Ceramist / Potter
New Zealand
when I started pottery as a hobby in 1964 at Riccarton High School Christchurch New Zealand. I would never have dreamed that it would take over most of my adult life.
What started as a hobby became my lifelong passion, a passion which has not diminished so far. I started my own studio in 1968, which my ex husband build for me. When my marriage broke up I needed a job.
So what was a hobby now became a life long career that I still enjoy today. Most of my work over the years has been fired in an electric kiln. I have experimented and developed all my own glazes.
I am grateful for starting at that time as there were no computers, or many books about pottery, to find all the answers. if you did not know how to go on. Books with glaze recipes, where hard to find and the only book about pottery and glazes was Bernard Leach book, in which all glazes were for oil or wood fired kilns.
Which meant you had to experiment to get results, the consequence being that you learned a lot, which gave a good bases to work on and I later could pass on to my students.
In Riccarton High, we were only allowed to fire the electric kiln up to earthenware temperatures, in order to save electricity.
In the early days I used to fire the kiln to 1260 centigrade but this became higher over the last few years (1280 degrees today)
White speckledbottleand the black/orange bottle - destroyed in the Christchurch earthquake 2009.
