Shared from the 6/18/2022 Financial Review eEdition

Plates with provenance

DESIGN CERAMICS

Picture

Sam Gordon at work in his studio in Gembrook, Victoria, above, and with his wife Carrie and children, right. Top right: Stoneware plates with ash glaze, made for Montalto.

PHOTOS: BROOK JAMES

From a small studio in regional Victoria, Sam Gordon produces wares for top restaurants in Australia and New York. And he’s only just getting started, writes Paul Best.

Just back from a whirlwind trip to New York, potter Sam Gordon sits hunched over the wheel in his home studio, situated on a four hectare property at Gembrook, in the foothills of the Dandenong Ranges. It’s an hour’s drive from Melbourne, and a far cry from the Big Apple: Gordon lives here off-grid with his wife and three children.

For the moment, he is oblivious to the hypnotic picture-postcard greenery of Bunyip State Park, framed by the pottery’s floor-to-ceiling glass wall. His focus is fully on the ball of clay that’s spinning between his hands to the low grumble of the wheel. He works the lump with barely perceptible pressure and movement as it quickly takes shape (a process known as throwing).

In seemingly no time – a few minutes, tops – a large lipped plate magically appears. ‘‘There’s a bit of a wobble in it,’’ he says self-deprecatingly of the beautifully curved piece of ceramic sitting atop the wheel’s timber bat. ‘‘I’m not too worried. I can manipulate it later on.’’

Watching over proceedings is Australian-born, New York-based restaurateur Eddy Buckingham, who has followed Gordon back home for a fly in, fly out visit to Australia.

Buckingham is the co-founder of Chinese Tuxedo, which opened in 2016 in New York’s Chinatown, and pan-Asian eatery The Tyger, in SoHo, which he launched in 2020. The plate Gordon has just thrown is a stoneware oyster platter, part of an order of share and small plates for Buckingham’s new bar SoSo. Located next door to The Tyger, it’s set to open next month.

‘‘I’m always shocked how quickly you can do it,’’ he says to Gordon, impressed.

Buckingham belongs to a select hospitality clientele Gordon is making wares for since he stepped away after 20 years at Robert Gordon Australia, the family business his father founded in 1979. For 10 of those years, Gordon managed major accounts, many of them in hospitality, but he always longed to produce his own pottery.

The third-generation potter says clay runs through his veins. His grandmother, June Dyson, was a skilled potter, while his grandfather, Colin Gordon, ran her studio in Gembrook (it’s now the general store).

Working with his siblings, he recalls ‘‘getting my hands dirty’’ on the wheel.

‘‘I wanted to be creative in my own right,’’ he says.

Gordon would help his father Robert during school holidays – slipcasting (forming ceramics) and hand-decorating in the the large-scale production pottery firm Robert had built up from a tin shed studio. Gordon eventually joined the business full time in 2001.

His decision to quit was triggered in part by Robert’s decision to retire. Gordon was constantly on the road while working for the firm, travelling for up to four months of the year until the pandemic hit. Grounded with his young family at home during two years of lockdowns, and with time to reflect, Gordon saw the chance to make his move. ‘‘It’s a bit of a COVID story,’’ he says.

Now working from his own tin shed, there was never any question that he’d make pottery for the hospitality industry – and high-end restaurants in particular.

‘‘I have a deep love of restaurants and hotels,’’ Gordon says.

While at Robert Gordon, he was able to build a network of high-profile hospitality clients – many of whom he counts as friends – as growing numbers of restaurateurs turned to bespoke crockery in the early 2000s.

‘‘Designer pottery was being bought by restaurants that were spending millions on fit-outs and architects,’’ he says.

One of those customers was Eddy Buckingham, who Gordon first met in 2015.

But it was his first client, chef Shannon Bennett of Vue de Monde fame, who introduced him to a ‘‘who’s who’’ of Melbourne’s dining scene: culinary luminaries including Matt Wilkinson, Guy Grossi and Raymond Capaldi.

He has since assembled a small list of his own quality clients, including Buckingham, Melbourne caterer Blakes Feast, the Four Pillars Gin Distillery, Jake Kellie’s restaurant arkhe in Adelaide and Bar Elvina in Sydney, owned by Andy Emerson and Jesse McTavish.

Gordon also produced a range of plates for chefs who competed in the Bocuse d’Or Australia cooking finals in February.

His first big commission, though, came from his biggest supporter, Matt Wilkinson – 200 plates for the regional fine diner Montalto, a winery and dining destination on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula. Wilkinson is ‘‘culinary consultant’’ there.

Gordon says Wilkinson encouraged him to go it alone. ‘‘He could see I was ready to do my own thing and return to being a true potter,’’ he says.

‘‘It’s in Sam’s blood,’’ reflects Wilkinson. ‘‘His path was different to the family business.’’

Wilkinson points to Gordon’s skill in not just throwing clay, but in the technical demands of drying, glazing and firing earthenware.

However, it’s the personal connection Gordon makes with people and his ability to tell stories through his ‘‘workable art’’ that gives him an edge, according to Wilkinson.

‘‘That’s the beautifulness of Sam: he’s really honest with everything he wants to do.’’

Gordon says he’s ‘‘not on a mission or anything, I just want to tell an origin story. As a consumer I like to know [a restaurant’s] story and tell it, not just stamp my brand on the plate.’’

For the series of share plates for Montalto, for instance, Gordon has mixed in clay soil from the property, while using ash from burnt olive trees and vine cuttings for the glaze.

‘‘Matt’s food is always rustic, connected to the earth,’’ says Gordon. ‘‘I’ve worked with him that long, I knew what he needed.’’

But the connection is symbiotic. Says Wilkinson: ‘‘The plate has a massive influence on what dish the chef is going to create.’’

Buckingham sees Gordon’s artisanal approach as fitting today’s multi-sensory dining trend, which aims to engage all five senses. His approach is riding a ‘‘new [post-pandemic] luxury wave’’, according to Buckingham, as well as pushing back against the ‘‘Amazonification of retail’’.

‘‘I love it when you know the bloke who’s made it,’’ Buckingham adds. ‘‘That’s the magic.’’

Again, it cuts both ways. Gordon says he loves seeing his mates do well: ‘‘Their venues are pumping, and my plates are a small part of it.’’

Back in the studio, Gordon is whipping up a snack plate as part of Buckingham’s SoSo range, using a combination of grey stoneware and white porcelain clay.

When this is fully air-dried, Gordon will fire it to 1000 degrees in the kiln, before applying a clear gloss glaze and firing it again for 12 hours at temperatures up to 1240 degrees.

Part of the reason for Gordon’s trip to New York was to understand what Buckingham’s chef Paul Donnelly wanted.

‘‘I get a lot of inspiration as a potter and artist from nature and where I live...but I can’t just sit on a hill all day making pots. I need to get out and immerse myself in what’s going on around the world, to connect with people.’’

While there, he also earned a commission from in-demand, Brooklyn-based Australian artist CJ Hendry, who is renowned for her hyperrealism. Gordon will make a series of plates for her home, and possibly for a restaurant, and is looking to secure a US distributor.

He says he has plans to open a pop-up store in New York next year.

Back home, he is thinking ahead, too – of building a bigger pottery in the paddock below the house, and bringing on other potters. He also envisages converting the garage – his makeshift studio – into accommodation for chefs he hopes to collaborate with in the future.

‘‘I’ll just chip away at it over the next two years,’’ he says brightly. You could say, there’s a lot on his plate.L&L

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