August 2024 Newsletter
Club Notes and Updates
It’s Anagama Season!
Above: Just a few of the pieces from the 2022 firing.
Have you finished making your pots yet? With just over three weeks until Anagama Receiving Day, time is marching on! You need to aim for your bone dry pots to go in the club’s bisque firing on Monday 12 August at the latest to make sure you can participate in our final Anagama firing.
Making your piece(s)
Our Anagama kiln goes to extreme temperatures so it is vitally important that you have used the ‘right’ clay. It MUST be a Cone 10 clay ie fires to 1300 degrees Celsius. Other clays will likely melt – this ruins not only your pot, but others nearby and the kiln shelves. The maximum temperature of your clay is written on the bag of your clay. You can also Google the name of your clay to find out the firing range.
A BIG caveat for 2024: PRGI, and PRGF are rated to 1300 degrees but are weirdly NOT suitable for Anagama. Please talk to Peter R if you need more information.
Shattered PRGI pieces in the 2023 firing.
Shapes with texture are great in a wood firing as they catch the flames and ash to create glaze. For these tips and more advice and guidance go to the Anagama FAQ on HelloClub.
Although members are welcome to submit small sets of pots, remember that Anagama is all about the path of the flame through the pots. Although we try, we can't guarantee that every piece of a set will make it into the firing or even onto the same shelf.
Submitting your piece(s)
Receiving day is Sunday 25 August, 10-3pm. Please sign up to Receiving Day in HelloClub to speed up the drop-off process. If you don’t know whether you’ll submit something, you’re better to sign up and not turn up on the day rather than arrive without us knowing you’re coming.
We will provide details of what to expect on Receiving Day in our Mid-month Catch-up email, and will also email Receiving Day attendees in mid-August with the firing form and detailed instructions. We will also add this information to the Anagama FAQ on HelloClub in mid-August.
The 2022 kiln is opened.
Loading and firing your piece(s)
This is our last Anagama firing in the Horokiwi kiln. If you want to be a part of the experience of being there to load or stoke the fire, you first need to sign up to the relevant events in HelloClub (see links below). <strong>Sign up closes on Sunday 18 August</Strong> after which we will email participants to check preferences for specific times and days so we can arrange rosters for each individual shift.
Be aware that we have a limited number of places available to help up at the kiln this year. If you submit a pot you don’t HAVE to help with loading and firing but it is a fantastic opportunity to see what it’s all about.
If you don’t sign up to the events in HelloClub by Sunday, 18 August, you WILL miss out.
Anagama dates
Sign up for specific events by clicking the links below:
• Final Working Bee* (FULL): Saturday 3 August, 10:00am – 2:00pm
• Cone 10 glazes added to glaze room: Earlyish August
• Cone 10 glazes removed from glaze room: Thursday, 22 August, evening
• Receiving day*: Sunday, 25 August, 10:00 – 3:00 pm
• Loading week*: Monday, 26 August – Saturday, 31 August
• Firing week: Wednesday, 4 September – Sunday, 8 September (four 6-hour shifts per day)
• Unloading day: Sunday, 15 September 2023, 11:00 – 4:00 pm NOTE: No pots to be removed until 2:30pm as the team needs to review the firing.
• Show & Tell: Friday, 20 September, 6:00pm
* Volunteering at these events qualifies members to fire two additional pots.
Celebration
To mark the end of an era, we are inviting current and past members that have been heavily involved in the creation and running of the Anagama kiln to join us in celebration. Graeme and June Houston have been our gracious hosts for 20 years and we are eternally grateful to them for their support over this time. Anagama has been a mainstay of the club’s year since 2006 - let’s make it a successful event!
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Ceramics 2024 Updates
Announcing Our Guest Selector & Artist for 2024
Guest selector and artist Felicity Donaldson Smith of Wundaire.
We are pleased to announce our guest selector & artist for Ceramicus 2024, Felicity Donaldson Smith of Wundaire!
