New Zealand Potter Volume 6 Number 1, August 1963
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V. New Zealand , PDTTEL L I NGS ”7 ~ MACEK NEW! ZEALAND POTTER CONTENTS Editorial 7? #0 281) Patricia Perrin - Beverley Simmons , . Vol. 6, No.1,1963 The Voice of America - David Campbell U! Crewenna Pottery - May Davis Kiln Firing Developments - Roy Cowan Potters 20 News from Japan. 22 Changing Climate . 25 New Zealand Potter Our First Major Overseas Exhibition 31 Published Alan Meisel, Californian Potter . 36 at Wellington by the Editorial Committee twice yearly in World Craft Exhibit 39 August and December New Zealand Society of Potters 41 Editor: Helen Mason The State - Patron of the Arts 51 Technical Editor: Roy Cowan Layout: Palmerston North Art Gallery 55 Doreen Blumhardt A . ' Juliet Peter News 55 dvertising: Lee Thomson The Seventh New Zealand Potters' Exhibition . 59 Please address all correspondence The to: Editor, New Zealand Potter Potters in Otago - 29 Everest Street, Khandallah, Wellington. O.C. Stephens 59 Otago Museum 61 Looking at the Old World‘- Yearly Sub sc ription: Minna Bondy 62 New Zealand: Ten Shillings Cover Design by Travelling Exhibitions of New Australia: Zealand Art Twelve Shillings Juliet Peter 63 ' and Sixpence (A) Medieval Pottery from London 65 Umted Kingdom: Ten Shillings sterling Letters 67 U.S.A.: Two dollars Printed by John Milne Twelve Potters - Mavis Robinson 70 (Subscriptions Ltd. , using the small may be sent in your own currency) The Arts and the Crafts - offset process. Ray Cowan . 72 EDITORIAL The pottery movement in New Zealand has attained a degree of recog- nition both within the country and overseas. Giving due acknowledg- ment to the work of individual potters, and to the exhibitions mounted by the local societies, it is nevertheless obvious that the main effect has been built up through the medium of our annual New Zealand PATRICIA PE RRIN Potters' Exhibitions with the policy of strict selection by an indepen- dent Selection Committee which varies each year. The manner of presentation of New Zealand pottery activities in this magazine has Beverley Simmons also contributed. The growing interest of many people in the craft means that there is a wish to join up with any association formed in connection with pottery. The graceful proportions of a sculptured stoneware bowl has become A parallel situation has occurred in many Art Societies, most of whom the signature of Patricia Perrin, one of Auckland's most accomplished have larger memberships of those interested in art, rather than of potters. artists only. The result has been in some cases that the control of the Art Society has passed completely out of the hands of the artists For Patricia Perrin interest in pottery, or rather in sculpture, began and in many cases the Council of the Society, however well-intentioned, as a child when she was allowed to play with the modelling clay in her has found it impossible to set standards which exclude the majority of father's workshop. It was further strengthened when she saw Briar the membership. Gardner, Auckland's pioneer studio potter, working at the wheel at one of the pre-War Winter Shows that used to be held in the wharf We therefore feel that it would be disastrous to the pottery movement sheds of downtown Auckland. 4,. in New Zealand if the control of our Society of Potters and of our Annual Exhibitions were to pass out of the hands of the working potters. This interest was crystallised into something real and active when in This would be the inevitable result if the constitution as passed at the 1947 she began evening pottery classes at Avondale College with recent Inaugural Meeting were ratified at the First Annual Meeting to Robert Field, a man who has done much to shape the skill of many an be held in Dunedin next October. The proposed constitution makes Auckland potter. easy politics for anyone who offers easier access to the Annual Exhibi- tion (in return for office) and makes unpopular and difficult the mainte- Three years later she herself was teaching at the school, and still is .....m.....__..__.