When Emma Gillard sold her bookshop and took time out to recuperate after a breast cancer diagnosis, she discovered a passion for pottery that has taken over her North Canterbury garage and become Emma G Potteree. Beautiful textures are a feature of her hand built ceramic homewares, inspired by textiles and natural treasures she collects.
What do you make?
I make hand built pottery – not a wheel in sight!
How did you get into your craft?
In 2021 after a second breast cancer diagnosis I sold the bookshop I’d created and run for 14 years. It was time for me to have time out to rest, recuperate and “just be”. At the end of that year I attended a one day pottery course at our local art gallery here in Oxford and loved it! I quickly enrolled for another and then did a few more in the following months at other pottery studios, the pivotal one being at The Artist’s Inn in Hororata under the guidance of Frank Hakkaart. When collecting my completed work from Frank’s studio I said how I had all these ideas of things I’d like to try. He then sold me 5kg of clay and said to bring my items back for firing. I was absolutely hooked.
Not satisfied with making a just few pieces and waiting to get them fired and glazed, I wanted to just keep creating and trying new ideas, so I invested in a second hand Cobcraft Kiln (that I’ve named Betty) which I had refurbished and installed in our garage at home. Frank kindly came over and set it all up for me at the end of August last year (2022) and the rest, as they say, is history!
Do you have formal training or qualifications in your craft?
I wouldn’t say I have formal training or qualifications but I do attend lessons with Frank every Monday evening in term time and often joke to him that he’s created a monster! There are just so many ways and directions you can head once you start playing with clay and glazes. There’s just not enough hours in the day.
Your favourite materials, tools, and processes?
My favourite “tools” would be the textures I use within my clay, be it lace, a leaf, a pine cone. I love all the textures and patterns you can create with them and use them to form a truly unique piece. I have boxes and trays full of different pieces I have collected over the past year.
As for pottery tools I now have quite a collection but do find myself going back to a few favourite shaping ones.
Tell us about some of the techniques involved in producing one of your pieces
I really enjoy the pinch pot method of creating items, making different shapes and sizes. It really is the most mindful practice just sitting there and pinching out the clay as it decides how it’s going to form for you. You just lose yourself in it.
I also love slab building, really stretching the clay and what it might do for me, pressing it with different textures and constructing different shapes and sized pots. Sometimes it feels a bit like doing a jigsaw, what piece will fit next?
For me, the next step I want to develop and practice more is the coiling process. People make some incredible pieces using this method and I’m so inspired by it.
What inspires you?
Nature and other people/potters really inspire me.
I’ve become this person who now looks at everything for its potential use in my pottery, be it as a mould or something to press into the clay for texture. Going for walks I’m always stopping to pick up leaves, sticks, feathers etc… I joke to my friends it’s like when they’d take their small children for walks and they would always stop and pick up treasures to take home. I’m now that person! I will come home, sit down, and create whole pieces just by a selection of rocks I’ve collected or certain foliage.
As for people, I love visiting galleries and exhibitions to see other people’s crafts and what they come up with. The bonus being if they are there to talk to. But seeing all the different clays, glazes and styles – it just blows me away how much variety is out there and appealing to so many different people. Talking to others who also do pottery, just talking about the craft is exciting and motivating.
I now follow a lot of potters online (from both here in New Zealand and overseas) and whilst I am inspired by so many and what they do I haven’t found myself wanting to replicate what they do but more just get inspiration from their creativity/positivity – and then it just makes me want to go and create more. I save a lot of photos for inspiration but don’t actually go back and copy them. There might be one element I use or I just simply learn from their techniques. There are a lot of videos online you can learn from as well.
What has been a highlight of your maker journey so far?
There have been quite a few really. Maybe the first one to come to mind is that I’d just set up my Instagram page and did a photo with a new candle I’d received (I usually have candles burning when I’m doing my pottery). I then thought “Oh, I’d better put some pottery in there,” so did that and posted the photo. Someone I didn’t know commented “Where do I get my hands on these?” I assumed she meant the candles but no, it was my pottery! She then proceeded to buy several pieces and then a few weeks later three more larger ones. It was so exciting that someone had discovered my page and loved my pottery so much.
As stressful as I find them (only because I’m such a perfectionist), other highlights have been that I’ve also had quite a few commissions from people – which again is very humbling. One in particular, for a friends’ daughter. “Can I please have this shape, but in this clay and with this glaze?” “Sure, no problems…” I was pretty stressed out about this and it needed to be absolutely perfect so when the following text arrived I felt like I needed to do a happy dance: “Well aren’t you clever! Thank you so much for making such beautiful bowls. She absolutely loves everything about them! Couldn’t have been better.”
Describe your creative process
Sometimes I’ll sit down with something specific in mind that I want to try or have a commission to create. However, often it’s the case I just know I want to make something – no idea what. I’ll either choose which clay I feel like “playing” with or which textures I want to use and go from there. I’ve got such a wide variety of clay in my studio as I like the different results the different clays give you.
From there I might start out with a vague picture in my head of what I want to create but mostly what results is totally different. Pretty much everything I make is very organic, nothing is symmetrical. I’ll start to build something and then an idea pops up about how to place the next piece, or one piece might not fit as I thought so I change it up.
Describe your workspace
My workspace is our garage (which also doubles as a photography studio at times for my husband). When I set out on this “pottery journey” I set up a desk and a few shelves in a corner. As time has progressed that corner has become pretty much the whole space in the garage! When I commented to someone recently about how iced over my car was in a huge frost they asked why I didn’t park it in the garage – “um, it’s a pottery studio now”. So yes, I’ve pretty much taken over the entire garage but it’s my absolute happy place. I have photos, art, and special mementos on the wall, music is ALWAYS playing, and more often than not a candle is also burning. I can look out the window and enjoy blue skies or even a few times last year, watch snow fall. And sometimes at night, when time has totally gotten away on me (as often does) hubby will also bring me a wine or two as I work.
