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As an annual update on the state of ceramic practices in New Zealand, the Portage Ceramic Awards provides insights on current directions and future possibilities. There has been a recent surge in interest in ceramics, especially in the visual arts, driven partly by a desire to reconnect with pre-industrial production modes, hand-made qualities and the ecological values of self-sustainability. Certainly, in an era where social and political activism have become important dimensions of contemporary art practice, it’s not unlikely that pottery could take a prominent role in this conversation. The myriad associated patterns of production and use that we take for granted in ceramic culture are a microcosm for the larger debates around local and global industries that impact on the politics of the wider world. But, aside from the perception that becoming a potter is a lifestyle choice that signals a general return to the idealism of the 1960s and that period’s back-to-nature rhetoric, there is very little sense that anyone is using their kiln as a machine to kill fascists.1

The renewed interest in the increasingly overlapping areas of craft, art, functionality, design and manufacturing sets the scene for this year’s guest essay from Objectspace Director, Kim Paton, who questions the definitions and distinctions we use to discuss craft practices. The specialist subjects of skill and materials remain the most common areas of discussion, Paton argues, instead of embracing the potential for plurality or looking to larger ideas.

Different kinds of objects have different kinds of agency, including the power dynamics of their own networks of exchange. The judge of this year’s Portage Ceramic Awards, Janet DeBoos, is well experienced in the social and political power of pottery as a medium. Her work has explored the strong personal bond and intimate stories that form between object and user through an interactive relationship of usage and ownership that is rare in other kinds of artworks. Her practice has explored the dynamics between one-off studio production and industrial production, including the financial implications of these modes, even collaborating with large factories in China, where

the cultural and diplomatic exchange has become as important as the underlying commercial activity.

As always, we’re grateful for the thought that has gone into the creation and submission of this year’s entries, and the careful consideration that DeBoos has put into making her selection. The essays in this publication, from DeBoos and Paton, are also significant in highlighting this event as an opportunity to further the discussion of contemporary ceramic practice and its history. This year, we’re delighted to again be offering a scholarship to the Peters Valley School of Craft in New Jersey, alongside the premier and merit awards. Our congratulations go to all those listed here as achieving recognition in the 2016 awards.

We are excited that the Auckland Festival of Ceramics, which began in 2014 to create a citywide feast with the Portage Ceramic Awards as its centrepiece, has become an important fixture for the local ceramic community and is testament to the continued growth of a rich and lively scene. The People’s Wine continue to make an important contribution to the awards event, and we are pleased to also welcome Hallertau. The Portage programme is also made possible by the unwavering commitment of Te Uru’s staff and volunteers, as well as our friends from Auckland Studio Potters, including John Parker, whose magnificent survey exhibition provides a glamorous addition to our opening weekend.

Last but certainly not least, I must acknowledge the ongoing loyal support of The Trusts Community Foundation, who are the primary sponsors of the Portage Ceramic Awards and have been with us since the project’s inception 16 years ago, and the Waitakere Ranges Local Board of Auckland Council, who are Te Uru’s core funders. We are pleased to have partners for whom the value of culture in contemporary society needs little explanation.

Andrew Clifford Director, Te Uru

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Front Cover: Kate McIntyre, Fragment

Photography: Haruhiko Sameshima

Graphic Design: Julia Gamble Vale

Editor: Ioana Gordon-Smith

Published by: Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery on the occasion of the Portage Ceramic Awards 201611 November 2016 – 5 February 2017

ISSN 2382-2198

© 2016 Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery420 Titirangi Road, Titirangi Aucklandteuru.org.nz

1. “This machine kills fascists” is a slogan that musician Woody Guthrie painted onto his guitar in 1941, now an iconic image and a sentiment that resonated during the folk revival of the 1950s and 60s.

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metaphoric associations as a material that connects mind and hand and is egalitarian in nature. I am a great enthusiast for the best of this style of work, but am less enthusiastic about work that is just a self-conscious copying of current trends. Its presence in contemporary ceramic practice seems to be part of the cyclical nature of not only creative endeavour but also societal movements that respond to current conditions.

We have seen similar work in the early to mid 1960s, when Robert Arneson and other Californian artists were rejecting the ‘craft’ of clay, and instead exploring its material qualities, particularly its abject and scatological associations, as part of the more widely prevailing school of ‘West Coast Funk’. This was a reaction to the ‘politeness’ of clay practice at the time; its insistence on craftsmanship as the hallmark of good work. It paralleled art practice in general, rejecting the minimalism and disengagement that were the defining characteristics of the mainstream. It was also a reaction to the absence of figuration, and it saw a blossoming of figurative ceramics that was often absurd, frequently ironic or self-deprecating. However, it was not a movement that had its roots in political activity, such as Dada (even though California in the 1960s gave rise to several widespread grassroots political movements). Rather, it was personal, passionate and engaged, and often rude. And it was hot.

Similarly, we see the emergence of ‘sloppy clay’ today. A reaction to the cooler, formal, sculptural concerns of abstract clay objects and the ‘vessel as art’ school of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. It is a self-conscious rejection of skill as a defining characteristic of ceramics and interestingly, it comes hand-in-hand with a substantial revival of interest in traditional studio pottery (that is, pottery for use, both domestically and in ‘hot’ eating establishments).

Just before coming to Auckland, I had visited a studio in Singapore run by two young women who make tableware, predominantly for hipster restaurants, to fulfil commissions for official government gifts to foreign Heads of State, or provide a background for trendy product launches by companies that want to associate their brands with ‘natural’. This is a far cry from the

solitary potter making pots in a rural studio, but the association is still there, reinvented for contemporary needs. This diversity of clay practice is a reflection of the multiplicity of options for engagement with a material that we all love. It all has validity, but, as has ever been the case, the rejection of traditional values in clay practice frequently offends those that see themselves as the standard bearers of those values.

So what did I look for in the works, bios and artist statements I was viewing, selecting for exhibition and then finally awarding prizes to? I find it is always easier to reject works according to their capacity to satisfy certain tenets that I hold to and that can be broadly identified as the following:

In the first case was ‘the question of craft’. I rejected works that were adherents of the ‘good craftsmanship’ school but that were simply not well crafted. That was easy. And somewhat more difficultly, (especially from images alone), I also rejected works that seemed to me highly-crafted but without content other than skill.

Secondly, I rejected works that were obviously (to me as an outsider, being not necessarily very familiar with local clay workers) derivative. If a work relied on an idea, I wanted that idea to be freshly articulated, or for the very essence of the idea to be captured.

I also took into account the artist statements and rejected work that didn’t seem to take itself seriously. And by this, I don’t mean work that was fun, or had a sense of humour, or was ironic, but work that seemed to be ‘smarty-pants’ and regarded itself as a tad above the current company.

On actually meeting the works — and by implication, the artists — for the first time in Auckland, I was pleased to see that the majority of works that I had selected fulfilled my expectations. There were works of many styles, many genres, variable scale and in different ceramic media, as well as a few mixed media works. The shortlist for prizes was relatively easy to select, but choosing the prize winners was a different matter. How do you make a choice between two or three works that each have high merit, and could be awarded the major prize?

JUDGE’S COMMENT: JaNET DEbOOS

It was with high anticipation that I arrived at Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery to see the shortlisted works for The Portage Ceramic Awards. Judging a national competition is always a privilege, as it allows one to see a snapshot of a country’s ceramic landscape without having to travel to every part of that country, see every show, visit every studio. But it also begs the question: is this an accurate survey of what is happening and what is being made?

