Featured Artisans | Pottery Month in Parnell August 2022

    Michelle Bow

Born in New Zealand of mixed heritage, Michelle’s love of clay began over 30 years ago at university. Michelle spent 15 years as an art director and designer in the media industry before becoming a full-time ceramic artist in 2001.

A graduate of the Otago Diploma of Ceramics, Michelle loves to throw contemporary vessels, as well as to hand make wall art and sculptural pieces exploring the icons and patterns of New Zealand and the pacific region.

Michelle has received several awards for her ceramics and has exhibited in galleries and exhibitions throughout New Zealand.

D'Aunoy Clarke   D'Aunoy Clarke

Hey, there! I'm D'Aunoy (don-wah), but I just go by Doni (doe-knee).

I was born in New Orleans and just three months later moved to Auckland, New Zealand. After ten years of life there, I moved back to New Orleans, where I finished high school; and later attended Louisiana State University. There, I completed my BFA in ceramics in 2015. 

After graduation, I made the journey back again to New Zealand, where I worked full time in administration and event coordination for just over three years. During that time, I found that art and a life of creating art was my true passion.

In all of my artworks, exploring new textures is my main driving force. Making art that people want to touch is a goal. Following a close second to texture is colour. I hope that the bright & fun colours of my pieces help bring joy and colour into the lives of the viewers. 

Jino Jeong, Bird, mug, pottery   Jino Jeong

Jino Jeong is an Auckland-based ceramicist. Jino was born in Seoul and trained in ceramics at Kyunggi University in South Korea. He then spent a year at the highly prestigious Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute in China, the only dedicated university to ceramic arts in China. Now, Jino works from his studio experimenting with scale and glaze to create a unique body of work.

   Karen Kennedy

I live in the Henderson Valley with my husband, wee dog and chooks, and have been creating clay sculpture there for 35 years. I love clay, it is so versatile. My favourite things are dogs, cats, birds, pigs, clowns and figurines, all brightly painted and clear glazed. My big dogs are of a coarser clay and traditionally glazed. All mid fired to 1220o. I have my own pottery room and kiln at home.
I have won over 30 awards over the years.

Felicity Donaldson Ceramics   Felicity Donaldson

Under her brand, Wundaire, Felicity Donaldson Smith, works out of her studio in Greytown in the Wairarapa, creating her perfectly imperfect, unique and intuitive designs.

Using hand-building techniques mainly involving slab work with tinted clay inlay and melty drippy trippy glaze her results are at once functional and sculptural.

Felicity’s remarkable attention to detail imbues her work with a sense of natural, refined wonder. Her growing list of notable collaborations with leading creatives across a range of industries - Fisher and Paykel, Kowtow, Garage Project, to name a few, undoubtedly reflects the considerable appeal of both her passion and her work. 

Tom Sommervillle, Muddy Fingers, hibiscus bowls, pottery  Muddy Fingers

Tom Somerville works from Helensville north of Auckland.

When I took up pottery in 2016 I was taken with the idea that anyone could take up a bit of mud, fashion it into something, cook it and hey presto there you have it. pottery & sculpture. The fun thing is what to do with that mud . I realised I wanted to make stuff that people would cherish. that would add a bit of art into their lives and so Muddy Fingers was born. My inspiration comes from my life experience. As a young man I spent may hours swimming among coral reefs in Tonga. I met my wife there in Tonga. Jointly we share a passion for gardening and family. I have decided that all the lines, shapes and designs we love are all to be found in that diverse incredible realm we call nature. My work simply tries to capture some of this and repackage for your enjoyment.

Pottery, keep cup, Touchstones, NZ Made  Touchstones

We create functional and decorative pieces from clay and stone that evoke the spirit of the places in New Zealand that we travel to and experience.

Our collections are made slowly nurturing mindfulness in the process of their creation, and are designed to encourage a sense of grounding in their use.

The pieces are designed to be tactile, imperfect and evocative, often with honed surfaces created for touch.

They try to capture the essence of the material that is used, its natural grains, flaws, texture, strength.

Touchstones is a collection of work by Scott Donnell and Lisa Day. 

