1 McKay, I., ‘Peter Rushforth – A Portfolio: Ian McKay Speaks’, Pottery in Australia 29.4 (1991): 4.Google Scholar

2 The First North Queensland Ceramics Awards, October 13–29, 1983 [Catalogue] (Townsville: Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, 1983), 27.Google Scholar

3 Anderson, B. Hoare, J., Clay Statements (Toowoomba: Darling Downs Institute Press, 1985), 54.Google Scholar

4 Currie, I., ‘Ian Currie Writes’, Pottery in Australia 29.3 (1990): 38.Google Scholar

5 McGregor, C., In the Making (Melbourne: Thomas Nelson), 1969), 182.Google Scholar

6 Grealy, K., ‘Queensland Ceramics Then and Now’, Pottery in Australia 25.1 (1986): 4.Google Scholar

7 Mansfield, J., Contemporary Ceramic Art of Australia and New Zealand (Sydney: Craftsman House, 1994), 12.Google Scholar

8 Cochrane, G., The Crafts Movement in Australia (Sydney: UNSW Press, 1992), 209.Google Scholar

9 Dormer, P. Cripps, D., Alison Britton in Studio (London: Bellew, 1985), 9, 10.Google Scholar

10 Cardew, M., Pioneer Potter: An Autobiography (London: Collins, 1988), 31.Google Scholar

11 Conversation with Mary McKay, Sydney, January 2007.Google Scholar

12 The Art of the Potter: A Tribute to Ian McKay, August 30–19 September 1991 [Catalogue], (Sydney: David Jones Art Gallery, 1991).Google Scholar

13 Leach, B., A Potter's Book, 2nd ed. (London: Faber and Faber, 1945), 7.Google Scholar

14 Currie, ‘Ian Currie Writes’.Google Scholar

15 Harrison, S., ‘Ian McKay: Potter, Writer, Musician, Poet, Intellectual’, Pottery in Australia 29.3 (n.d.): 34.Google Scholar

16 Dormer and Cripps, Alison Britton in Studio, 10.Google Scholar

17 Currie, ‘Ian Currie Writes’.Google Scholar

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21 For more detail on the McKay family background, especially the life and career of Rev. Fred McKay and his brothers, see McKenzie, M., Outback Achiever: Fred McKay, Successor to Flynn of the Inland (Brisbane: Boolarong Press, 1997).Google Scholar

22 Conversation with Judith McKay, August 2008.Google Scholar

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24 Buckridge, P., ‘Plot an Escape from Torpor of English Syllabus’, Australian HES, 18 June 2008: 27.Google Scholar

25 Courier-Mail, 2 July 1963: 15.Google Scholar

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27 McKenzie, Outback Achiever, 4.Google Scholar

28 McKenzie, Outback Achiever, 21.Google Scholar

29 Hardy, S., The Unusual Life of Edna Walling (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2005), 243.Google Scholar

30 Conversation with Jess and Frank McKay, June 2008.Google Scholar

31 Smart, C., Jubilate Agno (London: W.H. Bond, 1954), 404.Google Scholar

32 Pictured in Moult, A, Craft in Australia (Sydney: Reed, 1984), 21.Google Scholar

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34 Letter, ICM to Ian Currie 25 June 1981: 2.Google Scholar

35 His book-buying experiences provoked him to write to the Sydney Morning Herald (7 October, 1969: 2), comparing the local with the mail-order price and availability of books. It drew a vituperative riposte by Max Harris in his ‘Browsing’ column in The Australian ('Doom Faces Australia's Bookshops’, 18 October 1969: 20), attacking ‘Professor Pinchpenny’, the ‘wiseacre bookbuyer from the greasier groves of Academia’, who, ‘like unpredictable and sporadic bursts of hepatitis … infects the metropolitan dailies.’ He was therefore surprised at a subsequent approach by Harris to write a short piece, ‘Bookbuyer's Lament’, for the Australian Book Review (December 1969–January 1970: 44–45), to which Harris responded with ‘Bookseller's reply’. Harris began, with a change of tone, ‘Mr McKay's civilised and completely reasonable queries on the retail price of books …’Google Scholar

36 Anderson and Hoare,, Clay Statements. Google Scholar

37 Victor Mace Fine Art Gallery, ‘Homage to Ian McKay’ [exhibition invitation] 1991.Google Scholar

38 Harrison, ‘Ian McKay’.Google Scholar

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40 ICM letter to A. Ransome (AR), 7 January 1970.Google Scholar

41 ICM letter to AR 16 December 1969.Google Scholar

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43 Queensland Art Gallery, Art Prize Exhibitions in Brisbane, 1950–1975. Google Scholar

44 Under the auspices of the Contemporary Art Society, see G. Cooke, A Time Remembered: Art in Brisbane 1950–1975 (Brisbane: Queensland Art Gallery, 1995), 79–80.Google Scholar

