Nelson Clay Week kicks off this Saturday and runs until 4 October. Gordon Preece speaks with two local potters who are getting involved.
Richmond-based primary teaching student Lilly-Joy Swanson has spun together a clay pottery passion since her late teens, and the 24-year-old will make her debut at Nelson Clay Week to craft more techniques.
The biennial event, which fires up on Saturday, is organised by Arts Council Nelson and brings together potters from around New Zealand and abroad to share ideas, techniques, knowledge and developments, and to ensure that pottery continues to thrive as a craft, an art form, and an industry.
Lilly-Joy says working part-time at South Street Gallery in Nelson as a teenager was the clincher for her clay journey, crafting clay artworks in Nelson, Richmond, Hope’s Craft Potters and during a residency programme at Driving Creek in Coromandel.
“I really enjoy how tactile it is using your hands and I just love throwing on the wheel because there’s something beautiful and rhythmic about it,” she says.
“[Clay pottery] feels like it has more of a purpose, especially if you’re using clay dug up from the ground because you can make a vase or a cup and it’s a piece of art, but you can still interact with it everyday.
“I also quite like doing surface decoration on my pots, like painting with oxides and sgraffito.”
Lilly-Joy says she’s sold some of her pots at Nelson’s Hot Clay Gallery, Little Beehive and local markets.
She says Nelson Clay Week’s courses like The Art of Anagama with Tasman-based potter and sculptor Daryl Frost, learning to make glazes from rocks, and a table at Saturday’s Potters Market will spin her wheels.
“I’m just really excited because it’s a whole week dedicated to clay and pottery, what a potter’s dream!” she says.
“I just want to have fun and experiment, learn from other artists and build connections with others to be more involved in the art community in Nelson.”
Meanwhile, Nelson’s Marama Mayrick has thrown oodles of New Zealand clays onto wheels and into kilns to craft table ceramics and exhibition pieces for the past eight years.
Marama, who’s a part-time potter, will tutor her second round of wild clay workshops for beginners on 30 September and 2 October for people to form more solid understandings of the story behind their artworks, and learn how to most efficiently test and process local materials.
Marama says, after dabbling in watercolour painting, digital illustrations, acrylics and sewing, clay pottery was the glaze of glory.
“I knew that this was going to be the medium for the rest of my life, I started doing a night class at Nelson Community Potters because I wanted to do something creative and meet some of the other creative community in Nelson,” she says.
“I’m most passionate about using locally sourced clay for sustainability reasons… most of the clays which are sold in New Zealand are either imported and mixed overseas, so I like to say, ‘this piece is made from clay from Washington Valley, or Ngātīmoti, or the Upper Moutere’.
“I think it’s really important to bring that aspect of the story of place into your work as an artist.”
Marama also expands her local focus to using glazes made from New Zealand rocks.
“The other thing which is important for me with the wild clay and also the rock glazes that I use, is looking at how we ask and who we ask for permission when we’re sourcing local materials,” she says.
“A big part of my journey and doing this work has been contacting local iwi to check where I can take clay from, and to make sure that I get permission to do that.
“It’s led to some really amazing connections, awesome discussions and then talking about geology.”
Marama also sells her functional ceramics throughout New Zealand and some of her pieces will be exhibited at Quiet Dog Gallery.
Her work has also included a finalist spot in last year’s Portage Ceramic Awards exhibition, which are the country’s best-known showcase of ceramic practices.
Go here for the full Clay Week schedule.