 

   Teresa Watson

Teresa Watson is a professional potter and tutor. As a teacher and a clay worker it seems only natural to combine her two loves, teaching and pottery. 

Teresa is an award winning ceramic artist‚ who has been teaching ceramics in the community for over 20 years. Her vision is to share the passion and love of clay with like minded people‚ and to inspire students in clay making through the classes that are held there.

The ceramic college is the only facility‚ here on the North Shore, that is set up purely for ceramics. It is housed in the former beautiful Saint Michael’s Anglican church‚ still with its original furniture‚ and church bell.

 

Rose River, Pottery, Vases, 2021  Millie Freeman

Rose River Pottery is the studio of Tauranga-based ceramicist Millie Freeman, who is particularly captivated by vase form, making both functional vases and purely decorative curvaceous pieces. She likens the curves and contours of her work to a winding river – endlessly flowing and graceful yet sometimes wild and turbulent. “Transforming a lump of clay into a unique and elegant piece is always thrilling and satisfying and a very soulful experience,” she says.

Believing there’s a place in any home for a variety of vase shapes and sizes to hold an array of flowers, from tiny posies to bigger bunches, she likes to create her designs with diversity in mind. Rich bronzes and greens feature recurrently in her glaze work, as she draws on the colours of that winding river rushing over rocks and weaving through the forest. No clay is wasted in her studio with all trimmings as well as collapses and other bungles getting recycled and re-created into a fabulous new pot.

Millie has been a wheel potter since 2018 and teaches at Bethlehem Pottery Club in Tauranga.

 

Bleesing, beads, pottery   Jill Bryce

Jill has always had an affinity with the sea, having always lived by the sea. Jill loves the continuing contrast of colours nature produces, which she sees every day from her studio on the cliff, in Army Bay.

She particularly loves hand building ceramics, where she can create various shapes forms, loving the 3D of this form of art. Really, Jill just loves creating.

   Siriporn Falcon-Grey

Living in Las Vegas, Nevada (1999), and inspired by the unique cultural diversity, I immersed myself in a variety of art courses that included drawing, stone and metal sculpting, and ceramics. Of all these mediums, I have always been drawn to ceramics the most. Enjoying the sense of creativity that comes with manipulating clay with my hands, I consider my artistic style to be loose and somewhat wabi-sabi.   

Integrating thrown forms with hand-built techniques for a more natural aesthetic, my ideas are drawn from indigenous pottery and diverse cultures. Preferring not to be stagnant with my ceramics, one day it’s cups and the next day it’s sculptures. I believe that one can benefit from art when tactility and function comes into play.

I became a member of the Auckland Studio Potters Society in 2011, studying under a variety of prominent New Zealand and international potters. In November 2019, I became an Otago Polytechnic Alumna receiving a Diploma in Arts and Design Ceramics. From 2019 to 2020, I was an ASP Committee trustee as well as the Social Media Manager, but later resigned to focus on my ASP Artist Residency. Currently I spend my time preparing for exhibitions and teaching pottery workshops.

 

  Marilyn Wheeler

My interest with pottery began in 1980 when my eldest child took lessons from a local art teacher. Watching his ability to transform a ball of clay into animals and characters intrigued me. And there it began.

After many more years of self teaching, I knew I needed extra help. Enrolling at Auckland Studio Potters in Onehunga proved to be a very good decision with all the resources and brilliant tutors at my fingertips. I was excited and learning so much more.

During the 90’s, I ran a teaching venue at my home for childen and adults. This was one of the most exciting times of my ceramic career.

My latest bodies of work utilise hand made stencils, airbrushing and sgraffito (scratching through the coloured surface to show the clay colour beneath), creating images of people, places and events. The thrown and handmade works I create have become a canvas for my designs.

In an effort to improve the photography of my works for my website and exhibitions, I embarked on a Diploma in Freelance Photography with NZIBS. Fortunatley, I find that I can now create decals of some of my images and fire them onto some of my plates and vessels.

Throughout this time of ceramic making, I taught Piano at my local school. This was immensely enjoyable, but after 26 years, retirement allowed me to concentrate on pursuing all of the ideas I have stored up for my clay work and photography.

