Newcastle artist creates bespoke ceramic service for Hunter businesses

Newcastle Herald

Penelope Green

September 1, 2020

Ali Sobel-Read’s ceramics have long been inspired by her peripatetic lifestyle and surroundings.

During her decade in New York, working as an educator with at-risk children in Harlem, the skyscrapers influenced the patterns on her hand-made plates.

In Newcastle, her family’s base since 2014, the working port and architectural surrounds have featured in her work because, she notes, built forms “travel with us, no matter where we are”.

When COVID-19 forced the temporary closure of The Station and its artistic collective Make Space, of which she is a co-founder, Sobel-Read began to refine her operations.

Having created bespoke pieces for Lake Macquarie council and other companies in the past, she pondered how she could assist struggling businesses.

“[The pandemic] brought me more inward, like us all. I reflected on how I was working, what the world needs right now, what people are interested in,” says the self-taught, US-raised artist.

Sobel-Read has always loved images for their power in bringing “home” to her.

“Images tap into our memories and emotions, they are meaningful and strike a chord, bringing an emotional connection more than words,” she says. A case in point: Sobel-Read is making 76 plates with screen-printed images of the School of Architecture and Design at Carleton University in Canada. Each plate will be given to its 2020 graduates in lieu of an annual banquet.

She is now making samples of bespoke ceramics with surface decorations, or symbolic images printed on them, which businesses can use to connect with clients.

“Transposing an image onto a timeless ceramic item creates a keepsake worth talking about,” she says. She can transform almost any logo or image into a print that can be placed on handcrafted ceramics that can be sold or used for promotions.

Sobel-Read creates her ceramics at Make Space and fires them at Newcastle Studio Potters at Cooks Hill.

She does not use a potter’s wheel but rather uses her hands and self-crafted templates to create her designs, which she says have a “minimalist, Scandi” style.

Keepsake: Ali Sobel-Read holds some plates from a series she has been commissioned to make for a Canadian university’s graduation students. Picture: Simone De Peak