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Club phone number: 022 631 2655 Please do not leave voice messages on this number, text only unless urgent, otherwise contact a committee member.

November 2015 Hello all, There’s another pot-in this coming weekend, and it’s a great time for people to come and get some final pieces of work made for the end of year sale which is only five weeks away. Gosh this has come quick, and I am sure it will be another successful year.

Club Diary Please try not to interrupt people who are concentrating on their own work. November 2015 12 General club night Jackie 15 Pot-in from 10am Anne Glennie will be opening up 19 Club activity night Karen 26 General Club Linda (Glaze firing) December 2015 2 Sale set up All club members to help set up for weekend sales 9 Committee No club night as rooms set up for sale 16 Club night Helli After the club night on the 16th December until the first Wednesday in February (3rd) there are no formal club nights'. If we do start potting regularly in January we will send out and email. January 2016 Closed February 2016 3 Committee All welcome to come and pot

October’s activity night with Karen

Karen will be an activity night of making spherical shapes using balloons and clay. Karen will supply balloons, club members are asked to bring along clay and tools.

Club pot in on Sunday 15 November – all welcome

A third pot in has been scheduled by the Committee for Sunday 15 November 2015. This is a great opportunity to make work, get work reading for bisquing or glazing. It’s possibly the last big opportunity to do this so we’d encourage all those that can come to do so. Anne Glennie has indicated she will open the clubrooms up at about 9.45am for a 10am start. Trinjie and Lyvonne will also be starting up the raku kiln from 12pm onwards, if the weather permits. So if you haven’t seen raku firing it’s a great chance to see this in action and to put small pieces through. Thanks to T and L for offering to do this.

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Write up of Jackie’s activity night – the microwave raku kiln – by Jo Pohatu

Last month Jackie gave one of the most interesting and fascinating activity nights’ we have had in a while. Jackie was kindly sharing her mini microwave kiln that she uses to raku small pieces of work. It was fascinating and brought out the fire demons in all who attended. It was incredible to see this small domed kiln heat up and reach incredible heat levels in the microwave and to see the resultant work.

Jackie had set up her activity night brilliantly, there was a table of raku glazes for use and she had a number of small bisqued doves, hearts etc for everybody to give it a go.

The effects of each individuals glazing choices and the length of time each chose to allow the saw dust to burn gave different results, with each dazzling piece being ooohheed and ahhed over by all. Here is a couple of pictures of before & after of work by Geoff & Linda.

We even had the man who was visiting to look at our FE kiln watching for a while too. Everyone was intrigued about the design of Jackie’s imported kiln and the materials that it was made of. I think there might be a flurry of imports from other club members too. Thanks Jackie for a very enjoyable evening full of laughter, fire and beautiful pieces. For more picture see our Facebook page

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Reminder regarding firing fees

There are lots of firings taking place. The Committee would like to remind people to that firing fees needed to be paid promptly. You are able to pay your fees directly into our bank account (ANZ 01-0546-0131600-

00) If you do this directly into the club accounts please email Linda (our Treasurer) of this fact and place

your fee slips with date paid and amount as indicated on your slips into the payment tube at the rooms. Thanks.

Rooms Tidy up - No later than Tuesday 1st December

For all potters who have any unfinished work sitting around the rooms please make sure this is either on the kiln room shelves for firing or in your cubby hole or taken home. We can't have any bits of work sitting around in the main work room or stables. All your tools, clay and works in progress also need to be away in your cubby hole or taken home. Please make sure that any work area you have been using either recently or in the past is completely tidied up and the floor and walls around where you work are washed and clean. Must be gone/done by date is Tuesday 1st December. Please not think you will sort it out on the sale set up night as this is too late and inevitably makes our sale set up hard. We thank you all in advance for getting this done as it will make our 'Sale Set Up Night' go very smoothly.

End of Year Sale preparations – for everyone

Everyone should be aware that our club sale weekends are scheduled to occur over the first two weekends of December, i.e. 5 & 6 December and 12 & 13 December. The club rooms will not be available for club members to pot during these two weekends or on the Wednesday evening between. We need club members please sign up to do a duty over the sale weekend. The more volunteers we have the easier it is on everybody. A list will be on the club notice board (double doors) for people to record their availability. Key dates to remember for the sales:

Date Activity

29 November Date by which signage should all be out and about in Porirua

2 December Club – set up of rooms for the end of year sale.

Please note: all club members are asked to come along and assist with this

process, with those who are intending to sell work making a firm effort to attend

this evening to set up and to be assigned space for your work.