We chose Felicity for this job because of her connection to our club as a former WPA member and contribution to our local ceramics community both as a teacher and maker. Many of us will know her, or might've done one of her workshops, or have one of her handbuilt pieces in the cupboard. We were stoked when she agreed!
Felicity Donaldson Smith, a multidisciplinary artist and the creative behind Wundaire, relocated from Wellington to Greytown in 2019 with her husband and two small children to create a home studio where she shapes her distinctive ceramics and teaches popular hand-building workshops. With a decade of clay work, her hand-built designs featuring slab work, tinted clay inlay, and trippy multi-layered glazes seamlessly bridge functionality and sculpture.
Over the years, Felicity's collaborations with iconic New Zealand businesses, including Kowtow, Vogels, Dulux and the Wellington City Gallery. Her work is stocked in selected art galleries & homewares stores both locally and internationally.
Reminders
Have you started making your piecest yet? With just under 3 months to receiving day, the countdown is on!
Ceramicus is for everyone! We want the exhibition to be a true reflection of our club of hobbyists. And we have an award category specifically for first time exhibitors.
Key dates:
• Sun 27 October - Ceramicus receiving day (rooms closed all day)
• Tues 29 October - Opening night
• Weds 30 October to Sat 9 November - Ceramicus exhibition opens
• Sat 2 & Sun 3 November - Pop-up market*
• Sun 10 November - pot pick up and pack down
*Spaces in the pop up market will be available to book in September.
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New Acquisition for the Studio
Wedged Block of Clay by Shoji HAMADA 1894-1978.
Created at a workshop in Wellington (Reikorangi 1965), fired by Flora Christeller and gifted to Wellington Potters in 2024.
On Tuesday, 16 July, past president Flora Christieller's daughter, Fiona Christieller, came to our Club Day and gifted WPA with this beautiful piece of wedged clay by Shoji Hamada. It was lovely to meet Fiona and hear the stories she had of her mother and her life in pottery. Make sure you have a look at this piece when you're next in the club rooms.
Flora Christeller with Shinsaku Hamada at his workshop in Japan 1982.
Shoji Hamada was considered a national treasure in Japan and known internationally as part of the Mashiko folk pottery tradition. He became close friends with Bernard Leach after visiting the Leach Pottery in St Ives, England and influenced the “humble pot” style of pottery in New Zealand in the 1960’s and 70’s.
Bernard Leach moved to New Zealand in 1962 and quickly involved himself in the already strong pottery movement here, including promoting his book: ‘A Potter’s Book’.
In 1965, Hamada was invited to Christchurch where he was a guest at the Pan Pacific Arts Festival. While in New Zealand he also held a workshop at Janet and Wilf Wright’s Reikorangi pottery near Waikanae and visited Auckland. Shinsaku, the son of Shoji Hamada and a renowned potter in his own right, accompanied his father and stayed with Flora Christeller during their stay in Wellington. Flora was one of the potters who attended the workshop at Reikorangi. At some stage, after Hamada had wedged a piece of clay and left it untouched for the remainder of the day, Flora took it home and bisque fired it.
Later, Flora travelled to Japan, and in 1982 she visited Shinsaku Hamada and Takeichi Kawai in their respective workshops. An exhibition of Shoji Hamada was held at the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna O Waiwhetu, June 1973.
Towards the end of her life Flora asked that the piece should be given to Wellington Potters’ Association.
Members’ Gallery
We are so proud to announce that THREE members of our club have been selected for Whanganui’s Quartz Museum of Studio Ceramics’s ‘Emerging Practitioner in Clay’ award: Lans Hansen, Caren Pistorious, and Amanda Stowers. This award looks to support emerging ceramic artists who worked with clay for less than five years without featuring in any major exhibitions.
The judges will select about 30 finalists whose work is represented in a catalogue and put up for sale. A winner will be announced on September 23 and an exhibition featuring work from all finalists begins the next day at Quartz Museum, and runs until March next year.
A massive congratulations to all three.
