See the flame grilled work of some of the top of the South's keen wood firers.

I am working with a variety of different clays – mainly hand throwing stoneware and porcelain which I often add to in some way. I high fire my work in a reduction kiln with glazes developed over many years.

I am enjoying changing the shape of my pieces using slabs and coils to give the work a more organic feel. Texture and slip trailing are my main forms of decoration. I use the beautiful glazes from Japan and China such as celadons and shino which work so well with porcelain and stoneware. My goal is to use these glazes in a more modern context to enhance each piece.

It is always exciting to open the kiln and see what will come out next.

- Sue Newitt

Featuring 5 amazing potters from the top to the bottom of Aotearoa

Experiencing and overcoming loss, failure, or rejection is a universal occurrence. Whakatū jewellers Eva Kerer and Kay van Dyk explore these phenomena through the medium of clay, referencing the body as a crucial element in their jewellery-based works.

Kerer’s works feature porcelain shards salvaged from ceramic artist Sue Scobie’s kiln. Being retrieved from the kiln, the shards are charged with feelings of frustration, despair and grief. Transformed into jewels, they talk about resilience and perseverance.

Van Dyk’s objects act as protective talismans, offered up as mechanisms for the wearer to regain strength and power.

Arts Council Nelson and Forsyth Barr are thrilled to invite everyone to  Pushing Clay  – Forsyth Barr Ceramics Award & Exhibition  2024

An exciting opportunity for artists to stretch the boundaries of clay practice and challenge the more traditional views of this medium. Artists who work solely with clay, or clay as their main raw material in their mixed media practice, are invited to use any technique of their choice to create two or three-dimensional pieces.

With a top prize of $8,000 and two cash prizes of $1000 for runners up generously sponsored by Forsyth Barr, Pushing Clay 2024   hopes again to invigorate practitioners to push the limits, push their practice and innovate.

Potter Peter Gibbs is a member of Wall to Wall Art, a collective gallery in Bridge St, along with ten painters and a glass artist.

During Clay Week, Peter will take the feature artist position at the front of the gallery, as well as a guest spot near the back entry.

He left his Auckland teaching job in 1975, moving to Golden Bay and setting up a pottery. He moved to the Waimea West area in 1979, where he continued to operate wood fired and salt glaze kilns, as well as delving into pit firing.

From his first article in NZ Potter in 1979, Peter gave an increasing amount of time over to writing for pottery magazines all over the world and for the NZ Listener from 1987.

In 1990 he became the editor of the magazine Craft NZ, owned by the Crafts Council of NZ, later owning the magazine when the Crafts Council went into receivership.

By 1993 the magazine load had become too great and he closed it down, getting a job as a sub-editor with the Nelson Mail newspaper and leaving pottery behind for 30 years

An essay for Clay Week in 2022 led to an re-awakening of the urge to make pots and the following year Peter began working with clay again in his suburban garage,

He has since rejoined the Suter Art Society, taken up membership of Wall to Wall Art and held a major exhibition at Arts Council Nelson’s Gallery, The Refinery.

His work on show at Wall to Wall Art is all thrown.

Fired to cone 6 in an electric kiln, the focus now is on function, form and colour.

The 1970s was a boom time for pottery in Tasman and Nelson. It’s said there were more

potters per capita than anywhere else in the country.

In 1974, a group of craft potters were taking evening classes at Motueka High School run

by local potter Toni Maurenbrecher. They wanted better facilities than the high school

could offer so formed The Motueka Pottery Workshop. Over the decades members have

hand crafted ceramics in many forms. Examples in this exhibition range from the

decorative to sculptural and the more practical form. Utilising several different

techniques, in this 50 year showcase are examples of different trends and styles over

the decades from past and current members.

Also on display are ceramic highlights from the Motueka District Museum collection.

For a look even further back we see a range of ceramics from fine porcelain brought over

from England by early settlers to local commemorative souvenirs.

He kōmiringa uku, he kōmiringa tāngata

Like clay, the heart, mind, soul and spirit of people may be moulded

The Whakatauākī or proverb which inspired this clay exhibition speaks to the value of sharing knowledge: through inspiring one person, we can inspire many.

Hine-uku-rangi, the deity of clay from Māori genealogy, is the powerful presence behind this showcase of contemporary uku | clay works from across Aotearoa (New Zealand).

This exhibit brings together 22 clay artists of Māori descent to celebrate and uplift the realm of Hineukurangi.  It features both emerging and established artists, including members of the pioneering Māori clay artist collective, Ngā Kaihanga Uku.  Hineukurangi provides a journey through the whakapapa and personal experiences of the participating artists who express ancestral perspectives through their relationship with uku.

Christchurch artist Nachiko breathes life into clay with her quirky character busts.

Tasman artist Lynette creates unique vessels with abstract floral detail.

Auckland print artist Annie uses colour light and texture in her ceramic pieces.

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Nelson-based ceramicist, Sue Scobie, is presenting new work exploring the strength and fragility of porcelain, inspired by the impacts of climate change on marine life. 

Fiona Sutherland is now living and working in Scotland. She has crafted a collection of works especially for Clay Week which are inspired by her visits to Sicily and Florence. Featuring her signature lifelike birds with sculptural 'relics', her work represents the dualities of past and present, nature and the manmade.

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Aoake & Scott make work considering how human and nonhuman organisms and ecosystems co-exist and are entangled in a greater network, encouraging a deeper exploration of the complex relationship amongst species. In this exhibition they present a series of fired and unfired clay that thinks through these shared concerns and explores the idea of deep history. By thinking through the ways in which bee hives serve as a way of understanding human and non-human relations and the histories of the whenua through clay, they seek to expand upon conventional readings of deep human histories and offer a space to reveal and complicate histories of place.