A living from pots

Press, 26 September 1984, Page 18

A living from pots

A broken leg, frustration with work, and Christmas all played a part in Rod Shaw’s decision to become a potter. Already disillusioned with farming, and unable to work because of the broken leg, Mr Shaw made a chance visit to Timaru’s Colonial Gallery to buy Christmas presents for his relatives in England.

Mr Shaw’s wife, Fenn, whose mother owned the gallery at the time, said her mother "started mothering him and he kept on coming in.”

Some time later Mr Shaw gave up his fanning job and began work as a salesman for an agricultural advisory firm. By this time he was engaged to Fenn and spending even more time at the gallery. "But I wasn’t cut out to be a salesman either,” said Mr Shaw. When she found out about his childhood interest in pottery, his fiancee suggested that he might like to use the oil-fired kiln and workshop at the gallery. “I began to think that if other people could make a living out of making pots then so could I,” said Mr Shaw. That he has done. Mr Shaw had been so successful with his work as a potter that he has managed to support his wife and their three children on only a potter’s wage for several years.

Mr Shaw remains basically self-taught, although early tutoring in Timaru by Ainslie Manson, as well as visits to working potters, helped him to glean the

information and skills he needed. “Potters used to call in at the gallery and I used to catch any flies that were buzzing around,” he said.

He also worked as a general handyman until his pots began to sell regular-

“Looking back on it my pots must have been pretty terrible, but I wasn’t going to stop people buying them,” he said.

“If enough people convince you that your pots are worth buying then you just have to accept it.” Mr Shaw worked as a potter from the Colonial Gallery for two years before he and his wife decided to take their family to England to meet the other side of the Shaw family. He also went there to “have a look at the English potting scene,” and spent a year at the Bournemouth Art College doing a ceramics course.

"That gave me a free rein to try a lot of new things in pottery,” said Mr Shaw.

During his stay in England Mr Shaw also attended various camps and schools where he managed to see a lot of other potters working. When the family returned to New Zealand after 20 months in England Mr Shaw had decided that this was the country he wanted to work in, and he extended the garage at his Timaru home to make a workshop and built an electric kiln. He said he chose to come back to New Zealand to work because “the English

potters were turning themselves into machines and going for quantity before quality.” Potters in that country were competing with fac-tory-made pottery and Ke did not want to compete with factories. There would also be a more satisfactory living to be made from working as a potter in this country. After three years back in Timaru the Shaws started looking for a place that would be a bit closer to Christchurch and for "somewhere with a bit more space that was not zoned residential.”

They just happened upon the house at Omihi where they now live and where Mr Shaw works and sells his pottery. By this stage Mr Shaw’s pottery was being sold from outlets all around the South Island, as well as from home sales. One of the benefits of having the showroom on his property, said Mr Shaw, was that he could see what his pots look like on display and could make sure they look interesting to other people. “I’ve never had any trouble selling anything that I was happy with selling. If it doesn’t sell, it usually means it has a flaw in it or it is overpriced." Although Mr Shaw has made pots that have pleased him immensely, he is not sentimental enough to keep too many of his own pots. The Shaws do not even have a complete dinner. The family’s kitchen pottery is made by Mr Shaw, but they get only the seconds.

There is one pot, however, that Mr Shaw will be sad to see sold. It is a “rather bloated chap called Mumpy” that has been with the family for a while. Being a full time potter did have its drawbacks, but these were far outweighed by the benefits, the potter said.

“There are some down times when I have trouble motivating myself. You don’t have a boss leaning over your shoulder all the time to keep you at it.”

He said he gets as much satisfaction out of his ability to make his own living from pottery as he does from the pots themselves.,

Mr Shaw likes the fact that he is “the master of his own destiny” and that all he has to do is satisfy his bank manager as well as his own conscience.

Mr Shaw only recently started advertising. He said that shopowners usually seek him out to stock their shops and as people get to know his work they come to him for orders.

One way that people get to know the work of potters like Mr Shaw is through small local art and craft exhibitions.

He recently demonstrated and displayed his pottery at the Amberley Arts and Crafts Festival and is looking forward to being the guest artist at the Cheviot Arts and Crafts group’s exhibition in October.

Mr Shaw’s Omihi Valley Pottery has also been included as part of a new tourist venture, which should interest outsiders in the artists around North Canterbury.