What are you currently listening to?
Listening to music has always been a big part of my life and I have quite varied tastes. I love loud house music but having recently enjoyed Daisy Jones and the Six on TV, I’ve put on a Spotify playlist of their music and as a result have been discovering some fabulous new artists; Caamp, Gatlin, Maya Hawke, Elbow and The Rions to name a few.
What’s your favourite childhood book and why?
The Little House on the Prairie series – because I wanted to be Laura Ingalls Wilder and then as I got older the Sue Barton nursing series – because I was always going to be a nurse (that didn’t happen).
What are you reading now?
I’ve always been a huge reader and book addict but even more so after owning my bookshop. Before I sold the shop – before I discovered pottery – I was amazed at how many pottery books we sold and that people were doing pottery. Back then I didn’t realise how big and popular it was – and was to continue to become. I now have a great wee library of pottery books myself which are inspiring to delve into and of course learn from.
From a reading perspective, there are so many great books and authors out there to read but two of my absolute favourites over the last few months have been Richard E Grant’s Memoir A Pocketful of Happiness and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo – how did I never read Taylor Jenkins Reid when I had my shop? I’ve since read a further five of her books and have two more to go. Each one totally different and really thought provoking.
Who is your hero/heroine? Why?
My Mum. She was the most positive and encouraging (of everyone) person I’ve ever known. Always so bright and bubbly. Unfortunately she passed away in 2016 and I’m really sad that she isn’t around to see what I am now doing. I miss her every day but feel she’d be really proud and excited for me and probably want lots of pieces for her home. I hadn’t really realised until very recently just how much she too enjoyed pottery over the years. As I look around at pieces that have ended up in our home and gifts she has given me over the years, there’s a lot of pottery there!
A favourite quote
My favourite quote and something I’ve lived by forever is: “You’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain so just do it.” And do it I have in my life, several times. I never want to have any “What if I did this?” moments.
Tell us about your pets
We have two ragdoll cats, Maggie and Lucy, who absolutely rule the roost at home. They are 12½ now and provide so much entertainment with their quirks and personalities. Maggie doesn’t meow as such, she squeaks and if she comes into the studio she squeaks A LOT wanting smooches. She’s a real smooch is Maggie. I’ve yet to lay out a piece of clay to see if they walk over it – I must do that because then it’d be fun to create something from their paw prints. In saying that, because I’d want them to, they wouldn’t!
What would your advice be for those starting out in a crafty business?
Have belief in yourself and what you do. That’s so much easier for me to say than do, and believe of myself, sometimes but it’s true! I regularly have self-doubt but am very quickly put back into place by my husband and some wonderfully encouraging friends. Plus, keep learning and challenging yourself and trying new things.
Why do you think it’s important to buy handmade and/or locally made goods?
I’m such a shop local and support small business person and a lot of that comes from owning and running my shop. Small businesses are the backbone of New Zealand. People working so hard and giving so much of themselves because they love and are passionate about what they do.
Supporting New Zealand craftspeople not only supports them mentally and financially but it also keeps those crafts alive and hopefully prevents us resorting to cheap “fast” throwaway goods. Plus, these craftspeople are more often than not sourcing their raw materials from other small businesses so it’s a nice round circle you want to just keep going.
What does it mean to you when someone buys your creations?
When someone buys my work I am well and truly humbled. Humbled that they like what I do, that they want to invest their hard earned money in my work and believe in what I do. It really is the ultimate compliment. I don’t get excited about it from a monetary aspect (although of course that helps – so I can go buy more clay) but more about the joy that a particular piece brings them. One of the first wee vases I sold to a local lady, she will often send me photos of it with flowers in. That just makes my heart swell.
What was the last handmade item you bought and what attracted you to it?
Funnily enough, it was pottery! A third Harbour Rim vessel by Jane McCulla from our local gallery. I absolutely LOVE these pieces and this particular shape yelled “Buy me!” Prior to that it was a ceramic rabbit by Mollie Schollum. I have coveted these for a number of years now and on a visit to 77 Art and Living Gallery in Fairlie – where I now exhibit my work – it was my little treat to myself on a girls’ getaway adventure. In fact we both bought one.
What’s your favourite item in your shop right now?
It’s so hard to choose just one. That changes as new pieces are created and come out of the kiln. But I think right now it’d have to be a vase created in black clay that has three layers of texture including a frill around the top. Having the frill “work” and survive the process was a big plus as it was something new for me. The glaze on it gives it an almost sepia-type tone. And it can be enjoyed as a vase or even as a sculptural piece within the home. Not everything has to have a purpose.
What’s in store for the rest of 2023?
More pottery! So much more I want to try. Bigger pieces, different shapes.
Fly fishing – I went on an incredible retreat called Casting for Recovery back in April with an amazing group of women who’ve all been or are going through breast cancer. I’m absolutely hooked (pardon the pun), have now joined the local fly fishing club, and they are putting on some classes for us beginners to get out and learn and do more, so that’s exciting. And, I’m also studying for my real estate papers. As much as I love doing my pottery I’m ready to get back into the workforce and interact with people again. So, a busy time.
Special offer for Felt readers!
Emma has generously offered Felt readers 15% off any of the beautiful ceramics in her Felt shop, when you enter the voucher code EMMAG in the voucher code field at checkout. This offer is valid throughout the month of August 2023. Thank you so much Emma!