Is there something you’ve made that you want to show off? If so, please email your photos (and descriptions, if you’d like) to wellingtonpotters.info@gmail.com.
DID YOU KNOW…?
Member Classes with WPA
We’ve had a lot of questions about member-only classes at WPA lately. We thought we’d take this opportunity to let you know the logic behind running classes and the work that goes into promoting them.
Classes for members are priced at roughly $20/hour with a maximum of 8 students (to ensure time for tutors to focus on their students). To determine a class’s “break even” point, we calculate the tutor’s pay, their organisation time, and what materials / firings that need to happen through the class. Usually this number is either 5 or 6 students, depending on the complexities of the specific class.
We try to give you as much time as possible when announcing classes. If a class has not hit its “break even point" by 1-week before the class is due to start, it will likely be cancelled. We will cancel classes with 5 - to -7 days’ notice depending on how many people have signed up and how much interest a class has. (For example, if we only need one more person to hit the “break even point”, Admin may stall for a day or two before and do additional promotion before needing to cancel.)
Once a class is loaded into HelloClub and our Upcoming Events page, promotion for it begins. It gets posted to Instagram (posts and stories), Facebook members' page, the Newsletter and / or MMCU on a pre-determined, regular schedule. We also email people on the 'interested' list and if we are still trying to fill places, we invite fellow potters from Ōtaki, Woolshed and Hutt Art.
If a class fills quickly (within a week or two) it will be considered a good candidate to run a second (or third!) time. We will run a class until interest levels die out. Once the interest runs out the class goes on the back-burner for possible revival the next year.
IMPORTANT NOTE: If you have not paid for the class, you are not registered! If you sign up but HelloClub won’t allow your payment go through, you have discovered the very annoying glitch in HelloClub that happens when you are signing up for a class at the same time someone else is. We can’t fix it (HelloClub has to), but if you know about it you can work around it and try again, including checking to see if you’ve received an email with a “Pay Now” option.
We’ll dial back the classes in August to make space for Anagama, but we’ll return in September, October, and November with new opportunities for you to learn!
Soup for August
If you have any favourite recipes that you’d like to share, please email wellingtonpotters.info@gmail.com.
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This is Sarah D.’s favourite soup to make.
INGREDIENTS (soup)
• 3tbs olive oil
• 1tbs finely chopped rosemary
• 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 carrot, finely diced
• 1 stick celery, finely diced
• 2x 425g cans kidney beans (or about 3 cups cooked)
• 1x 300g can chickpeas (or about 1 cup cooked)
• 2x 400g cans, tomatoes in juice, chopped or mashed
• 3 cups chicken stock (or vege)
• salt & ground pepperINGREDIENTS (topping)
(put everything in to a small bowl & mix together)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup flat leaf parsley, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
• juice & zest of 1 lemonDIRECTIONS
1) Add the beans, chickpeas, tomatoes & stock.
2) Bring to the boil & simmer until the carrot is soft.
3) Taste & season with the salt & pepper.
4) Serve with a tablespoon of the topping on each bowl.
PSAs from the Club Admin
Kia ora, koutou! Just a few announcements again this month. Please read below. Ngā mihi!
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Help me help you get your news!
I’m looking at how I can be more efficient with getting information out to you so I’ve created a quick survey for you to take. Please click here to help me out. If you did this survey from the MMCU, thank you and you don’t need to do it a second time–you’ll skew my numbers!
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Another fun little project for the club
We need some numbers for the building! Email me (wellingtonpotters.info@gmail.com) a sketch / photo / rendering of your concept for the number ‘130’ to be put on the building (next to the defibrillator). They’ll need to be big enough to be seen from the street, so please be sure to include scale in your proposal.
Looking forward to seeing your ideas!
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Kiln for sale
I’ve been emailed about a 3-phase electric kiln that is for sale. It looks to be about the same size / shape as our ‘FE5’ and ‘is well-used but in working condition’. Please email admin (wellingtonpotters.info@gmail.com) for photos and contact details.