5 & 6 December First weekend of sale

12 & 13 December Second weekend of sale

12 December Club Christmas BBQ – see article

13 December At the end of the sale – club members who have work that has not sold need to

collect that work and assist with returning the rooms to their working state.

Other club members welcomed and encouraged to make light work of this task.

Pottery Fundraising Sale

Main set up of tables and sorting of space will be on Wednesday night, 2nd December, from 7:30. Extras who can assist will be very welcome. Once the room is set up potters can set their pots up either that night

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or during the following couple of days as long as it is completed by opening on Saturday 5th no later than 9.45am. Hopefully this is a little more relaxed and less stressful.

PLEASE make sure everything is priced and has your initials on it. Please be reminded we are moving to all potters using 3 letters to our work lessening the chance of 2 members using the same initials. All your work must now have this 3 letter as we started advising member of this change before last year's Christmas sale. Any un-priced items will be removed from the sales area and put out the back.

The roster so far looks as follows, please volunteer to do a shift, whether you have pots to sell or not. Don’t always let the same people do the work. Ideally we have 2 people per shift. Fill in the slots. If you are a first timer then join an old hand. If we have too many people on then there is always stuff to be sorted at the rooms or books to be looked at in our club library.

Help is also appreciated for half an hour at the start and at the end of the day, as pots and signs need to be put out or taken in.

Please note sales are open from 10am – 5pm but we need to allow additional time

each end to put out signs/flags and to bring them in again.

Weekend 1

Sat 5th (Morning) 9.40am – 1.30pm Jo Pohatu, Linda & Geoff Savell

Sat 5th (Afternoon) 1.30pm – 5.20pm

Sun 6th (Morning) 9.40am – 1.30pm

Sun 6th (Afternoon) 1.30pm – 5.20pm

Weekend 2

Sat 12th (Morning) 9.40am – 1.30pm

Sat 12h (Afternoon) 1.30pm – 5.20pm

Sun 13th (Morning) 9.40am – 1.30pm

Sun 13th (Afternoon) 1.30pm – 5.20pm

Pack up process At the conclusion of the following process will now happen on the Sunday evening: 5.00pm Sale ends. 5.00 to 5.30pm Potters with work for sale start to pack down their work. 5.30pm onwards All available club members to assist with putting clubrooms back to normal. Thank you in advance for your help.

Christmas function this year 12 December 2015 – please join us

This year’s end of year club Christmas function is kindly being held by Alan, his wife Helen and their sons Jake and Toby…..and Chardonnay (the dog). Their address is 7 Ness Grove, Papakowhai, 04 2384414 0221665212. Start time will be 6.30pm with dinner commencing at 7pm. This year’s function will be a pot luck dinner, so please bring along a dish of food to share with everybody. Please note there is limited parking where Alan and his family live, so it is recommended that you park down the road in the cul-de-sac and walk the short distance to their place. I have been advised there is only parking in the drive way for the Queen Dragon – whoever you may be, you know who you are….hee hee.

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Ceramicus 2015 – Review by Aimee McLeod

Potters seem to live in a mutual admiration society and give positive reviews of peer exhibitions.

Sometimes however I think a little critical assessment can be more beneficial for our own education.

I’m not going to be critical of any pot in particular. This was a club exhibition and potters at different stages submit the best they have- the intention is to encourage them to exhibit. There is nothing inherently wrong with this.

The portrait gallery- the new venue for this exhibition was a great improvement over the small downstairs gallery at the Academy. At first sight, the long hall looked spacious with well-placed white plinths and dark square tables down the middle. The directional lighting in a darkish space, as good as it is for portraits, was unfortunately not good for pots-on-plinths. Any closer look cast a shadow on them. And then, omg, what is that table at the back in the corner there with a brown tapa cloth and another layer with brown cloth? Is this the bargain seconds corner? No, it is part of the exhibition. This did not do any favours to the already brown pots on display.

Selector Jenny Turnbull is an excellent potter and artist. Her handbuilt and thrown pots were equally interesting with some brilliant turquoise glaze. I totally agreed with her selection of awards- excellence for Jill Bagnall whose work is always beautifully finished, Paula’s nicely burnished pots and Vivian’s set of bowls with some slightly colourful sgraffito decoration.