My first look at all the entries submitted happened whilst I was in Ireland, participating in the Ceramics Ireland Festival in Thomastown, Kilkenny. So it was against a backdrop of work seen in galleries there, work shown by presenters, and work made by students coming out of the Ceramics Skills program in Thomastown that I surveyed New Zealand ceramics. My second look was in Barcelona, where the International Academy of Ceramics was holding its biannual General Assembly. Here, the backdrop was not just the exhibitions of members’ works, but also the overwhelming presence of Antoni Gaudi’s ceramics in architecture. It was fascinating to see, despite time and different histories, common elements of ceramics production and presentation across all these geographies. But there were differences.

Most of the entries in the Portage this year were relatively intimate in scale, but with some obvious exceptions, particularly in the works that were modular; a persistent and popular way to inhabit a more commanding space in a gallery. There were representative works from many different genres, an eclectic mix, but there were also some notable absences.

For good reason, I have always associated New Zealand with excellence in domestic ware: works (usually pots) that one might have in the home, and use. However, there were relatively few examples of domestic or functional ware amongst the entries. There was also none of what might be termed experimental or ‘risky’ work. This is probably because a national competition that houses the selected entries in a gallery is not conducive to site-specific installation, time-based work or performance work. But in other national and international competitions that I have judged or juried in recent years, there were video entries that represented this kind of work.

However, there was quite a lot of what has been called variously ‘sloppy ceramics’, ‘ugly clay’ or ‘outsider art’ (see Sloppy Craft: Postdisciplinarity and the Crafts, edited by Elaine Cheasley Paterson and Susan Surette, 2015). This work is quite often made by people who have a background in fine art, rather than ceramics, and have co-opted clay not only for its expressive potential but also for its

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A vessel, sphere, nugget, blob, cup, idol, souvenir, table setting, totem, toilet, found thing, slumping sculpture, mud splatter, trench

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Within the typologies of contemporary ceramics, how do we anchor our understanding of current practice when one thing can so easily become another? During the 1960s and 1970s, it was the development and widespread uptake of the studio pottery movement in New Zealand that shaped the prevailing orthodoxy of the maker in the studio, when the mastery of skill and integrity of the handmade was in itself understood as a powerful remonstration against the ubiquitous, industrial manufacturing processes that we associate with ceramics today.

Increasingly however, interpreting ceramics through this lens fails to account for other forms of practice, heightened momentarily by what art historian Jorunn Veiteberg observes in the 2015 Portage Ceramic Awards essay, Ceramics is HOT.2 Veiteberg notes a critical moment in the co-option of ceramics into the stylistic and commercial dynamics of the fine art world. A strange and distant cousin to studio pottery, practices in clay within the domain of fine art see clay rendered in any number of ways, at times brazenly uninterested (or unaware) of a historic ceramic culture and exercising the freedom to prioritise elements (materiality, form, time, idea, making process) within the arena of a constantly shifting hierarchy.

In New Zealand in the last decade, we have seen the deconstruction and reorientation of craft-based education. Specialised ceramic (and more widely craft) based courses that were introduced to tertiary institutions in the 1980s have, since the late 1990s and early 2000s, disappeared into wider visual arts programmes, or been replaced by design degrees with more marketable links to industry. Yet the impetus toward materially-based, skill-based practices is reappearing, ad hoc, in fine arts departments across the country, driven by the

desires, curiosity and politics of a new generation of makers. Similarly, independent teaching facilities, community courses and backyard kiln construction are experiencing unprecedented popularity. This has highlighted the very real and worrying possibility that bodies of knowledge and skill are too easily lost to time when our mechanisms for passing knowledge through generations are eroded. But are we sure we also fully understand the implications of this change, or what it might mean for craft?

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For Objectspace, a gallery dedicated to craft, applied art and design, navigating these distinctions is increasingly complicated. There is no working set of definitions to signal inclusion and exclusion. The overlap where the discipline areas of craft, fine art and design intersect is dynamic, and any set of categorical rules to interpret what something is and isn’t in this territory will require a frequently shifting list of exceptions. Writers and historians have tried to extend a useful definition of craft that distinguishes it from design and art, while acknowledging the increasing instability located in these terms. It is difficult to encounter one that doesn’t suffer from too little or too much; a victim of too many ands, eithers and ors or alternately too polemically specific.

“After decades of deliberation it has become obvious what the crafts are. In late modern culture the crafts are a consortium of genres in the visual arts… Those of us who have spent time in the field are at a stage, I am sure, at which earnest definitions and descriptions of craft as something which is (or is not) art, is (or is not) design, as technophobia, as an anthropological signifier, as a protector of apparent traditions, as old (or new) age lifestyle… have ground us all down.”3

Writing in The Persistence of Craft, Paul Greenhalgh’s consortium of genres acknowledges the limitations of the established position, propagating a view of craft rooted in the tradition of a material, and the specific techniques and skills it takes to master, is simply

THE THING WORLD1

kIM paTONIn the end, the 2016 Portage prize winner was chosen because the work was so apparently simple, yet its resolution and making was complex, and superbly done. It raised questions both in its concept and fabrication. Its title, Clinch VI, has the obvious erotic associations with a tight hug. But it is a somewhat aggressive kind of hug, and suggests an air of ownership, of capture, and indeed the two parts cannot be separated without breaking at least one of them. And there is the extended association with ‘clinching the deal’, and winning in business. The pearly smooth, almost featureless surface of the work obscured the darker associations of its title, and certainly initially obscured the difficult, clever process by which it came into being. As such, it stood out in what was a strong field.

So I offer you my choices, a varied and eclectic mix, and hope that you will share the pleasure I had in engaging with New Zealand ceramics, and that you will all argue for what choices you would have made if you were the judge.

Janet DeBoos

Caroline EarleyClinch VIslipcast stoneware100 x 280 x 150 mmPREMIER AWARD

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too narrow. Methodological approaches for craft practitioners are increasingly broad and non-unified, where specialisation is possible but not mandatory. Frameworks for interpreting works, from domestic use to gallery installation, enable makers, artists and designers to embody radically different notions of function as they draw from a range of sources – studio craft, art, design, politics, social practice etc.

