Words by Ken Roberts.
This article appeared in Gippsland Life Autumn 2024 Issue. Click here to read the original article.
Cindy Tong from Sale is part of a resurgence of interest in ceramics in Gippsland over the last few years. Her work shows an unconscious freshness and verve that brings fresh light to this ancient tradition. It’s interesting to see how the combination of life skills, career, technology and innate vision combine to create a person’s own individual style.
An interest in design lead Cindy to study Graphic Design. She worked in various areas in the real estate industry. This followed with working for a commercial signwriter where a large variety of work crossed her desk, eventually branching out on her own to work as a freelancer. She used her skills in many different areas designing websites focusing on User Experience. She was very busy.
It was happenstance that when living in NSW at the time a friend had two tickets to a pottery introductory evening, a “paint and sip” style social event where they showed you the basics. The person this friend had organised to go with couldn’t and so she asked Cindy along. This was how her ceramics journey began!
Something clicked as her hands were immersed in the clay. She really connected with it and after this first basic “fun” class she was eager for more. She found a regular class to attend and slowly started to learn from scratch how to work with clay. She had no idea how this hobby would eventually become her passion.
Just as this journey was beginning Cindy moved to Sale with her partner Simon. She had put out the word on social media before she moved to make contacts with the pottery network in Gippsland and connected with courses run at The Clay Place in Eagle Point. Her development continued and eventually through more classes with East Gippsland Ceramics Group at The Hub in Bairnsdale she would come into contact with renowned Gippsland potter Malcolm Boyd.
Malcolm was to become an ongoing mentor and provide Cindy with a wealth of knowledge, not only practical and theoretical but also in aspects of design not usually thought about. She credits him with opening her eyes to many different ideas from which she then would expand with her own vision. As well as benefitting from Malcolm’s experience Cindy has also been able to connect and become a part of a growing ceramics community in the area. She began an Instagram account “Gippsland Ceramics” which enables interested members to share ideas, experiences and information. Being media savvy Cindy has done many online courses and has explored many different online areas to provide inspiration which then sometimes influences her practice.
It’s exciting when you see new talent emerge with a unique and innovative vision.
Cindy has slowly built her home studio which provides an ideal environment for her to explore and create her ceramics. It is a pleasant, clean and professional place that enables her to concentrate on using her pottery wheel, shaping and glazing her work. An electric kiln in the next room means she is self sufficient in being able to glaze and fire her work.
The exciting combination of her graphic design and growing ceramic skills has resulted in her creating a unique style of work that now seems recognisable as having that “Cindy Tong” touch. She loves texture in her pots and will carve and shape pots sometimes with abstract designs and often with her signature botanical mark makings. She uses images such as the saw tooth leaf of the banksia with striking standout style. What had become a tired and sometimes overused motif from the past, Australian flora has been imaginatively reinterpreted under Cindy’s hands. The Banksia series that she created was stunning!
The forms that she either hand builds or throws on the wheel are then sometimes sculpted, scratched, incised and manipulated before being decorated and glazed. The results are inspired and poetic. Even her “plain” and simple forms have a soft and gentle fluidity about them.
It’s quite astonishing to see somebody so relatively early in their artistic career being able to create work at such a level. Cindy herself feels she is only at the beginning and has a strong desire to continue to extend her practice and skill base. She is unassuming and modest about her work and though keen to continue on this amazing journey of discovery she is not in a hurry at all.
She makes small production runs and prefers to create more bespoke work rather than pump out pieces for the sake of it. She has an eager and growing market for her “Cindy Tong” wares! Her progression has been gradual and organic, a pace that she will continue in the future.
It’s very exciting to see where this accidental career will lead her. She is passionate about every aspect of the making and doing and is very generous in helping others on their journey as well.
She is definitely an artisan of this age, incorporating the past, present and future and somebody whose artistic voice will be heard loud and clear.
Her work can be followed on Instagram @cindytong.ceramics.