My name is Millie Bird and I am a Goolwa-based potter working under the creative name Chicky Ceramics.

I work across both wheel-throwing and hand-building techniques to create functional ceramic pieces that are elevated through narrative illustration.

Each work sits within the realm of everyday use, while carrying a strong emphasis on storytelling, texture, and playful visual detail.

Chicky pots tend to talk about the sea, mortality, the human condition, buildings, and vintage cars, among other things. They often show the interdependence between beauty and sorrow, pain and elegance, death and what it means to be alive.

I draw inspiration from my misty, windy coastal hometown on the Fleurieu Peninsula. At my local beach, the water, dangerous and alluring, teems with energy and threat. The ocean vomits up dead fish, pipi shells, a toothbrush, and fishing line. Many-thousand-year-old middens serve as an incredible reminder of the Ngarrindjeri people. It all echoes the beauty and blight that runs through my work.