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Writer and prolific ceramics commentator Garth Clark argues the lack of scholarship and analytical tools that belong to the discourse of ceramics is a crucial flaw; that we operate in a ceramic culture that is inarticulate and unconvincing when we try and establish a position within a wider visual arts framework. He writes,

“It is clear that ceramics’ long held anti-intellectualism and determined empiricism has exacted a heavy price and left us marginalized in a world of art that has become increasingly about ideas, over skills and materials”.4

Clark posits an expanded vocabulary of art is required that includes “language that is unique to ceramic art.”5 This vocabulary could become a marker and a guide for contemporary craft practice and our understanding of it, acknowledging it could not exist without its historical position grounded in making processes, but is now versant in contemporary visual culture and a plurality of art histories. In this territory, craft practitioners can develop new artistic strategies, as the elements and methodologies available to them grows instrumentally larger. Christopher Frayling writes in an accompanying essay to the 2011 exhibition The Power of Making, which sought to explore the multiplicities of making:

“The crafts must finally shed their nostalgic connotations…in the teeth of countless advertising campaigns and television cliches to the contrary; they must even shed their ethical connotations (hard work is good for you) and be more comfortable with fluency in a contemporary language. They must come to terms with modernity – with the possibilities of digital technologies… with urban living, interior design, the lifestyle pages, product design, architectures close-up zones, the shifting borders of art at one end of the spectrum and design at the other, with all the colours and materials of the rainbow and the outer limits of function.”6

Frayling, like Clark, suggests it is not necessarily interesting for us to consider how we define craft practices that inhabit a hybrid space between crafts, fine art and design. Instead, perhaps the field of ceramics will be better served if we are equipped to assess, critique and argue for the pluralities of ceramic practice, providing a wider craft framework through which this might take place. As an organisation, Objectspace hopes to facilitate such a discourse that extends the interpretation and communication of craft. One that values the integrity of exploration alongside the sensitivity and knowledge of historical and cultural context that a maker brings to their work, and the confidence with which they use this knowledge to inform their practice of bringing things into existence.

Kim Paton Director, Objectspace

1. Love Jonsson. “Life Among Things” in Craft in Dialogue. Six Views on a Practice in Change. Craft in Dialogue/IASPIS. 2005. P.90.2. Jorunn Veiteberg. Portage 15 Ceramic Awards. Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery. 2015. P.6.3. Paul Greenhalgh. Quoted in “Exploring the Expressive Potential of Function” by Kristina Niedderer, in Craft in Dialogue.

Six Views on a Practice in Change. Craft in Dialogue/IASPIS. 2005. P.47.4. Garth Clark. Shards: Garth Clark on Ceramic Art. CAF: Ceramic Arts. 2003. P.347.5. Ibid. P. 350.6. Sir Christopher Frayling. The Power of Making. V&A Publishing. 2011. P.30.

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bRENDaN aDaMSObjects accumulate over time. Some house memories and feelings that we return to regularly, others are just there. The objects on these shelves and the shelves themselves are shadows of things remembered.

Returns Shelf IIthrown, cast and hand-built white earthenware

390 x 550 x 70 mm

STEpHEN baILEyMemories of a faraway place; a post card; a souvenir.

I am continually exploring, developing, reworking and revisiting my memories and experiences of place through my ceramics. I work mainly from memory, but I also refer to my photographs and drawings. I continue to arrange, rearrange, explore, return, remember, forget.

Petit Soccosstoneware

190 x 1400 x 190 mm

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GREG baRRONI am interested in the tangible, the handmade, a sense of place and relationship to environment. In pursuit of sustainability and using nearby materials, I dig and process clay from local pits, build kilns, and fire with wood.

In my work, there is a juxtaposition of tradition against the sculptural vessel and the evolution of ceramics within fine arts media.

Woodfired Jugstoneware

330 x 175 x 190 mmSCHOLARSHIP

OWEN baRTLETTThis work hints at the marvelous things we may find at the bottom of a make- believe ocean. I have always had a fascination, fed by a love of scuba diving, with rock and coral-like forms. Most of Earth’s volcanoes are underwater, which often exist so deep in the waters that we have no idea what may be down there!

Oceanic Volcanology - Quadrant 3 - Area 6cwhite earthenware300 x 2000 x 2000 mm

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Maak bOWIf you take a classical vessel and reinterpret it through a modernist lens, the forms can be achieved with varying amounts of simplicity. These thrown vessels have sides comprised of three straight lines, defining a similar basic form. Any slight change in the angle of these lines results in a different silhouette and mass, eliciting a different emotional response.

Diversity within conformity (series three vessels)thrown mid-fired clay210 x 175 x 175 mm; 250 x 205 x 205 mm; 150 x 185 x 185 mmHONOURABLE MENTION

SUSaNNaH bRIDGESA technique I have experimented with is to introduce other materials to clay that burn out in the firing process. They shape or leave their marks in the clay; their remains become ‘fossilised’ in a porcelain form. I am known for my work with porcelain and light, and here I have used hand-made and intricate fabrics to texture and give character to the clay. I like the notion of one form of craft being transformed into another, and of blurring the function and perceived hierarchy of objects. I have stitched back some remnants of the original materials — the cable knit jumper, the lace tablecloth or crocheted shawl — that were fused into the porcelain. I like this grouping of individuals: who are they, and what are they talking about?

Stick to the Knittingporcelain, glaze, fabrics, LED lamps

510 x 1800 x 430 mmMERIT AWARD

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SUSaNNaH bRIDGESIn developing new engobes for my bowls, I have found some attractive new sets of colours. I like the principle of being true to materials, so I sought colours from oxides rather than from stains, allowing just a glimpse of white body to peep through on the edges. The bowls come in pairs of size, and I grouped together a set of seven tones to form a range. This work takes its name from the old musical film, and whilst I doubt that my bowls will spark spontaneous dancing and outbursts of song, there is some advantage in their flexibility. You can mix and match them without fear of repercussion, and you can decide which shall be bride and which shall be brother!

Seven Brides for Seven Brothershigh-fired earthenware, engobes, glaze

130 x 300 x 245 mm (large) 80 x 190 x 170 mm (small)HONOURABLE MENTION

CLaIRE bRyERSSculptural stoneware with under-glazes, then a cryolite glaze, fired to 1200ºC in an electric kiln. I wanted this piece to resemble an old wreck that has rested on the seabed for a long time and has since continued to erode and decay. This is a relatively new glaze to me, so I am still learning how it works.

Dorian Greystoneware

175 x 375 x 130 mm

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aNNETTE bULLClay, in its uncovered, natural state, has become my focus. I am drawn to its ability to collect smoke and ash, its colour and variability, and the way it records marks. The porcelain and terracotta pieces seem to be in conversation, telling the story of smoke, heat, shadow, light, and my making.

Conversationsterracotta and porcelainvarious dimensions

MaDELEINE CHILDDecent handles. Stuck them up on a pedestal base, a bit absinthe glass even but can’t put Picasso in a statement. Or something Beaker Folk might make. Plates gold toothed, petaled; he loves me, he loves me not... broken beer, wine, vodka bottle glass glaze - sancai green, brown, clear.

Pottery Made Simple: Stupid Cups & Plates Setsceramic, lustre, plastic, paint

600 x 900 x 200 mmHONOURABLE MENTION

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MaDELEINE CHILDSouvenirs, mementoes, collections. Birds there, birds not there. Twigs and Twitters. My mother had a collection of twig pots from The Connoisseur. We’d find a bit of shivery grass or an interesting lichen-covered stick and poke them in, DIY sculptures. The difference a plinth makes.

One Careful Lady Owner: Birds & Twigpotsceramic250 x 2000 x 100 mm

JIM COOpERThis work has its feet in a few different sources: a half finished poem on the wall, time spent in Taiwan and a song by Jefferson Airplane.

Shrine from the temple of the good shepherdsstoneware clay, backdrop, altar cloth, paper, paint, crayon1500 x 1220 x 900 mmMERIT AWARD

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SUzy DüNSERThe beautiful shapes of old functional objects inspire me to interpret them in ceramics – not attempting to reproduce them exactly, but to capture their essence and translate them into a new material and context. These objects lend themselves to small group still-lifes, referring to the way the original objects were often stored crammed together on a shelf.

