As you approach the home of potter/photographer Ellen Hansa- Stanyer you cannot avoid the feeling of being watched. It’s not your imagination; Ellen’s neighbours include some very tall, curious kangaroos. Ellen and her late husband Ray Stanyer built the mud house and studio in the late 1990s, nestled in the midst of a sprawling bush block. Each step towards the buildings takes you further into the creative world that Ellen continues to build there.
Firstly, you’re greeted at the gate by a white rabbit with table and teapot, ceramic figures from ‘Alice in Wonderland’; it’s a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party on the fence! Ellen’s explanation shows that her artistic inspirations come from far and wide. “I went to see a (Charles) Blackman exhibition and I hadn’t read Alice, because I come from a different culture,” she says, pointing out that she was born and grew up in Vienna, Austria. “So I read it as an adult, and I thought: she’s stoned!” Ellen proceeded to make numerous Alice figures that are now dotted around her garden, including grinning cats and cheeky mice in teacups. “I went through Alice for years,” she says.
Her pottery studio is a fascinating, angular shape. “The studio is a boat, because to me boats are moving forward. I did a lot of boats,” Ellen reveals. “I just get stuck in a theme.” The space inside is filled with images, objects and materials, revealing some of the phases through which her work has evolved. “Ray did the glazes, I worked on the wheel. I find it hard to just make one piece, it was always commercial. So now I work on sculptures, which is a different way of thinking,” she says. “I’ve moved away from glazes. This is now what I like to play with, just the clay. Things that I find in the bush. I try and just work with natural materials. I use terracotta.” In the past, Ellen held pottery workshops here but now she works with the company of her lovely dog named Skye.
Inside the house itself is Ellen’s artistic haven that represents a unique focus on creativity, family and nature. Photographs, paintings and a gallery room of gorgeous pots and ceramics, plus colourful handmade tiles built into the walls themselves, are all testament to the fertile minds and inventive natures of the inhabitants. Ellen has been a professional photographer and commercial potter, has lived in Norway and travelled across Australia, and now she spends quite a lot of time writing about her interesting life. Classical music plays quietly as Ellen explains that the semi-circular spaces and broad windows were designed to maximise the view onto the native garden, planted to attract birds.
The garden features lovely plantings interspersed fantastical flora and fabulous figures, all created by Ellen. “I keep coming back to children and animals, where the animal is bigger. I don’t know where they come from, they just come,” she observes. “A lot of my work is for outside so I have to make things that are difficult to break, because once it’s broken, that’s the end of it.” Some of her pole sculptures were recently exhibited at Mica Grange as part of its Spring Open Garden Sculpture Exhibition. A number of colourful, quirky poles (with balancing boats and teapots) emerge from a dam outside the fence; perhaps this is why the kangaroos linger longer. Ellen’s wonderful garden is an inspiration and a visual joy for human and animal visitors alike.
If you have a garden, or studio, or shed you would like to share, please email editor@tarrangowertimes.com.au.
See all the pictures in the issue.
This article appeared in the Tarrangower Times, 10 January 2025.