For ceramic artist Sabrina Ayling, Christmas in summer is a source of festive inspiration from which she draws bright colours, playful patterns, and profound joy. Emerging from the sleep deprived throes of early motherhood, Sabrina found in pottery a restorative creative journey that she has built into a thriving career learning, making, teaching, and immersed in the world of ceramics
Given the opportunity to craft bespoke furniture for a client during a villa restoration, builder Adam Ward found a new vocation, shifting from building and renovating houses to designing and handcrafting his own range of wooden furniture and homewares. The result was Eastwood Design, now established with a purpose-built workshop in Northland.
Ōtautahi Christchurch potter Meg Roulston makes beautiful, practical, hand built and wheel thrown ceramic homewares with the aim of bringing warmth to daily rituals and make little moments special. The glazes she creates are inspired by the environment around her Southshore home, nestled between the estuary and sea.
John Robertson of Wood and Chisel crafts beautiful wooden homewares from his Ōtautahi Christchurch family home. His work is a response to the absence of beauty and meaning in modern day mass production. His mission? To create beautiful and useful objects with unique pieces of reclaimed timber, to bring moments of joy as we go about our everyday activities.
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.
Christine Brimer’s passion is to weave with naturally coloured wool from New Zealand sheep, producing beautiful textiles inspired by Aotearoa’s light and landscape. Working and teaching from her Niche Textile Studio, overlooking Wellington’s south coast, her continuing exploration of materiality and processes is underpinned by sustainable design considerations and grounded in the natural environment.
Sylvia Sinel of StudioSinel Ltd says she has found her affinity in the forever fascinating world of clay and glazing. Exchanging a busy career life in Stockholm for a chance to follow her dreams of creativity and being close to nature here in New Zealand, she has recently taken the exciting step of becoming a full-time maker. She says “Ceramic art is the ultimate combination of all I cherish: sculpture, painting, physics, chemistry, poetry.”
Wellington-based Natty is the home of a stunning range of beautiful hand painted rimu jewellery, screen printed textiles and illustrated stationery. Inspired by Aotearoa’s nature and featuring a quirky sense of humour, Natty products use 100% cotton, ethically sourced tea towels, pillow cases and tote bags and non toxic water based inks.
Joe Wright of Bearwood Workshop handcrafts his beautiful wooden homewares and sculpture – all made from sustainable and recycled New Zealand native timber – from a little tractor shed in Glendhu Bay overlooking Lake Wanaka. After years of working as a designer in many different disciplines, running his own consultancy and clocking up the air miles with large corporations as clients, he decided to shed it all and go back to his roots.
Gwyneth Hulse Design is a longtime Felt favourite, producing her gorgeous wooden homewares and jewellery from a boutique studio in sunny Kerikeri. Gwyneth’s love of clean, minimalist lines and natural materials inspires her designs, all created from native New Zealand wood. Due to the unique nature of the wood, no two objects are ever completely alike.