At the Back of the Shedsalt-glazed porcelain

300 x 640 x 240 mm

pHILLIpa DURkIN‘Slap Kiss’ is a term used to describe an abusive relationship. A cyclic pattern of abuse and charm, which traps a person and produces confusion, sometimes also called gas-lighting, it is designed to keep control through justification, following up an outburst or episode with “but I still love you” or promising gifts or to change.

Such domestic harmony, isn’t it good!found domestic wear, glaze, decals, resin and gold paint170 x 350 x 350mm

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CaROLINE EaRLEyMy work investigates correlations of bodies, the physicality of form and the ways in which objects occupy and conform to space and other objects. Softened and rounded forms are cast and assembled from repeated shapes that reference pots, biomorphic forms, mutations and the body.

Clinch VIslipcast stoneware

100 x 280 x 150 mmPREMIER AWARD

“In the end, the 2016 Portage prize-winner was chosen because the work was so apparently simple, yet its resolution and making was complex, and superbly done. It raised questions both in its concept and fabrication. Its title, Clinch, has the obvious erotic associations with a tight hug. But it is a somewhat aggressive kind of hug, and suggests an air of ownership, of capture, and indeed the two parts cannot be separated without breaking at least one of them. And there is the extended association with ‘clinching the deal’, and winning in business. The pearly-smooth, almost featureless surface of the work obscured the darker associations of its title, and certainly initially obscured the difficult, clever process by which it came into being. As such, it stood out in what was a strong field.”Janet DeBoos, 2016 judge

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pENNy ERICSONThis work celebrates the process of ‘collage-like’ assemblage of torn, stretched and textured clay slabs to build a unified, cohesive open-vessel form. The form speaks of atmosphere, of sky, sea, land, and the interplay of lights between the elements. They are grounded in this ever-changing conversation, which both depicts and underpins our Kiwi attitude to the land and defines our sense of ‘belonging’.

Blue Lightearthenware

100 x 420 x 350mm

LIz FEaThe road north leads to the Maniototo. Its topography is a McCahon-like folding landscape. The surface rises and curls, colours ebb and flow. On viewing this spectacular landscape, which for me is the ultimate expression of beauty, I think of those early surveyors who mapped this region, and I wonder if they felt the same way as I do now.

The Surveyorsearthenware500 x 140 x 140 mm each

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MEL FORDCeramic shards from discarded objects of varied origin and construction methods are gathered from Wellington’s coastline. While re-firing them into a unifying circular form I consider ideas around value and waste. In creating a new ceramic vessel from fragments of discarded ones, I give new life to old things and create work that spans both time and place.

White Trash #25found ceramic shards, stoneware, paper clay

140 x 240 x 240 mmHONOURABLE MENTION

MEL FORDIf a vessel breaks before it is finished, did it ever have a function? These vessels were constructed from discarded shards of industrially manufactured ceramics gathered from piles of rubble when I attended the Portage-awarded residency at the Medalta Potteries in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada. They were pulled from production lines due to imperfections and destroyed prior to completion. I celebrate imperfections.

Never Madesdiscarded ceramic shards, mid-fire paper clay, glaze

dimensions variable

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kIRSTy GaRDINERImagine looking into your mind’s eye and finding nothing. Waiting for something to return, still nothing, then creating a new normal. An imagined history using discarded magazines to create a collage within your own work. @newnormal is inspired by my fascination with the ‘@’ symbol and a desire to create a new history.

@newnormalhigh-fired earthenware, slip cast and slab construction, 1180ºC, black glaze on outer surface and collaged inside, ephemera480 x 230 x 140HONOURABLE MENTION

MaRk GOODy & EMILy SIDDELLThis work is inspired by a collection of Copeland and Spode dinnerware that has been in Emily’s family since the late nineteenth century. The Aesop fables depicted on the china have been deconstructed and re-assembled on porcelain beads much like a childhood memory can be fragmented. The necklace represents family heirlooms that are often imbued with stories, memories and history.

Deconstructed Fableshigh fired, glazed porcelain

1900 x 580 x 100 mmMERIT AWARD

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kaIRava GULLaTzBird-boat-with-blue-whale-eyes appeared during the process of shaping a wide vessel with a tall base. Shaping a creature and boat in one was the inspiration. Textures and layers of slip colours add to the spiritedness of this functional sculpture. Different viewpoints taken by the observer allow a sudden change of perception of the character of the bird.

Bird-boat-with-blue-whale-eyesclay395 x 620 x 270 mm

pETER HENDERSONBowl to be used and enjoyed

Orangewhite earthenware decorated with

stains and oxides, fired with clear glaze140 x 395 mm

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CHaRaDE HONEyThe destructive gold mining industry is a threat that we live with in our community. Modelled after quartz, these forms reflect the belief that the material should stay entombed in the earth, keeping the gold contained within its veins undisturbed. These works will eventually return to the earth from where they came.

Urth DNAwood-fired, soda-glazed stoneware 200 x 800 x 350 mm

JaNE JOHNSON-MaTUaLeonardo was a discarded plush toy from a second-hand store. Often these stores resemble archaeological sites and just like any archaeological setting they contain myriads of the forgotten, unwanted, and discarded objects from a past. Leonardo was subjected to various states of changes, altered and given a new life and meaning through the act of being selected, purchased, and used.

Leonardoporcelain paper clay, oxide 90 x 95 x 75 mm

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CHUCk JOSEpHThis diorama references the naïve paintings of Arthur Boyd and the soft-paste figurative ceramic collections in the Auckland and Sydney Museums. My “Paradise Lost” illustrates Milton’s message from the angel Michael to Adam and Eve after their fall. Find “a paradise within thee, happier far”; no longer reliant on a God, they must become self-sufficient humans.

Paradise Lost, John Milton reduxpaper clay and stains380 x 330 x 150 mmHONOURABLE MENTION

A Journeypaper clay, metallic glaze

160 x 770 x 150 mm

TaMMy kUIJpERSThe flight feather is capable of flying a bird thousands of kilometres to its destination without rest, a journey that took the ‘great fleet’ months to complete when crossing the Pacific Ocean. Earthbound and wingless myself, I can only imagine the courage and endurance such a journey requires.

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yI-MING LINThis is a non-functional teapot set. The teapot is built in stages, starting as a pot and ending up as a pot made of flowers so each flower can show its own life. The contrast between rock and flowers, brown and blue, organic-looking outside and smooth inside, showcases the variety in the work.

Flowery teapot setpaper clay310 x 600 x 400 mmHONOURABLE MENTION

JaNE MCCULLaEpic tales of sea vessels carrying life through cruel vast seascapes, men’s endurance and extreme perseverance inspired this work. A recent trip to the Orkney Islands and seeing the rich archaeological heritage there was extremely evocative of such nautical tales. Petroglyph markings were prevalent and underground dwellings an absolute delight to see.

From Far Northstoneware

200mm x 400mm x 150 mm

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Blizzard bowlwhite stoneware with dry slip and texturing 150 x 280 x 250 mm

ROyCE MCGLaSHEN I am enjoying exploring the texturing effects on the surface of clay without using brushwork, which has often been a feature of my ceramic work. The forms are simple and the colour is subtle.

