From sea to studio: ceramic whales carrying the spirit of the sea

Three years ago, Mazz Cole went to Melbourne for a clay-and-wine evening and discovered her passion – sculpting ceramic whales.

As she spoke, a cylinder of clay wrapped around newspaper sat on the table before her.

“This is the start of a whale,” she explained. “It doesn’t look much like a whale yet.”

Mazz is a trained physiotherapist, and finds echoes of her profession in her art.

“I am quite rough with the clay,” she said, attributing her firm touch to years of working with patients.

“I fill them with newspaper to enable me to shape them. If this wasn’t filled – because I’m quite firm with my hands – it would break.”

She said this means her hands aren’t suited to wheel throwing. “It is a disaster for wheel clay,” she said, “I break everything.”

 

 

Mazz has found the ocean is a great inspiration and fuel for her creativity, including swimming every day, often with her friend Wendy, with whom she also shares an enjoyment of ceramics.

“I’m in the ocean every day, haven’t missed a day unless I’ve been unwell or away since 2021,” she said. “It’s part of my soul.”

At home she keeps a pod of five permanent ceramic whales, and her three children each have one of their own.

As they’ve grown up and two have moved away, she’s found ceramics filling that space.

“I’m filling my nest as my children leave,” she said.

For Mazz, who said she was always “more sporty than creative,” ceramics has become a vital outlet, which “completes life”.

Her whales will feature later in the year in an exhibition this August at the Anglesea Arts Space.

Mazz “stumbled” into ceramics only three years ago when her sister-in-law took her to a clay and wine night in Melbourne.

“I loved it,” she said, and after that first night, she got some practice and sculpted her first whale.

“Someone asked if they could buy it,” she said. “I said, no, you can just have it.”

 

 

That one whale became the first of hundreds.

“I have always loved whales,” Mazz said. “I used to whale-watch down at Warrnambool, I had books about them. I think I have an affiliation with whales.”

Her first sculpture was named Alda, after one of her ceramics teachers who encouraged her early efforts.

Both Alda and another instructor, Melinda, have been “great assets” to her journey.

Within months, she exhibited a few whales at the Anglesea Art House, selling twelve during the show.

When asked to describe her work for the catalogue, she described the whale’s personality and gave it a story.

“It never occurred to me to say it’s made out of BRT clay, mid-fire, hand-built. It was all so new to me, and I was so excited. It was my first ever art exhibition.”

Her debut earned a highly commended first exhibit award, and was the birth of her brand, Earth Into Ocean Ceramics.

“My whales are ‘ceramic whales with a soul’, because they have a name and a bio,” she explained – the first bio being created in her misinterpretation on the exhibition form.

She’s also dabbled in making “octopus with attitude,” but the whales remain her favourite.

 

 

Giving each a biography, she said, is essential. “When I do the eye, that’s when we have to greet the whale,” she said.

“Usually, I’ll look at the whale once it’s glazed and then I’ll choose the name and personality,” she said.

Buyers often connect deeply with the bios.

“So often they now choose the bio over the whale,” she said. “Without the bios, my whales are half of what they would be. I could not ever sell a whale without a bio now.”

Despite her success, Mazz admits to “complete and utter imposter syndrome.” Still, she has sculpted more than 250 whales.

“These are made with lots of love, but they’re not that skilled,” she said.

Her advice for beginners mirrors the encouragement Alda once gave her: “Be brave. 100 percent go for it. If you feel ceramics is frustrating, you’re trying to be too perfect. Just let it go and be an imperfect artist.”

Though she came late to art, she recently learned the love of clay runs in the family. Her mother studied ceramics at RMIT when Mazz was a child, even owning her own kiln.

 

 

“Though I didn’t have any direct experience with pottery, it was maybe osmosis,” she said. “I know her pieces because I’ve loved them, but never knew they were hers.”

Her upbringing, she added, fostered a deep connection to the natural world. “When I look back, it was quite unusual for the time,” she said. “It was very much in nature.”

Mazz recalls her first clay project in primary school – a face sculpture that frustrated her to tears.

“I am not artistic at all,” she once thought. “I love quirky things, but I’ve never thought I had anything creative.”

Her late father, who passed away in 2024, helped shape her practice in another way. With the inheritance he left her, she bought the kiln that now sits in her Anglesea home.

Last year, Mazz travelled to Tonga to swim with whales, a gift she found life–changing.

“I observed them really, really closely,” she said. “I realised that my whales weren’t so accurate. I’ve changed them a little bit, the shape of the mouths and faces.”

“The face is what the whale’s about,” she said.

 

 

The first encounter brought her to tears of joy. “They give no sense of aggression whatsoever”, she said. “They’re huge, but very slow, really slow.”

Only four people were allowed in the water at a time. Although most of her companions, who were seasoned divers from around the world, focused on capturing footage, Mazz wanted to simply experience the whales.

“One time there was a mother and a baby,” she said, “and I deliberately didn’t take a camera. I was swimming sideways with my feet together like a mermaid. I was right near its eye. It was watching me, and I was watching it. It was such a moment. I still can’t get over it.”

She also swam while a male whale sang to attract a mate.

“The vibrations would go through different parts of your body based on the notes he’d sing,” she explained.

When not sculpting or working as a physiotherapist, Mazz keeps up her daily ocean swims with her friend Wendy and their group, the Rusty Rays.

And now in her studio, another whale is taking shape – a little rough, a little soulful and filled, as she puts it “with lots of love”.