There was nothing “bad” about the selected pots, but there seems to have been a very heavy reliance on the anagama firing. Just because reasonably well made pots go through a wood firing, that does not make them art works or exhibition pieces. They were mostly boring. There is more to it, shape and surface treatment need to be well thought out. Evidence that a wood fired piece does not need to be dull was obvious in Shige’s (multiple fired) piece, glowing yellow lustered, and one of Anneke’s pieces had some luscious subtleties to it.

With the availability of commercial glazes, and the glaze teaching sessions held at WPA, I would have expected a little bit more innovation.

I went to look for inspiration, but the whole of the exhibition left me with a feeling of drab. Brown, dull, unadventurous. Where is the colour, where is the joy? Is this the future of NZ ceramics?

(Note from Aimee – for photos please see Jenny Turnbull’s Facebook page, unfortunately Aimee did not take any photos to share).

All things Kilns

Cobcraft Kilns 1 and 2 have had the hotfaces repaired and this appears to be very successful. Thank you to Alan Devine, Helli Ward, Geoff and Linda Savell who made this happen. Here are a few photos showing the kiln lids being repaired. This was a messy and time (4hrs) consuming job but a great result.

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Here are how they looked before they were repaired

Our new FE kiln is able to be fired only to 1150 degrees, so please be mindful of this. The Committee is ordering in some new elements for this kiln, and once these arrive a date will be set to change them over in the hope that the kiln will then high fire. Firing cost when hiring a kiln The committee will be reviewing the cost to hire a kiln to insure we are covering all costs. Our fees were last reviewed in 2007. The temporary kiln hire prices are marked on the wall at the rooms.

Next club firings

For all club firings work must be at the club and on the kiln room shelves ready to go in the kiln no later than 7.30pm on the date of the firing (earlier if possible).

Next Glaze firing Wednesday 26 November

Empty Bowls

We have been meaning to let you all know that the empty bowl project was a great success. Below is a

picture I stole off Jenny's facebook page showing a clay cheque being presented to Stephanie McIntrye of 'Downtown City Mission' and Rebecca Flowerday the potter organiser. I'm not sure if you can read the number on the cheque but it was for a whopping $19,200.00 which is an amazing effort. So well done all potters from our club who contributed bowls, I feel we can all be proud to have been involved in this and I'm sure there will be interest in doing it all again next year.

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Other things of interest

Aimée’s open studio weekend 27- 30th November

Festival of Pots and Garden Art 2016 The Pottery Club of Otaki invites you to participate in our upcoming Festival of Pots & Garden Art 2016. It will run from Saturday 23rd to Sunday 31st January 2016, 10am - 4pm daily, at “Anam Cara” (previously known as “Coehaven”), 150 Rangiuru Road, Otaki.

The Festival of Pots & Garden Art was first established in 2009 as an opportunity for crafts people to exhibit & sell their work at one pleasant location. Over 50 potters & artists from the lower north island contributed to last year’s event. The Festival is set in 10 acres of established trees & shrubs and has featured many forms of pottery and ceramics, from domestic wares to large sculptural pieces, alongside works in wood, stone & steel. Demonstrations will be given by a number of potters & artists. Light refreshments will be available.

If you would like to exhibit & sell your work, attend the formal Festival Opening Evening on Friday 22nd January 2016 or have any initial questions please visit our website: www.festivalpots.com. We will be updating the website with more info as time goes on.

Waiclay National Ceramics awards The Waiclay Team National Ceramic Awards has been held biannually for the last ten years and continues to promote excellence in clay work with the support of Waikato Museum Hamilton.

To be held at Waikato Museum, Hamilton 14 November 2015 - 1 February 2016.

2015 Committee President Geoff Savell landgsavell@xtra.co.nz 235 7753 Secretary Jackie Haddow philandjacks@xtra.co.nz 238 2944 Treasurer Linda Savell landgsavell@xtra.co.nz 235 7753 Newsletter Jo Pohatu Jo_pohatu@hotmail.com 389 5787 Cath Arnold Wingpoint2@hotmail.com 236 8611 Gmail Alan Devine helenjaketoby@hotmail.com 238 4414 Facebook Helli Ward helli.tribe@gmail.com 239 9340 Library Karen Urwin klurwin@yahoo.co.nz 021 761 820 Club Email woolshedpotters@gmail.com

Kiln Status

NO 1 Firing as expected. NO 2 Firing as expected. FE New small kiln, tested for bisque but needs to be looked at for high firing. Only

reading 1150 degrees.