'Just brilliant': Sculpture winner rates Thirroul Seaside and Arts Festival

When Fiona Ryan-Clark’s Aqua Vitae was awarded the main sculpture prize at last year’s Thirroul Seaside and Arts Festival, it was more than just an accolade for a talented artist – it was a celebration of a “lifeline” found in clay.

“It's like I've done this in another life,” Fiona said. “I was meant to do this. I just love it and I have an aptitude for it and I now have my own studio and kiln and it's helped me to recover from chronic fatigue.”

Fiona is a former journalist with four degrees and a 30-year career in writing and teaching. When a battle with chronic fatigue made it difficult for Fiona to keep working with words, she turned to the tactile art of ceramic sculpture. 

“I see the art as a lifeline that I grabbed onto," she says. 

“I’ve always been creative. I have a very creative mother and I’ve actually made things my whole life.

“The chronic fatigue just made me prepared to do anything. I was like ‘okay, I can’t live like this, so I’ve got to try something else.’

“You find out what a fighter you are – and there’s something very therapeutic in working with clay. People talk about how grounding it is.”

Fiona is a lifelong swimmer and spent years living on the coast before health sensitivities prompted her to move to the drier air of Katoomba. Her work remains tied to the ocean, through her pursuit of what she calls the "quicksilver of water".

"I did a lot of glaze experimentation trying to capture that quicksilver," Fiona says. 

"You've got all these different glaze ingredients and you mix them in different quantities and you put different oxides – so cobalt or copper or iron – in different proportions to get the colour and the features of the glaze."

Fiona’s winning 2025 piece Aqua Vitae (Latin for “water of life”), is a striking work of a swimmer stretching her arms, covered in the ocean. Through countless tests and a unique single-firing technique, Aqua Vitae demonstrates a glossy finish that mimics the surface of the sea.

“The glaze is really lustrous. It looks like quicksilver water. That was not an accident. There’s no book that you can go and get 'once fired' glaze recipes from... you have to determine what your ultimate firing level is. It’s pushing you to be innovative. It’s pushing you to do the work,” she says.

“And having been a swimmer, I can't count the number of times I've stretched my arm like she's stretching. That's a real swimmer's pose.”

Unlike many ceramicists who build solid forms and carve them out, Fiona builds hollow – using a specialised paper clay that allows her to build in stages from the bottom up. 

"Most ceramic sculptors build solid and then they have to carve it out. I knew I didn't want to do that,” she says. 

“Every clay has different qualities, but the paper clay allows you to join pieces together. It’s very good for staged construction, because in ceramic sculptors, there’s a race between how wet and soft the clay is and how dry and rigid it is.

“So you can imagine that when you’re building pieces, the clay down the bottom is not strong enough yet to hold the arms or the head. So paper clay is probably the best for building in that way.”

Mentored by world-class figurative sculptors such as Christina Cordova and Sharon Griffin, Fiona has quickly transitioned from an emerging artist to a prize-winner, with her work represented by the Rex-Livingston Art + Objects gallery in Katoomba.

“He’s picked me up as an emerging artist, and it’s pressure as well, but the support that a good gallerist can give you is pretty miraculous. I just feel like I’ve won the lottery, to be honest.”

Despite living in the Blue Mountains, Fiona enters art shows on the coast, visiting artist friends in Thirroul for the Seaside Arts Festival. 

“I just believe in the strength of community that Thirroul demonstrates year after year... they’re walking the talk,” she says, 

“I could not believe how many people supported the festival. The art in the shops that they do in the lead-up ... I had two pieces in a cafe and that was just a wonderful experience. The feedback I got from the cafe and from customers there ... it’s just brilliant.”

The 2026 Thirroul Seaside and Arts Festival is on March 27-29 and will include:

• Art in the Shops: Starts Saturday, March 14
• Official Opening Night: Friday, March 27 (7pm)
• Art Show & Festival: Saturday, March 28-29
• Locations: Thirroul District Community Centre and Thirroul Beach Reserve

For more information, visit thirroulfestival.com.au.