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Any creative that’s broken out on their own will be familiar with the balancing act between artistic freedom and earning a living wage.
This rang true for ceramic artist Tantri Mustika after she closed her Collingwood Yards studio and shop in early 2023 to focus solely on her creative practice — an endeavour she says was centred on rediscovering the joy of making with clay.
‘I was completely creatively flattened and burnt out from pushing beyond the limitations of my capacity,’ she says. ‘Since then, I’ve had to experiment with different ways to finance my art practice… making “art” is quite different to making “product”.’
Following the shop’s closure, she spent 18 months working from her home garage before moving into her current ceramics studio in Carnegie.
But Tantri still wouldn’t describe herself as a full-time artist, despite her bespoke clay pieces bringing in her biggest slice of income.
‘I have a part-time job to make sure I have my baseline living costs covered… at first I felt it was some kind of failure,’ she says.
‘Now, I am more interested in finding the flow in my creative expression and telling a story, rather than just constantly making to pay bills… I have learnt that taking more time and putting all of my heart into the work is far more satisfying than making what I sense people expect from me.
‘My challenge has been trying to figure out how a balance of the art and the business can coexist.’
From marbled vases to intricately carved relief artworks, trinket trays, incense holders, and most recently, lighting, Tantri’s work is constantly evolving, yet ever distinguishable by one common thread — painstaking handcrafted detail.
Tantri pushes the boundaries of traditional ceramics practice, layering stain powders and oxides to create eclectic patterns and colours, not just as surface glazes, but also embedded within the clay body itself.
Metallics in particular feature heavily in her latest experimentation with functional lighting — a project that required plenty of discipline and troubleshooting, and assistance from a qualified electrician.
It was a natural progression from vases, kickstarted back in 2022 when she made her first floor lamp for Melbourne Design Week.
After creating a few prototypes, and chatting to various interior designers and stylists, Tantri discovered a niche: unique, handmade lamps that serve as both a piece of art and a functional element of daily life.
Her first lamp collection draws on whimsy, taking inspiration from unexpected places. Glossy, glazed forms with hand-painted vertical stripes reference vintage wallpapers; soft colourways are unexpectedly informed by Tantri’s previous career in hairdressing; a deep navy lamp dotted with metallic, platinum-lustred stars carries nostalgic night-sky motifs; while another, carved with Balinese floral patterns, nods to the artist’s Indonesian heritage.
‘I think I was a magpie in my past life,’ Tantri says. ‘I am just drawn to shiny things … using metallics in the context of making these lamps just makes sense to me.’
Tantri is optimistic this latest evolution of her practice might finally resolve her ongoing tussle between art and business.
‘It feels like the footing I’ve been searching for: a way to support my more experimental practice, while offering something beautiful, accessible and sustainable.’
An edited version of this story originally appeared in The Design Files Magazine Issue 04. Subscribe to the biannual print magazine here.