NyREE MCINaLLy The immediacy of the ever-present cellphone camera meant that I could ask people to “hold that pose for a few seconds” in an attempt to capture the gesture or expression that best described the present mood of the sitter. I used different methods of working for each piece, depending on the photograph; if the sitter was composed I worked carefully on their portrait, but if they were captured in an unguarded moment, I worked more freely and quickly. The work was influenced by Victorian cameos, but with a more modernist approach, and this is reflected in the oval arrangement of the installation.

In an unguarded moment white and brown clay with slips, oxides, colours, glazes 100-150 x 100-150 x 50-60 mm each

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kaTE MCINTyREThis work explores the intersection between technology and craft, utilising traditional handcrafting techniques alongside digital technologies. This series of work is inspired by patterns and structures found in nature, specifically crystal and geode formations found in igneous rocks. For my glazes, I found inspiration from the colours in the rocks and landscape of Mt Tongariro, in New Zealand’s central North Island.

Fragment stoneware

225 x 460 x 80 mm

aNNIE MCIvERThe figures I make are all invested, in some way, with a sense of our mortality and a preoccupation with our inner life and the subconscious. I use the practice of embodiment to endow animal forms with human emotions. Given that my maiden name Coney means rabbit, the hare has become, for me, an everyman and also an alter ego. However in this figure, I have reversed that process of embodiment to give this human female a wolf’s head. The quest has always been to achieve an integration of the wild inner-self with the more compliant external view we present. The hand mirror is the vehicle - the black surface reflects what dwells within whilst the external presents her world face.

Teetering on the brink of being mid-fire porcelain, found object, black styrene, glaze,

acrylic paint, binder medium, epoxy putty340 x 250 x 440 mm

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MaTT MCLEaNClay is its own print medium, capable of recording indelibly the various forces that impinge on it. I’m interested in the way the clay form subverts the original precision of these normally flat map images. The maps are of the West Auckland area, once a centre for heavy clay industry.

Landslide learthenware

600 x 650 x 300 mm

MELISSa MCMaHONDirectly inspired by the nebulous space between the manufacture of crafted objects and studio craft practice, my objects are often inspired by fragments of emotions and experiences. I use clay to process these fragments into pieces that allow me to explore and promote notions of craft. Most often my works take the form of an urn. I consider them to be memento mori.

Bittersweetstoneware, lava glaze, cotton, pins, resin, glass, 24K gold

450 x 340 x 240 mm

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EM MERTENS“Civilisation is hideously fragile…There’s not much between us and the horrors underneath, just about a coat of varnish.” - Carrie P. Snow

Initially you see an earthly paradise. Closer inspection reveals the work’s true nature. Toy soldiers represent loss of innocence; the infiltration of manmade objects call us to consider man’s interference in the world; the cranes, however, signify hope.

Blindmans bluffporcelain, paper clay, slip 1000 x 1900 x 120 mm

MaRION MEWbURNA cloud, flowers, hearts, lips and shells

An angel

Three flying pigs

People playing life and death

A bottle of sweating the small stuff

Two birds, a butterfly, a cup, a jug

Two strange faces and a house

A water tank, a chair, three roses

A music box without a song

A woman trapped inside... and no raccoons.

Inventory (after Jacques Prévert)ceramic, wire, plastic pipe, silicon

300 x 180 x 120 mm

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GaELEEN MORLEyThe Journey uses heavily-grogged clay, slab-built, using a carbon trap shino glaze, fired in a wood kiln for 40 hours.

The Journeystoneware

250 x 320 x 180 mm

ELENa RENkERTo me, a tea bowl is an object that allows a unique combination of functional and sculptural elements. I wanted the processes of making these bowls to be visible in the finished pieces, the carving and marking of the clay, the partially-glazed surfaces and the effect of the heat, the fire and the flame.

Two shino tea bowls shino-glazed, wood-fired stoneware

110 x 130 x 130 mm each

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LOUISE RIvEA meditation on withdrawal, subsequent isolation, and the possibilities of connecting in unexpected ways. There is a delicate and difficult balance between withdrawing from life to create and make work, and falling into the darkness of isolation.

TOUCHING in terracottaterracotta550 x 600 x 250 mm

RICk RUDDIf you need to ask the question, the answer is probably yes! In the tradition of the English novelty teapot, this work concerns obesity.

Someone has to supply food, enabling these super-sized people to become so large. They cannot move without assistance.

Does my bum look big in this? teapot earthenware

290 x 460 x 190 mm

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TRISH SEDDON“Fleur de Mort” or “Flower of Death”, meant to evoke feelings of both revulsion and fascination, was inspired by the Carrion flower, (also known as corpse flower) which emits an odour of rotting flesh. This imagery is taken a step further by showing the decay of death topped by a menacing flower, capable of ingesting any insects attempting pollination.

Fleur de Mortmid-range paper clay 780 x 200 x 350

LIz SHaREkPeople have been making ceramic vessels for the last 20,000 years or so, and the forms and surfaces have frequently provided a vehicle for artistic expression. And so it goes on. I’m interested in how a single gesture applied to the entire surface of a simple form can become something other than decoration and change the feeling of the object.

Same, Same but Different(Group of 4 pieces)

buff raku trachyte, underglaze colour, glaze 210 mm x 250 mm x 250 mm (each)

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DUNCaN SHEaRERMy starting point is tea. The rituals and ceremonies of preparing and drinking tea are fascinating and a rich source of inspiration. This work is made to enliven the simple act of making tea, to add a moment of richness to the day and to create, I hope, a moment of enjoyment.

Tea servicewood-fired stoneware, soda glazed 160 x 350 x 200 mm

SaNG SOOL SHIM & kEUM SUN LEEAfter the sun goes down, the twilight become darkness in

the valley and all colours of wild flower fade.

Shaped on a kicking wheel by beating clay slabs, altering form, carving patterns freehand, making marks inside with wooden tools,

colouring and ash glazing inside, clear glazing on flowers.

When The Twilight Came in the Valley stoneware

525 x 390 x 310 mm, 625 x 535 x 450 mm, 465 x 435 x 350 mm

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SUSaN ST LaWRENCEI use clay, rather than words or paint, to conjure up mythic landscapes and stories. Crow is the most recent chapter of an ongoing story that I have been building on for several years now.

Crowmid-fired ceramic440 x 250 x 250 mm

CaT THOMpSONThis particular piece evolved from a number of experiences: spending a day with a friend who was recently admitted into a dementia hospital; a Metallica song, and a vet visit. These stressful events played over and over in my mind, leading into a series of imaginative sketches and making processes.

And Your Crown Means Nothingstoneware and paper clay450 x 390 x 250 mm

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JaNNa vaN HaSSELTUnderbelly explores the inter-play of fluctuation with structure. While I can’t control the shape of the poured porcelain slip, I impose repeating positive and negative patterns onto their fluid forms; a juxtaposition of organisation and randomness. The introduction of a mirror behind exposes the otherwise hidden underside of the pieces and creates added dimensionality and depth to the work.

Underbellyglazed porcelain, mirror40 x 900 x 1000 mmHONOURABLE MENTION

CHRIS WEavERLast year I traveled to Peters Valley in New Jersey to take up my scholarship from the 2014 Portage Ceramic Awards. I participated in a Soda/Salt workshop by John Hasegawa, reviving my interest in salt-firing as a surface treatment for my tableware. This teapot is the beginning of a new series of work, taking full advantage of this process.

