honor freeman ✿ The power of a backstory

Kevin Murray

19 August 2025

honor and the swimming squad

The life and work of this South Australian ceramicist is a model for how to build a meaningful practice.

Nearly 20 years ago, I was walking to Craft Victoria when I noticed a powerpoint on Flinders Lane. That’s strange. Why would someone put a PowerPoint on the outside of a building? Does that mean anyone could plug in without paying for the power? I looked more closely. Curious. It’s made of porcelain. Oh, actually, it’s not real.

There was something thrilling about putting ceramics outside in the street. It released the work from the protection of a curated gallery space and exposed it to urban life. And it transgressed the public-private divide on which capitalism depends.

The burning question was, who made this? Eventually, I found the maker of this faux powerpoint, honor freeman, and have been impressed with her work ever since.

In 2006, I included honor in the book Craft Unbound, as an example of “poor craft”, which I proposed as a distinctively Australian art form. Her way of slipcasting the most ordinary of objects, like used bars of soap, was a powerful example of how to make the common precious. As I got to know honor, I learnt about her time as a motel cleaner, which gave her “quiet witness” to the invisible labour that makes life possible.

honor’s motel cleaning is an example of a “backstory” that can underpin an artist’s trajectory.

honor’s motel cleaning is an example of a “backstory” that can underpin an artist’s trajectory. A formative experience is a key element in a maker’s authenticity. It shows that they are doing it from within, rather than following a fashion or seeking fame for its own sake. Another example is the way Mari Funaki’s life was constructed for her retrospective exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria. The curator Robert Cook made a similar move by talking about Funaki’s childhood fascination with insects.

Rather than seeing her humble past as a motel cleaner as an embarrassing prelude to being a successful artist, honor has built on it creativity. In 2004, honor reprised her formative experience as a cleaner with an exhibition in the motel where she worked for the Adelaide Fringe Festival.

But this backstory is not appropriate for all settings. The Homo Faber Guide profile for honor doesn’t mention this story. These backstories are sometimes seen as unprofessional. The credentialisation of creative practice through universities pushes artists to conform to agreed theoretical positions, whereas individual stories can seem more subjective.

There is a danger that backstories can become cliches if overused, like J.D. Vance’s constant reference to his humble origins in the Appalachian mountains. Origin stories are most effective when held back for more personable formats like storytelling articles or interviews. The Garland platform aims to provide a more personable platform for this kind of narrative meaning. This is the logic behind the byline, “the stories behind what we make”.

honor’s work came to my attention again recently with an exhibition, Crosscurrents, at Flinders University Museum of Art. honor had slipcast a sandbag that was part of a regenerative community project to help revive seagrass along the coast where she lives, on the Fleurieu Peninsula.

“Seagrass meadows are important because they sequester carbon. It also creates environments for biodiversity and stops coastal erosion.”

honor’s “quiet witness” moved to what’s happening underwater. It’s become a serious issue for South Australia now with the growth of an algal bloom that has devastated local sea life.

“At first, our eyes were affected. People were coughing, just feeling really yuck. Dogs were getting sick, and then creatures were washing up dead—all creatures that you would never ever have seen before were washing up in great numbers.”

The marine death toll included sea dragons that are unique to the Great Southern Reef. While honor’s work can’t solve this problem directly, her community engagement helps share these concerns. She helped her local primary school make tiles decorated by children that celebrated sea life.

Also included in Crosscurrents was a collaborative work with Chris DeRosa, as part of a squad of four (three women and one man) who regularly swim together in the ocean. “Full Fathom Five” involved submerging a Bessa Block in the waters of Encounter Bay/Ramong, where it would attract local marine life.

“This process of collaborating with the sea I saw as not dissimilar to the emotionally fraught process of firing clay and relinquishing any control you may have over the outcomes of the piece.”

Finally, reading this article, you will no doubt be curious about the way honor’s name has been used throughout in lowercase. I asked her about this:

“It is more pleasing to look at. It is less shouty and angular. Perhaps I just kind of like the quietness of it as well.”

An interesting but real backstory is a key element in most of our identities. Breaking naming conventions is less common, but it can also be a powerful signal of authenticity. It demonstrates a strength in identity that is willing to suffer the difficulty of constant negotiation, with spellcheckers as well as human editors. Others include LOkesh Ghai and Su san Cohn. But true to her character, honor never presses the matter and accepts if others use the default format.

honor’s quietness speaks loudly for all the other silent entities that are offshoots of our world, from used soap bars to poisoned sea dragons.

What’s your backstory?

Also see

familiar & strange, 16 August – 21 September 2025, StockRoom Gallery, Kyneton,

Crosscurrents, 12 May – 12 September 2025, Flinders University Museum of Art exhibition curated by Dr Belinda Howden


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