Sense of place informs ceramicist Anita McIntyre's body of work

A sense of place has always informed McIntyre's work, whether it is in the rolling ranges of the Brindabellas, which she can see from her home in Fadden; a splash of orange referencing one of her many trips to central Australia with husband John; or the undulating lifeline of Fagan's Creek near Mongarlowe, where her grandmother lived. Everything has a place and a story.

Anita McIntyre. Survey 1970 to 2022, opening on Saturday at the Woolshed Gallery at Strathnairn Arts in Canberra's north, examines McIntyre's remarkable career in ceramics from student works of the 1970s to recent explorations produced just before the exhibition.

At 80, McIntyre is still producing, still contributing, still willing to learn. All done humbly and quietly while creating the most beautiful pieces, some of which have been lent from private collections for the exhibition.

Strathnairn Arts director and curator of the exhibition, Peter Haynes, says there is no doubt McIntyre is an important ceramic artist, not just in Canberra, but period.

"I think it is a unique visual language, that you don't see other ceramicists working with, at all," he said. "And it's a visual language that has come from the landscape here and, of course, the landscape elsewhere. But the landscape has informed her work from day one. Her work is about landscape, place, process and family."

McIntyre is a treasure to the Canberra arts scene, not for her only her own work, but for the contribution she has made, including as a past president of the Strathnairn Arts Association and volunteer work with many organisations including Craft ACT. She also taught at the School of Art and was the sub-dean - the person, Hayne says, "who provided the emotional support for the students", clear in McIntyre's warm and nurturing nature.

"She's also been on many boards for many years and been a quiet contributor, all the time making work. What is in the exhibition is a tiny selection," Haynes said.

Born in Queanbeyan, McIntyre was the only girl in her class at Queanbeyan High who studied art, having to do it by correspondence. She was accepted into East Sydney Technical College but her father was reluctant to let his then 15-year-old daughter leave home.

After school, she went into the public service, married her childhood sweetheart John McIntyre and they had three children. She and John, the retired chairman of the Canberra Raiders, will have been married for 60 years in September.

McIntyre studied painting at the Canberra TAFE where she was encouraged to try clay and started part-time classes in 1969. The family moved to Melbourne for John's work in the public service where she continued ceramics classes.

Right from the start, McIntyre was in her element. She had acclaimed ceramic artist Hiroe Swen as her teacher at one stage in the 1970s who offered her encouragement in typical taciturn fashion. When McIntyre made a piece Swen liked, the teacher pronounced: "Make six". McIntyre was always willing to experiment, over the years working with porcelain, stoneware, coloured clay, printing, reverse transfer, decals and slip casting to create something new and exciting.

"I think it was just clay itself that got me, and the fact you could do so much with it," she said.

"Because there's no end to what you can do with clay. People make beautiful functional pieces. People make terrific sculptural pieces. The reason I do a lot of flat ware, I think, is because of my painting background. But you can get so many techniques and textures that you can't get with paint."

The family returned to Canberra in the mid-1970s when McIntyre did full-time study at the Canberra School of Art (now the ANU School of Art and Design). She start teaching there as soon as she graduated and continued to work there until her retirement in 2007.

"The School of Art was fantastic. A fabulous time. I mean [founding director] Udo Sellbach was a visionary. We all felt it, there was a great vibrancy there," she said. [Alan Watt, former head of the Ceramics Workshop, opened McIntyre's exhibition on Saturday.]

The many works in the exhibition "open viewers to not only vicariously enjoy McIntyre's journeys but also to imaginatively create their own". She has journeyed throughout the outback but also Asia, Europe and North America. There is a glacial lake here; a Mekong boat there.

"All our travels have definitely affected my work, the Kimberley in particular. I always call that my heart country and I call Canberra my home country," she said.

Family is also important in her work. One of the displays in the exhibition is a collection of goblets McIntyre made for each of the guests at her grandson's wedding. She made 150. The bottom of each is inscribed "Mitch and Keely, Love from Nan". Simple but powerful and heartfelt.