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47 Personal communication from Jane Greenwood, December 2008.Google Scholar

48 McKay, I., in Moult, Craft in Australia, 20.Google Scholar

49 Gwyn Hanssen Pigott (born 1935) is another potter who began with an Arts degree majoring in Literature. She, though, also majored in Fine Arts, at the University of Melbourne, enabling her to study pottery as an undergraduate: Gwyn Hanssen Pigott: A Survey, 1955–2005 (Melbourne: J Smith/NGV, 2005), 98.Google Scholar

50 Cardew, Pioneer Potter, 21.Google Scholar

51 Harrison, ‘Ian McKay’.Google Scholar

52 Harrison, ‘Ian McKay’, quoting M. McKay.Google Scholar

53 Ian later wrote a significant appreciation of Levy's approach and work: I. McKay, ‘A Potter's Art’, Craft Arts February/April (1987): 30–35.Google Scholar

54 Letter ICM to Ian Currie, 27 October 1981.Google Scholar

55 Cardew, Pioneer Potter, 237.Google Scholar

56 ICM letter to K. and A. Ransome, 16 November 1975. Christopher Smart's cat, the asylum companion whom he celebrates in Jubilate Agno, was called Jeoffry [sic].Google Scholar

57 Interview with Janine King and Steve Harrison, Mittagong, January 2007.Google Scholar

58 ‘Ceramics practitioners were arguably the first artists or craftspeople to live primarily in regional areas, partly due to the predominance of the woodfiring process in the 70s and 80s. Generally trained in the cities, those opting for rural life on the North Coast included Ian McKay, Tony Nankervis, Malina and Dennis Monks, John Stewart, Bob Connery, Andrew Stewart, Geoff Crispin, Sandra Taylor and Patsy Hely.’ K. Selwood, ‘ConVerge: A Regional Perspective’, ConVerge: Northern Rivers Touring Ceramic Exhibition, 2006–2008, 7–8.Google Scholar

59 In possession of K. Selwood.Google Scholar

60 McKay, I., ‘Artisan or Tradesman’, Border Post, 21 July 1977: 7.Google Scholar

61 ICM letter to K. Ransome, 12 September 1978. From 1974 to 2001, the Queensland College of Art was located in the Brisbane suburb of Seven Hills.Google Scholar

62 ICM letter to Ian Currie, 27 October 1981.Google Scholar

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64 Sturt and its history are extensively documented – for example, see Cochrane, The Crafts Movement in Australia, 72–75, 289–90; Ceramics: Art and Perception 13 (1993): 94; and D. Aitken, ‘Sturt Craft Centre: A Rich History and a Renewal’, Ceramics: Art and Perception 25 (1996): 75–79.Google Scholar

65 Ian McKay wrote in the 1987 Crafts Board grant application, in possession of Ian Currie: ‘In May 1986 I visited Taiwan's most accomplished potter in the field of iron and copper glazes, a Mr Tsai, and found him enthralled by the quality of the dark clay bodies and glazes from Mittagong, to the point where he has initiated exchange of information and is interested in long-term cooperation of research in this field. Likewise Mr Soukichi Nagae of Tajimi, Japan, who has spent a lifetime of making and researching dark iron bodies and glazes and whose own work is related to the greatest of Song Period oil-spot and yöhen Temmoku, and has been the subject of NHK Television documentaries. Mr Nagae keeps me informed about recent findings in Japan in the hope that my work with Mittagong area materials may develop as quickly as possible, so interesting are the aesthetic possibilities of these materials when approached in the way I have established. In 1985 I sent fragments of Temmoku-type bodies and glazes I had made to the Shanghai Institute of Ceramics. This led immediately to invitations from the Chinese Ministry of Light Industry and the Academia Sinica to visit China to discuss the technical and aesthetic problems of creating these and other Song-related wares with all of the major researchers working in this field in China. I have subsequently been offered financial assistance from the Dept. of Foreign Affairs through the Aust.–China Council for this purpose.’Google Scholar

66 McKay, I., in Anderson and Hoare, Clay Statements. Google Scholar

67 Allen, C., ‘Harmonious Conjunction of Art and Nature, Sydney Morning Herald, 4 August 1989: 12.Google Scholar

68 Currie, ‘Ian Currie Writes’.Google Scholar

69 Conversation with Mary Taguchi, January 2007.Google Scholar

70 Ian Calder McKay, Funeral Service at Mittagong Cemetery Conducted by Rev, Allan McKay, Tuesday 3rd April 1990 [order of service brochure].Google Scholar

71 Examples are ‘The second wave’, Fo Yuan Art Gallery, Melbourne, 2003, and ‘Collector's choice by Victor Mace’, Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery, 2004–05.Google Scholar

72 McKay, I. in Moult, Craft in Australia. Google Scholar