Mud — Em Frank

MUD

2025

MUD AUSTRALIA x CRAFT VICTORIA

Special Commendation

This work was part of the Shelly Simpson Ceramics Award presented by Mud Australia and Craft Victoria. The prize awards innovative, sustainable and emerging talent among early-career ceramicists working across the spectrum of contemporary practice.

This series draws heavily on the textures, surfaces, objects and landscapes ubiquitous yet unique to remote communities. The patinated metal of decaying cars, abandoned tools and rusty trinkets. These wayward objects, collected during the last decade of morning walks, are at the centre of these works.

The lids and handles are crafted from windscreen wipers, speaker components, and ratchet straps, salvaged from decaying cars.

The ceramic forms are built from iron rich clay with a simple three part calcium matte glaze, carefully applied and wiped back to resemble patinated metal.

Salvaged materials have become central to my practice because they are accessible, affordable, and embedded with histories, memories, and stories. I also love how repurposing necessitates a making process that is material lead, where the found objects shape the work as much as the maker. There’s something deeply satisfying in finding possibility

in discarded materials, and in thinking about objects not as fixed, but as part of a longer life cycle of transformation and reuse.

Living and labouring on Kaurna Yarta

@em___frank