"Beauty Spot"

"Beauty Spot" is a part of Laura Veleff’s ongoing series that explores historic mining sites - places of plunder, but also of regenerating beauty. Having moved to the Central Victorian Goldfields, Dja Dja Wurrung Country, in 2021, the project was initially borne of Veleff’s desire to develop a deeper connection to her new surroundings. From here, she became interested in the enduring geophysical and visual impact of extraction practices on the landscape, and how her own pottery-making is implicit in such industries.

Earlier this year Veleff visited Tasmania’s Queenstown, another site that has been dramatically altered by past mining; the completely denuded mountain ranges that surround the town are referred to by locals as a ‘moonscape'. Just as the ‘upside down’ Goldfields and the ‘moonscape’ of Queenstown are linked through their shared history of environmental destruction, they are also sites of enduring natural beauty and rehabilitation. From these disused sites, Veleff collected materials such as ochre, slate, clay deposits and rocks, and used them to make her own glazes, slip, oxides and clay bodies. This time and labour-intensive practice of personally taking the materials from the land and processing them by hand, not only deepened her knowledge of the geo/physical area, it also gave her a real and immediate sense of the finite and precious nature of the materials that she was working with. Made up of both single and composite forms, the works, when viewed together, reference the varied ‘upside down’ landforms that now exist, evidencing former industrial practices.

These pieces hold within them a narrative of the site; both of its past and enduring present. They also speak to Veleff’s profound respect for natural materials - honouring those that are left following what is of perceived value has been taken - and the conflict that exists within the practice of extraction itself.

Further, the works embody Veleff’s personal experience in situating herself within/and relating to a place, and more broadly, implicates her own role as a potter, essentially taking from the land to make her work

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