I love being creative, whether it be with clay, photography or in my rather large garden. There is always something else to try, to push further, and that is exciting.

 

Pip Gray, ceramic, tapa, bowl  Pip Gray

Pip Gray draws inspiration for her designs from New Zealand's unique landscape and coastline

In 2001 Pip established her studio after developing a style and technique that is uniquely hers. Prior to that she worked at several ceramic studios after studying art for four years majoring in ceramics. All of Pips artwork is handprinted. Pip creates functional pieces that are all microwave, dishwasher and oven safe.

 

Wilma J Design, Pottery, NZ Made  Wilma Jennings

I've always created, whether it was from the mud resulting from the seasonal rains on my childhood island of Curacao, the sands on beaches, fabrics handed down to me or simply paint and paper. 

As clay is my dominant medium, I feel my creative space sits constantly at a crossroads between functional form, home decoration and art. As an artist I'm drawn in all these directions. All my pieces are passionately designed, whether created for the joy of using a practical item, or uplifting because it's beautiful to look at. My ethos is this: we're drawn to colours and shapes that make our hearts sing.

Art and design in all forms has the power to 'wash off the daily dust of everyday life' as Picasso once said. 

My passion is from the Caribbean, and New Zealand. The colours, architecture and spirit of my birth island still influences my work, along with beautiful flora and fauna of my home country New Zealand. 

Having started my pottery life under the influence and teaching of well known potters such as Yvonne Rust and Len Castle, and lesser known Margaret Radford, I've always been mindful of quality, ensuring form, materials and finishes are fit for design and purpose.

Elena Renker, Pottery, NZ Made  Elena Renker

I first started potting as a teenager in India and in Germany. In 1998 I joined Auckland Studio Potters where I completed the Diploma in Ceramic Art in 2007. In 2009 I build a wood fired kiln at my studio north of Auckland. My focus has been on producing domestic ware items and Japanese style tea and sake wares. My pots are either loosely wheel thrown or hand carved from a range of stoneware clays and then decorated with an iron slip in quick gestural movements. They are partially glazed in various shino style glazes and fired in my wood kiln for about 15 to 18 hours to 1300C. I love the effect that the wood ash has on the shino glaze, the subtle colours and ash deposits.

Johnc Williams  John C Williams

Ceramic artist / Creativist.

Born 1955

1971 - I Built my 1st kiln.

Graduated Design school wellington 1974.

early - late 70’s - Built various kilns in and around wellington. Various Ceramic exhibitions

1975-85 - Travelled extensively world wide working in Potteries, Canada ,Indonesia, Sweden, and Germany.

1985 - 2000 - Worked extensively in the NZ Film industry as Art director, set and props maker in NZ and Hollywood.

2000 - 2015 Architectural Designer - Designed and built numerous houses in Auckland and beyond.

2015 - Travelled to Japan.

2017 going forward I designed and created ceramic studio in Ohakune Ruapehu .
Built and using wood fired kiln, Oil and gas fired Salt kiln, Electric Kiln, Gas kiln and Various Hikadashi ( Raku ) Kilns .

I am predominantly enthused with ‘Oribe’ style of Japanese pottery.

Oribe is a visual style named after the late-16th-century tea master Furuta Oribe (1544-1615)
Oribe is still popular today, and is considered a classic style of Japanese aesthetics.
It is not just the inherently Japanese aesthetic that makes Oribe ware so loved; the bold and playful abstract patterns also look great with food....
‘Wabi sabi’ another Japanese aesthetic captivates me... the mercurial or unpredictable results of the effects of kiln firing... Wabi sabi - appreciation and beauty of the imperfect.

Ceramics from Johns kilns are used in everyday life and in collections world wide.
 

 Emily Brockie

Ceramics by E Brock is a collection of functional ceramics that simply feel great in your hand, and look beautiful on your shelf.

All pieces are conceptualised, designed and hand-thrown by me (Emily Brockie) from locally sourced clay in Auckland, New Zealand. 

I’m drawn to soft and minimal colours (expect blacks, greys, nudes and pinks from me), and I love to experiment with form - sometimes things go to plan, sometimes they don’t. Those are often my favourites.