Old Saint Luke's Studio & Gallery

A derelict stone church and schoolhouse built in 1848 stands at the edge of Gundaroo, rescued from ruin in 1982 by a potter who needed somewhere to put a wood kiln. Ian Jones trained at the Australian National University's School of Art and apprenticed under Doug Alexander at Cuppacumbalung Pottery before building a fourteen-metre wood kiln inside the old church, firing it three times a year until a stint of study in Japan interrupted the practice for the better part of a decade. He returned in 2000 with fellow potter Moraig McKenna and rebuilt smaller, the church now home to a nine-metre anagama kiln and two wood-fired salt-glazing kilns that between them produce the studio's distinctive ash-marked, unglazed surfaces. Jones's time in Shigaraki, supported by an ACT Chief Minister's Creative Arts Fellowship, deepened a practice already shaped by traditional Japanese wood-firing. The gallery inside the old nave is open most weekdays, with two larger sales each year in August and December, and McKenna runs regular hand-building classes for beginners, keeping the old church a working part of Gundaroo rather than a relic of one.