Editors Note
by Catherine Spence
Happy New Year! As I write those words I am cognisant of the fact that January has all but flown by and we are hot on the heels of February! Classes are already full, first residencies are nearly in place, significant upgrades to the property are in the planning. Hold on to your hats – 2020 is already shaping up to be a full and busy year at ASP.
Committee Update
The Committee spent considerable time last year on a variety of projects: the annual - shows, keeping up with H&S legislation, etc - and a range of important directions for the Centre. Perhaps the most important of which is the Strategy for the Centre. This has already meant some small but significant changes on the ground – such as you must be a Member of ASP in order to take a class at ASP. The Strategy will be available in due course for Members to read should they want to – essentially it stems from our core focus, or mission statement, which is essentially that “ASP is a society run by potters for potters” which means, in short that the aim is to foster the endeavour of creativity and learning in the medium of clay in pursuit of a range of exploration from the studio potter to sculptural expression; functionality to any kind of form. This will drive how things happen at ASP. The key is that it is about Member involvement to make initiatives work and to support the direction the Centre goes in. Members have their opportunity to be a part of things as much as each of you is willing and able – and of course, the AGM is just around the corner, (April 2020)!
Renos at the Centre
Things at the Centre are ramping up already! Hopefully by now the mini-summer project of an outdoor sink and bench, and extra shelves for the Pods has been completed thanks to Terry, Mike D and Mark (we haven’t told Mark that Tutors don’t HAVE to do extra volunteering at the Centre, but we might just let him find out himself in good time!)
And there is so much more afoot! The Committee has been going through a works and improvements project list for the year. After the new sink, it is a resolution of the ongoing unpleasant toilet drainage issue, a complete rejig of the clay baths and raku kiln area and resolving the muddy pits (garden walk way area) between the Pods and the Studio before winter rains arrive.
These are big projects and have been time-lined by Mike C down into bite size pieces. The Centre relies on Membership support to achieve everything that is done at the Centre, and these projects are cases in point. If you have a skill (building, planning, gardening, grunt work capability) your help is always accepted and appreciated. Stage one of this plan requires complete removal of two piles of garden waste/debris that has built up over the years. The first is between the house and the Waikaraka wall – this is a fire hazard, and access block and has to be removed. The second is behind the studio and also has to go in order for the next stages of the land tidy-up on that side of the Studio before the clay baths renovation can take place.
This is where you come in – many hands make light work – please put this working bee date in your diary now! It is Saturday, February 15 10am til 3pm (or we can knock off early if the job gets done faster – the more the quicker!) Sausages on the bbq for lunch!
Meet the New Tutors
This is a little redundant as the classes have already begun for 2020. Those of you in the new classes will of course have already met your new tutor.
Mark Goody
The Monday morning class is now being lead by Mark Goody, with Pauline McCoy continuing as the 2IC. Mark is a graduate of the Diploma programme run at ASP, whose work is distinctive. This year he was selected by Merran Esson, Portage Judge, to join the collection that made up said exhibition (which is still on at Te Uru until 23 February, 2020). His piece Jingdezhen Shard Ewer follows an earlier trip he made to Jingdezhen, (some of you may have been fortunate enough to hear about this trip last year at a Member Evening talk). The Diploma students are also fortunate to have him as their Tutor for the throwing module at the start of this year.
Tuesday mornings are in the steady hands of Richard Naylor, with Hayley Bridgeford as 2IC. Richard has been the support Tutor in this class previously so is already pretty well known. Richard’s work is distinctive in his pursuit of forms with markings that define the shape of the piece, incorporating the qualities of the clay in the work. His last show was at The Front Room Gallery last year with Rebecca Plowman. Hayley was of course our very first Pod dweller! Hayley was studio apprentice to Peter Collis up until the point where he and his wife Julie took off for the bright lights of LA. Hayley’s work has been focused on studio production and this year looks like is it is offering her the opportunity to push those boundaries wider.
Andrew van der Putten is the guest tutor on Wednesday mornings for Term 1. There is an article on him within this Newsletter about when he “dropped into” Suzy Dunser’s Tuesday night class at the end of last year for a demo. Andrew was coined the ‘relaxed’ thrower by the Tuesday crowd – not that he simply allows the clay to do its own thing, but the confidence and intent that he throws with allows a distinctive piece of altered throwing to arrive, appearing to be effortless. We all know that looks are deceiving and the accomplished practice required to make something so well balanced and beautiful is something Andrew has in spades.
Andrew van der Putten at ASP
At the end of last year the Tuesday night class had a guest appearance of Andrew van der Putten. Andrew has been an active potter of note in the NZ Ceramic scene for 48 years now. His work has distinctive style – “assured altered throwing” perhaps - and his work is often used to exemplify particular kinds of practice, technique or design skills, especially at ASP where his work is held in high regard.
Andrew holds to ‘focus is the key’: allow the clay to do some of what it wants, but make sure you are in charge of it, not the other way around. And when it comes to handles and lugs he states, “Things need to look like they are of or from the pot, not just a stuck-on addition”. He also stands by the notion that only four tools, maybe five, are ever really necessary for throwing… all the others are just frippery. So which four or five? He has one particular tool he made himself that makes about four redundant in my tool caddy alone (I am a bit of a tool junkie though!), a slightly larger triangular metal trimming tool that he uses for a variety of jobs. He also counts in one rib (a fashioned favourite), a needle and a wire.
Those of you who have made it into his Wednesday morning class – you are in for a treat!
Portage Ceramic Awards 2019 at Te Uru
To write a review on The Portage show and do it justice would take longer than the available space here. Mark Mitchell won the Premier Award with his piece Slice; Merit Awards went to Blue Black for Musical Chairs and to Kylie Matheson for Yoke. There was so much great work to see - suffice to say you should go and see it for yourself if you haven’t already: photos are not enough! Show closes 23 February 2020.
Book Review
Crafting Aotearoa: a Cultural History of Making in New Zealand and the Wider Moana Oceania, Karl Chitham, Kolokesa U Māhina-Tuai, Damian Skinner eds.
A comprehensive, unique title, described in one review as falling “...somewhere between a coffee table book and a scholarly examination of craft in Aotearoa and the wider Pacific...”, Crafting Aotearoa contains essays from no less than 22 contributors.
Don’t just borrow this book for the mentions of ceramics (although they are many and interesting); there is much more to see. Glossaries of words from 13 different Pacific languages, histories, contemporary stories, photographs, and a plethora of craft disciplines are all included. The new perspectives and contexts on the familiar (and not) may be inspirational for your own art practice.