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For Liz Rowe, her Portage finalist piece came out of an idea she played around with while doing her masters of fine arts.
"I think of making pieces like the Portage work as more one-off projects that are fun to do."
Back then she had been making large lattice pieces out of big slabs of clay and glazing them with crackle and volcanic glazes, but she decided not to pursue those works.
"They were too much of a distraction from my main project, but I was going through some boxes of old work earlier this year and they triggered a new idea about air and air supply."
Rowe, who had been a hobby ceramicist before coming to Dunedin to study the practice in 2004, returned to study for her masters after resigning from Ocho, the Dunedin chocolate company she founded.
"I often find that an idea might go nowhere initially but pops up later in a different context, and the time seems right to pursue it."
"It’s a little misshapen and discoloured as though it’s too old to work properly and something unintended has come through and damaged it. It looks fairly simple, but it took a few attempts to get the size and the slightly-yellowed matt surface looking right."
Her idea was that one day everyone will be getting clean air pumped into their living spaces, like they get clean water now through city supplies.
"It is maybe a little dystopian, but it’s not so far out of the realms of possibility."
It had been reinforced by a recent overseas trip where she had a couple of nights in big hotels where there were no opening windows in the room, and the air for the whole building was pumped through a central system.
"The air on board planes is the same. If something happens to that central system, it’s not going to be good news for the inhabitants."
She was "stoked" to find out she was a finalist while on a trip to Europe.
Other projects Rowe has worked on recently include one for last year’s Fringe Festival, in which a group called "The City Planners" ran a week-long project inviting the public to help rebuild the city in clay.
"Generally though, most of my day-to-day ceramic practice is making soda-fired domestic ware. This is a high temperature firing with a sodium solution sprayed in at a certain stage which interacts with the pieces inside, whether or not they are glazed. It makes for a very seductive surface."
A couple of years ago a soda fire kiln was built at the Otago Potters Group and she has been hooked ever since.
"So much so that I’ve recently built a small kiln for soda firing at home."
To see:
Portage Ceramic Awards finalists, Te Uru, Auckland, November 22 to February 23.