-cu-_ nance of the former standards of selection. to this da\/, with two nights teaching at Otahuhu College and one night at Pakuranga sandwiched into the week as well. At the Perrin household at Ellerslie, a small centre on the southern outskirts of suburban Auckland, life seems to revolve around one jewel— craft or another. One sister, Yvonne, specialises in ceramic well lery and another, Phyllis, works at copper and enamelware as as spinning the wool from the few sheep on the two -acre property. The potting shed is admirably equipped. It is roomy and has plenty of bench space and cupboards for storage. There are two wheels, an IN AUSTRALIA, a magazine published by POTTERY electric one used for small pots and a treadle wheel used for larger; Society of the Editorial Committee of the Potters' at pug mill, a grit mill and a grindstOne. Roughly centre of the room ‘ New South Wales, may be obtained from the Editor, is the kiln, an imported one from Wild Barfield, England. This has One 30 Turramurra Avenue, Turramurra, Sydney. given excellent service for ten years. Outside the shed but rarely subscription for 4 copies is £1 sterling, which in- used now is the coke kiln Mr. Perrin built for his daughter in the early cludes postage, or 2 dollars- U.S.A. days of her enthusiasm. This new departure could lead eventually to ceramic sculpture , which brings Patricia Perrin just about full circle from the time she in her father's workshop as a child. For her clay Patricia Perrin uses a half and half mixture - half modelled clay Maramarua, half imported from Stoke-on—Trent. This latter is ex- ability may lead her, she will tremely plastic , improves the local clay and brings down the firing But one hopes that no matter where her range. One ton lasts two years. once in a while return to those sculptured bowls that give so much pleasure with their graceful proportions. The kiln is fired twice a month and the average monthly output of pots is about 100 pieces, ranging from ramekins up to large bowls. Footnote: The Perrin trade secret for those sculptured bowls is to Retail outlet for all the Perrin sisters' work is New Vision, in His throw them in the normal way then pare them down to shape at the Majesty's Arcade. The owner of this shop, Mrs. Tine Hos, was leather-hard stage. The paring instrument? A kitchen potato peele r. instrumental in getting a commission for Patricia Perrin to make five large stoneware ashtrays for the new Hilton Hotel in Hong Kong. "—- pottery shows in Miss Perrin has been represented in all the major THE VOICE OF AMERICA David Campbell Auckland since her first one—man show in Margaret Lumsden's shop President of the American back in 1948. Craftsmen's Council and Director of the Museum of Most of Patricia Perrin's work to date has been strictly functional, Contemporary Crafts, New but always with a very satisfying balance of glaze and texture. She York. is now working exclusively in stoneware which gives a wonderful for texture and she is exploiting this still further by using scope shortened by the jet age and industrial- Muriwai sand, manganese dioxide and iron oxide. Her glazes have "With lines of communication all parts of the world, a study of the craft and subtle with no overstatement. She prefers mat isation spreading to always been soft as an inquiry into the place of quite stunning effects movement in America might well serve glazes and in pots fired this year has got some is preoccupied handcrafts in our present-day civilisation. Today man with soda ash, giving a turquoise silvery glaze, and lead, giving production with scientific research, looking for ways to supply the intense lilacs and greens. changes in the demands of ever-expanding populations. The resulting of our society could hardly Her most recent work shows a trend away from thrown pots to slab social, economic and aesthetic structure that in the very areas of stoneware, something that tends to be more decorative than utilitar- have been predicted. Yet, the fact remains there is a practical ian, the decorative appeal further heightened by pressing broken—up greatest industrial and commercial development growing stronger. kiln cones into the surface of the Clay at its leather-hard stage. and vital craft movement not only surviving but of the industrial ~ ”This resurgence in the crafts within the framework professional crafts- age is not without profound implications. Today's has regained man, as an artist designer working directly in materials, the Industrial Revo- the time-honoured respect which craftsmen before art forms, expressing lution commanded. His works are sought as true of the past. While wide- our own time, not dependent upon the cliches as an avocation is of spread and serious participation in the crafts of artistic and tech— vital significance socially, and although its level craftsmen and craft- nical achievement is rising, it is the professional development. For it teachers who are largely responsible for this new way and set the is the professional craftsman who has pointed the standards of excellence for others to emulate. as a cultural "The emergence of the contemporary craft movement The crafts have force today is not a nostalgic return to the handmade. discovered their own unique and rightful place, coexisting with indus- try but not absorbed by it . inefficiency and delay, are accepted complacently, and it is good to be ”The urge to create is born in every person. It is an expression of able to say that these things have definitely not been our experience.