and the Green Frog Pottery that started his addiction to little green amphibians. His passion then took him to England where he managed a pottery in Lincolnshire for 12 months before returning to Australia where he started to really develop his sculptural work. Until the move to Stanthorpe he had a gallery in Montville then one in Maleny while also selling work in other Australian galleries and doing commissioned work.
Private galleries on the Sunshine Coast carry his work, but only half his work ever finds its way to a gallery, as Lindsay is popular for commissioned work.
“Some people buy it for an investment, but I’d like to think people buy it because they love it.”
He is sometimes commissioned to create a piece for a certain area in someone’s home. That area can be anywhere, including a bathroom or a deck because the pieces are not affected by steam or water.
Lindsay says his love of the work is in the creation.
“Once it’s done I’m not sentimental about it. When it’s finished, it goes to the shop. My favourite part is the doing – making something from nothing with your hands.
“Sometimes you try something and it doesn’t work. You have to be self critical and know when it’s time to recycle the clay. You have to remember that at that stage, it’s just clay.“
Being a successful artist isn’t easy, not simply because working from home can throw up all kinds of distractions.
“The best thing is to come in at eight and leave at five,” he said.
“But it’s not enough to be a good artist. The business part is also important. You need good outlets and to know the right people. It helps to have a track record, because then you don’t have to keep going through the auditioning process.“
All the skills that go into his art seem as natural as breathing now, but of course Lindsay has built up his abilities over time.
“You have times when you’re really busy and perhaps that’s when you can get in a bit of a rut with your work, but the quiet times are good for stretching yourself and trying new things.”
His pots range from hand-sized to the really big pots so beloved of interior designers. He is inspired by the vibrant colours of the Australian heartland and creates an outback landscape effect on a range of pots with a number of techniques that start with incorporating up to four or five different coloured clays that create the bottom part of the pot (the ’land’), while white clay features on the top half. (That’s an art in itself!) Once the pot has been taken off the wheel – it’s already beautiful in an understated blend of natural shades – Lindsay paints the coloured clays with latex to preserve their natural colour and texture, then uses coloured glazes on the rest to make vivid desert skies that may then be further enhanced by scraping off underglaze for white puffs of cloud or starry speckles.
He mixes his underglazes like other people mix paint and uses all kinds of tools from scraper to airbrush to paintbrush, but his deepest love is the actual feel of the clay. With his hands, he can then mould it according to the dictates of his artistic heart.