Suggestion Box
Thanks for your suggestions in the suggestion box! Believe it or not, the suggestion box is NOT a black void of notes from you all. Suggestions get read, discussed, and logged at the Committee Meetings. Below are the suggestions and outcomes from July’s meeting (click the “+” to expand).
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Thank you for the suggestion. As we currently do not have lustre firings at WPA we will put this on the list for future purchases.
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Yes! We will be inviting all who were involved in the creation and inaugural firing. See the “It’s Anagama Season!” article above.
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We love this idea. We can do this on a Friday Social evening once they are back up and running. Feel free to promote the idea on the Facebook Members’ page as well.
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The original idea for the staggered renewal date was so that people could budget for payment of membership fees and cubby fees at different times of the year. Currently cubby renewals are a manual process and take up a good deal of volunteer time, so if HelloClub updates how they handle ‘resources’ we could review the realignment in the future.
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This is a great idea, but while talking through it we realized there are still some major complications. We will look into it again after the nearly-confirmed Studio Tech settles in and the kiln training programme is operating!
Upcoming WPA Events
It’s a bit quiet this month while we prep for Anagama, but there are still a couple of spots in two classes and of course the WPA Throwdown is coming up quickly!
Manipulating Soft Slabs
10 August | 10:00AM - 1:00PM
Learn how to manipulate soft slabs to build a mug (or two!) in this three-hour, one-day workshop by Christine Winbush.
A soft slab is best used when you want to fold or manipulate your slab into curves or angles. Because the clay is still pliable, you can easily add folds or arrange it into shapes. Christine will guide you through the process of making a distorted soft-slab mug in the style of a body or 'lady mug', as well as teach how to build a heavily textured 'tripod mugs' (a mug that sits up on three legs).
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The WPA Pottery Throwdown 2024
17 August | 5:30 - 8:30PM
Join us for this fun evening of community, chaos, and kai! We want both spectators and competitors to join in the fun. This is a members-only event, but competitors may bring a non-member support person. Want to bring a friend? You’ll have to compete!
Individual Events:
• The Blind Bowl
• My First Blind Bowl (for first-time competitors)
• Towering Cylinder of Chaos (thrown)
• The Handbuilder's Guess
• Can You Handle It? (I don't think you can handle it)
Team Events:
• The Two-Headed Potter
• The Potters' Relay
Competing or not, you must do one or two things to attend:
1) SIGN UP in HelloClub - we need to know how many people we're expecting!
2) If you want to compete: follow the link in HelloClub to select your event/s. There are limited spaces to compete, and registration is free. We will do our best to get as many members competing as possible but depending on demand, registering will not guarantee you a spot.
Members selected to compete (and their events) will be notified on 15 August. Standbys may be called for on the night.
Also, ngã mihi nui to BotPots for being a prize sponsor for the event.
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Discover Pinch Pots
24 August | 10:00AM - 1:00PM
Join Christine Winbush in a handbuilding journey of taking this simple concept of pinching a ball of clay into a couple of quirky animals—specifically, an owl and a fish. You'll be able to take the concepts from the workshop and apply them to your own sculpture in the future.
Pinching clay into forms was the first way of shaping vessels, and pinch pots that date back over 17,000 years have been discovered in China. At some point, the practice that started as a necessity—making a vessel to hold food or water—turned into the foundations of creating ornate containers and objects.
Community News/Events
Links to other clubs’ newsletters
Ceramics New Zealand national news can be found here, with the Wellington / regional news here.
Gear Homestead Woolshed Potters’ August 2024 Newsletter can be found here.
The Kilns at Te Horo August 2024 Newsletter can be found here.
Ōtaki Potter’s August 2024 Newsletter can be found here.
Have some content for the newsletter? Email it to wellingtonpotters.info@gmail.com.
The deadline for the next newsletter is 26 August.
Nga mihi for doing your “plusONE” so that WPA stays a thriving space for us all.
(Note: the missing macron above is not a typo, but a disappointing formatting quirk of the website platform.)