Faceted Teapotporcelain and wood

170 x 185 x 95 mm

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SaRaH WIGLEyI begin making marks and let them accumulate around the pot. Once the marks are fired on in the kiln, I leave it to others to name the pattern.

Sketch bowlclay, glaze, ceramic pencil, gold lustre

145 x 245 x 245 mm

paUL WINSpEaRI thoroughly enjoy making large pieces, which are both functional and aesthetically pleasing. This glaze is vibrant and engaging in its own right. It’s also reminiscent of our local beach sands, which gives a sense of connection to the place I am privileged to live in.

Gold Bowllow-fired stoneware with white slip

110 x 405 x 405 mmHONOURABLE MENTION

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HELEN yaUIn my childhood, I was given some silkworms to grow as a pastime. It was fascinating to watch the metamorphic change of silkworms spinning lace-like cocoons around themselves. The protective shells allowed the growth of pupas, which eventually gave new form in the form of moths.

A cocoon embraces life inside the protective shell. Each cocoon contains its individual code and messages, which influence a new life with its own identity. It is a place to enable individual life to rest, to prepare for future encounters of unpredictable challenges, and to face new life with hope and vigour.

Lace Codepaper clay

2000 x 1500 mmHONOURABLE MENTION

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bIOGRapHIES

Brendan Adams, born and raised in Auckland, has been working with clay full-time since 1987. He has a diploma in Fine Arts from Otago Polytechnic, where he majored in painting. His work has been exhibited throughout New Zealand in major exhibitions and competitions, where he has won several awards, and is represented in the Auckland War Memorial Museum, Wallace Arts Trust and regional collections. Brendan has also taught Contemporary Craft at Unitec Institute of Technology and Auckland Studio Potters. He is currently working full-time from his home studio in Point Chevalier, where he and his partner have opened a gallery space called badams Front Room Gallery.

Stephen Bailey moved from England to New Zealand in 2005. He has since shown and retailed his ceramics at a number of galleries and has had work exhibited in the Auckland Studio Potters annual and domestic ware exhibitions. He has received, as part of these exhibitions, merit awards presented by Campbell Hegan, Barbara Hockenhull and Margaret Sumich. Stephen currently works from his garden studio in Mount Wellington, where he continues his practice of exploring texture and form as informed through the remembered experience of place.

Greg Barron’s ceramic practice began in 1972, working alongside potter Mirek Smisek. He has

since participated in numerous exhibitions, including the Fletcher Challenge, Sydney Myer Fund International Ceramic Awards, New Zealand Potters Annual Exhibitions, and the Portage Ceramic Awards. In addition to accepting a number of awards, Greg has received Creative New Zealand assistance to travel internationally, primarily in China, as a potter working alongside other artists. He currently works from his workshop in Glenbervie, Northland using locally sourced stoneware and porcelain clays, fired in a Kusakabe-designed smokeless, wood-fired kiln.

Owen Bartlett spent a few years working for Royce McGlashen and gaining some international experience before beginning his own business making contemporary tableware and limited-edition sculptural pieces. He is married to Katie Gold and together they live in Upper Moutere near Nelson, where they have a clay gallery and care for some quite cheeky animals.

Maak Bow has always had a passion for designing and making. Over the past four years, his focus has been on creating objects with clay. He defines himself as a modernist whose ceramic work still references the tradition of functional pottery in some way. His aim is to allow the materiality of the clay itself to speak, rather than it just being another canvas to decorate.

Susannah Bridges (B.Des) is an Auckland-based artist and designer. She is well known for her work with ceramics and lighting. Her work has been acquired by the Auckland War Memorial Museum, The Dowse Art Museum and MTG Hawkes Bay. As well as producing ceramics for domestic use, Susannah also designs and makes lighting, furniture and sculpture.

Claire Bryers has been a potter since 1981. She studied clay through attending weekend workshops and several conferences, but has no formal training. Her work has been selected for a number of exhibitions, including Norsewear 1998, Waiclay 2015 and the New Zealand Potters annual exhibition 2016. Claire experiments with salt, crystals, liquid petroleum gas and now electric firing. In 2014, she walked the Camino de Santiago in Spain and describes this experience as causing a quantum shift in her approach. Pots are now more precious to her and she strives to respect and honour them in her practice.

Annette Bull holds a Diploma in Ceramics from Otago Polytechnic and has been working with clay for 14 years. Her work is predominantly wheel based. She enjoys the immediacy of the wheel, as well as its challenges. Annette is currently exploring additions to the clay, including objects from her environment.

Madeleine Child writes: “Ceramics is thick with rules. You form a bubble to work within and against. Things that come with an inherent funniness, comic clumsiness, organic fecundity – popcorn, mudplops, and vegetable sheep. Things you instinctively veer away from – pod forms, poplars, fireside spaniels, souvenirs. Paying attention to clay in all its states and timing, working against gravity and techniques, acknowledging that you never have complete control, harnessing wrongness and disasters, the phenomena of accident and chance, the dynamics between intention and luck. You’re making a Kakariki with Golden Crown and the glaze runs so you have Bird with Poop on Its Head.”

Jim Cooper is a practicing ceramic artist based in Dunedin. He has previously won the Premier prize in the Portage Ceramic Awards and has shown his work extensively in public and private galleries throughout New Zealand, as well as exhibiting in Sydney and at the Taiwan International Ceramics Symposium. Jim also undertook a residency at Hualien Ceramics Centre East Coast Taiwan. His work has been featured in the magazines Art New Zealand, Ceramics: Art and Perception, and Ceramic Review.

Suzy Dünser is a ceramic artist based in Auckland. After 15 years working as an architectural lighting designer, she made the switch to clay, and completed a Diploma in Ceramic Arts in 2011. Suzy makes both functional vessels and more conceptual work, often also vessel-based. The conceptual work explores emotional connections and historical

references to our recent past, through interpretation of traditional and vernacular functional objects, recreated in ceramic. Suzy works primarily in salt-fired porcelain and stoneware, as well as mid-fire porcelain. She also teaches pottery at the Auckland Studio Potters Teaching Centre, and is currently President of the ASP.

Phillipa Durkin was introduced to ceramics while studying at Camberwell College of Art in London from 1993–1997. There, she gained a Foundation Studies Certificate before starting her degree in Conservation. Phillipa is attracted to the narrative potential of clay and how it invites intimacy by including the viewer in her circle of friends and experiences.

Caroline Earley is based in Paekakariki and Boise, Idaho, where she is currently Associate Professor of Art at Boise State University. She received her MFA from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Caroline exhibits her work nationally and internationally and was the Grand Prize winner of the 2013 Idaho Triennial Exhibition held at the Boise Art Museum. Her works were recently included in the 2015 Portage Ceramic Awards, the 2014 Wallace Art Awards travelling exhibition, the Objectspace Window Gallery, the San Angelo National Ceramics Competition in Texas and the 2011 Gyeonggi International CeraMIX Biennale in the Republic of Korea.

Penny Ericson has a Diploma of Education, specialising in Art Education, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Visual Arts with a distinction in ceramics from Monash University in Australia.

She has consistently exhibited her work, both locally and nationally, in solo and group exhibitions, notably winning the Portage Ceramic Awards Premier Prize in 2003. She was also awarded Merit Awards by the New Zealand Potters Society in 2012 and 2013 and was the People’s choice at the New Zealand National Ceramics conference in 2014. Penny lives and works on Waiheke Island in the Hauraki Gulf: her work reflects and interprets the diversity of this marine island environment. Her work was include in Helen Shamroth’s 100 New Zealand Artists and Paul Andrew Wandlass’ Prints on Clay.

Liz Fea’s practice is fundamentally informed by landscape, its fragility and memories of places inhabited and visited. This follows a Bachelor of Visual Arts in 2009 and a Diploma of Ceramics in 2010. Her work is hand-coiled, multi-glazed and fired. Surface decoration is a painterly process.

Mel Ford is a self-taught ceramicist who graduated with a BFA from Ilam School of Fine Arts at the University of Canterbury in 1989. Her work is held in private collections locally and internationally. In 2014, she was selected to exhibit as part of The Dowse Art Museum’s exhibition Slip Cast, a survey of contemporary New Zealand ceramic practice. She has also been a regular contributor to the Portage Ceramic Awards. Last year, she undertook the Medalta Artists Residency at the Shaw International Centre for Contemporary Ceramics as awarded to her by Portage in 2013.

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Kirsty Gardiner writes: “the ‘@’ symbol originated during medieval times, used by monks who copied manuscripts by hand. The preposition ‘at’ in Latin became ‘@’ to make writing faster. This medieval relic is at the heart of our online lives. It is a reminder of the past, present and the continual desire to create ever expanding markets for tangible and intangible products, labelled ‘new’. My work within the context of ‘new’ asks the ‘as if’ question as opposed to the ‘what if’ statement. To create a new history and evoke a dialogue between the imagined creatures and the space they inhabit.”

Mark Goody and Emily Siddell are Auckland-based artists who are currently collaborating and exploring the challenges of clay. With their separate backgrounds in fine art, craft and sculpture, they draw on their individual disciplines to create clay works that investigate the potential of the medium. Emily and Mark have exhibited throughout New Zealand and their works are held in both public and private collections throughout Australasia.

Kairava Gullatz has enjoyed her profession as a ceramic artist for over 30 years, a career-span that includes 13 years of tutoring. She grew up in Germany, where she studied ceramic design and participated in exhibitions, which won her two ceramic awards. Since immigrating to New Zealand, Kairava finds her inspiration in the beautiful nature of Auckland’s West Coast.

Peter Henderson has an established reputation as a skilled potter and artist. His work has been exhibited throughout New

Zealand over thirty years, winning a number of awards along the way. Peter enjoys the challenge of making one-off art pieces and applying his skills as a painter and drawer. Each wheel-thrown pot is treated as a canvas to play with. Design and decoration are an eclectic and spontaneous process

Charade Honey completed Unitec Institute of Technology’s Craft Design Certificate course in 1998 before going on to receive a Diploma of Ceramic Arts and a Post-Graduate Certificate in Visual Arts from Otago Polytechnic. She currently lives in Southern Coromandel, which informs her practice. In her work, Charade marries commercial clays with elements from the land and rivers, such as sand, beach quartz, raupo and native clays.

Jane Johnson-Matua is a mixed-media artist from Rotorua, affiliated with Te Arawa, Whakatohea and Te Rarawa, and is of French, German and Jewish descent. Jane graduated in 2004 from Waiariki Institute, Rotorua before continuing her studies at Whitecliffe College of Art & Design, where she gained a Master of Fine Art. Postgraduate studies between 2009-2012 at Massey University in Museum Studies and in the field of Material and Visual Culture have directed and fuelled her ideas towards generating connections with inanimate objects. She is drawn to the relationship between people and their things, encompassing the creation, history, conservancy, and interpretation of these objects.

Chuck Joseph was born in New Zealand and educated in London and Auckland, graduating from the University of Auckland

after studying Anthropology and Literature. Storytelling is core to Chuck’s work in clay. His recent works include dioramas based on European majolica and soft paste porcelain figures. Tableaux of figures such as the Western movie series of gunslingers and groups of ceramic toys tell stories in a naïve and whimsical style that carries weightier messages. His work concerns family stories and commentary about the fragility of indigenous cultures, flora and fauna. Chuck co-established EDGE CITY art studio in Westmere, Auckland.

Tammy Kuijpers’ work is a result of what she sees in the natural world; the beauty and fragility of life, and its temporary nature. Most of her observations are found on her daily walks through orchards and farmland. She is constantly observing the happenstances and tragedies that occur in the natural world and documents these findings through photography. She keeps the images to awaken her memories that in turn inspire her to create artwork. Tammy aims, through her artwork, to impress upon the viewer that there is beauty in life and death.

Yi-Ming Lin was born in Taiwan and immigrated to New Zealand in 1994. Shortly after, he completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Otago Polytechnic, Dunedin. Yi-Ming’s work has been selected for a number of prestigious showcases, including the National Tableware Exhibition, where his work won the Premier Award, The Korea Ceramic Biennale, the Portage Ceramic Awards 2013 and the New Zealand Potters’ 56th Anniversary

exhibition, where Yi-Ming’s work again won the Premier prize.

Jane McCulla gained a Bachelor of Arts with honours (first class) in Fine and Applied Art at the University of Ulster, Belfast, in 2006. Three years later, she immigrated to New Zealand and now works from her home-based studio creating stoneware textured and stretched vessels and ceramic pieces, mostly inspired by man’s presence through time in the natural landscape. In addition to undertaking public land art commissions, Jane’s ceramics have been exhibited in various solo and group selected exhibitions in London, Ireland, the UK and New Zealand. Pieces are held in various private and public collections.

Royce McGlashen has been working professionally in the pottery industry for 50 years and has established a reputation both nationally and internationally for his ceramic works. He runs a busy production pottery in Brightwater, Nelson. He splits his time between producing contemporary tableware and expressive work with clay, as well as on paper and canvas.

Nyree McInally graduated from Otago Polytechnic in 2012 with a Bachelor of Visual arts before going on to complete postgraduate studies in 2015. She has presented solo exhibitions at Bellamy and Cleveland galleries in Dunedin, participated in a group shows at a number of galleries, including Blue Oyster Art Project Space, Dunedin, and was selected for Objectspace’s 2016 emerging artist exhibition. Portraiture and figures feature prominently in her work, and the nature of Nyree’s art

practice is always experimental. Kate McIntyre is an Auckland-based ceramicist who uses a combination of digital technologies and intricate hand-carving techniques to make her ceramics. In 2015, she was awarded an Artist in Residence Scholarship for a residency at the European Ceramic Work Centre in the Netherlands, an international centre of excellence in ceramics. During this residency, Kate explored the interplay between digital fabrication and the handmade. Her current works exhibit a distinctive, graphic style and are inspired by natural geometry, specifically the patterns in the world around us. Kate has been working in ceramics since completing a Bachelor of Design from Unitec Institute of Technology in 2009.

Annie McIver completed a Master of Design at Unitec Institute of Technology in 2012. As a figurative ceramic sculptor, she hand-builds using both coil and slab techniques and constructs in a modular way. The formation of identity, particularly during childhood, continues to be her focus. Her motivation in making is to capture and encapsulate those small haemorrhages of the self, the dualities people encounter, which chart an emotional progress through life.

Matt McLean, a keen follower of various outdoor pursuits, has always been attracted to the sheer physicality of clay, something celebrated in his early wood-fired pots and large sculptures. He graduated in Fine Arts in 1976 and soon after set up a ceramics studio in Auckland with his wife, Kate where they still work. He often shows his work in outdoor venues

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and has been involved in several large and public art works. Matt also teaches ceramics regularly.

Melissa McMahon graduated with a Degree in Contemporary Craft in 2015. Her work has since been included in shows at Objectspace, The Vivian Gallery, and selected for the Molly Morpeth Canaday 3D Award. Her work has also been selected as Boards Choice in the Eden Arts Art Schools award at The Gus Fisher Gallery in 2015, and was recognised with a Highly Commended Award in the ECC Student Craft and Design Awards at The Dowse Art Museum the same year.

EM Mertens’ formal art training is in sculpture, not ceramics, and this has allowed her the privilege of not knowing what the correct procedures or rules are when working with clay. Due to this lack of formal knowledge, her extensive experimentation has led to mistakes but also to many exciting new possibilities and discoveries. Her inspiration comes from nature and how people interact the world they live in. Elizabeth is based in the South Waikato.

Marion Mewburn started potting in 1993 and was from the outset obsessed with making teapots. She has since become known for whimsical, over-the-top, colourful teapots, loaded with little sculptural parts. But for exhibition pieces, Marion returns to the wheel and keeps the whimsy to her little sculptures, who have to survive without their teapot to hold onto.

Gaeleen Morley has worked at making a living from clay for close to 50 years. She continues to be enthralled by the medium.

Elena Renker completed a level 7 Diploma in Ceramic Art in 2007 at Otago Polytechnic. Two years later, she built her own wood kiln. Elena’s main focus has been on making wheel-thrown, shino-glazed domestic wares and tea bowls. She has won numerous awards for her work and has exhibited here in New Zealand as well as overseas in Europe and Asia. She also completed a residency in 2015 in Shigaraki, where she researched Japanese shino feldspars. Lately, Elena has enjoyed carving bowls by hand, which is something she would like to develop further.

Louise Rive was born in Kaitaia and raised in Invercargill and Auckland. She holds a BFA from Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland. Louise considers her work to be a diary: objects and images in sculpted clay, in glaze and paint, recording events and places. She is interested in ceramic traditions and the variety of process and technique seen in the wider world of ceramic history through the centuries, and marvels that we all take clay, a crude raw material, and transform it in a myriad of ways. Louise currently works from EDGE CITY art studio in Westmere, Auckland.

Rick Rudd was born in the UK in 1949, trained at Great Yarmouth and Wolverhampton College of art, and moved to New Zealand in 1973. A full-time potter since 1975, he has won several awards and was president of Auckland Studio Potters and the New

Zealand Potters Society. Last year, he opened Quartz Museum of Studio Ceramics in Whanganui, through his charitable trust, the Rick Rudd Foundation. He was recently made a life member of the New Zealand Potters Society.

Trish Seddon enjoys incorporating invertebrate and vertebrate anatomical characteristics into her organic hand-built sculptures, whether they be creatures from the land or sea. Recently, she has been exploring the concept of decay, and the subsequent exposure of the underlying skeletal framework as protective layers of flesh are stripped away. Working with paper clay has enabled her to make forms that she would find impossible using ordinary clay, opening up a whole slew of possible directions to explore.

Sang Sool Shim and Keum Sun Lee are Korean potters. They have participated in many exhibitions in Korea, Austria, Croatia and New Zealand, have been finalists in the Portage Ceramic Awards for nine years continuously, and have been selected for international awards in Austria and Korea. In 2013, they were selected as lecturer-artists for the International Academic Program as part of the 7th International Ceramic Biennale 2013 in Korea. Working with both 10th century and 15th century techniques of Korean pottery, the two have adapted these traditions and added colours to give a contemporary aspect to their creations. Keum Sun has a Ph.D and Sang Sool is a grand master of Martial Art.

Susan St Lawrence lives in the Waikato, having recently immigrated there from north of the Bombay Hills. She has been working with clay since 2008 and holds a Diploma of Ceramic Arts and a Bachelor of Visual Art (contemporary craft). In addition to her solo practice, Susan is one half of the collaborative duo ‘Small Stories’ and teaches sculpture on a regular basis.

Duncan Shearer studied ceramics at Unitec Institute of Technology and graduated in 1998 with a Bachelor of Design. He was the Co-Director of the Auckland Studio Potters from 2000 to 2006 and the Manager of the Waikato Society of Potters from 2008 to 2012. He has been a studio potter since 1998, making a range of predominantly wood-fired and soda-glazed domestic ware.

Liz Sharek is possibly best known for her cast glass practice, which she has been successfully pursuing since the 1990s. However, since obtaining a Masters in Art and Design from AUT University in 2008, she has been expanding her material practice and recently renewed her interest in ceramics. She has exhibited widely in New Zealand and overseas and her work is included in a number of collections, including The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and The Ebeltoft Glass Museum in Denmark. Liz recently moved out of Auckland City to build a home and workshop in Matakana.

Cat Thompson begins each of her pieces with a narrative, a story that recalls past, present and personal events that explore human and animal psyches. Each work then develops its own personality, starting as a sketch, growing and changing with each stage of making, firing and glazing. She enjoys the simple ambiguity and confusion portrayed in her work, and recycles and experiments wherever and with anything that might have kiln possibilities.

Janna van Hasselt has been traveling and making art everywhere since completing her Bachelor of Fine Arts in printmaking at Ilam School of Fine Arts, Christchurch, in 2004. A Fulbright Graduate Award lured her to Chicago, where her love affair with clay began. Janna graduated with a Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2014. Her work combines print, paint, fabric, ceramics and more recently sculptural installations. She now lives and works in Christchurch.

Chris Weaver graduated from Otago Polytechnic, Dunedin, in 1975 with a Diploma in Fine and Applied Arts (with Distinction in Design and Sculpture) and a Certificate in Ceramics in 1976. He lives and works at Kaniere, near Hokitika on the West Coast of the South Island. He regularly exhibits both nationally and internationally and has also been selected for international award exhibitions in Australia and Japan. He has won several major awards, received Creative New Zealand Study and Creative Development grants, and is represented in public and private collections in New Zealand and overseas.

Sarah Wigley was born in Palmerston North in 1970. After studying English Literature at the University of Otago, she moved to London and worked on digitisation projects at the British Library and National Art Library at the V&A. Walking through the galleries everyday at the V&A and British Museum sparked an interest in collected objects and the decorative arts. On returning to New Zealand to work at the National Library, she took up pottery and when her third child was born in 2008, she embarked on a new career as a ceramic artist.

Paul Winspear has worked full time as a potter since 1978 (including a three year studentship under Victor Greenaway) and has been sharing his skills mentoring and tutoring regularly for the past 25 years. Paul moved from Australia to New Zealand in 1981, jointly set up artists’ studios and was a founding member of two artists’ co-operatives in Wellington. He now lives, works and sells from his home in rural Golden Bay.

Helen Yau has extensive experience with ceramics. Her work has been exhibited in a number of group shows and competitions across both New Zealand and Australia. Helen has a Master of Visual Arts degree from The Australian National University.

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Image: John Parker, Clear and Present Danger, 2016. Lighting design by Philip Dexter. Photo: Suzy Dünser. Part of the exhibition John Parker: Cause and Effect, Te Uru Waitākere Contemporary Gallery, 10 September - 13 November 2016.