The Ōtaki Pottery Club is holding its 11th Festival of Pots and Garden Art at Anam Cara Gardens from January 18-26.

Anam Cara, at 150 Rangiuru Road, has four hectares of gardens, making an ideal setting for pottery club and clay artists from around New Zealand to exhibit their work. It offers a perfect summer’s day out, to wander the gardens, relax with a coffee and homemade baking, and find a treasure to take home.

Artists will be demonstrating their work throughout the festival. The demonstrations will include wheel and hand pottery, woodworking, sculpture, and blacksmithing.

Guest artists this year are Debbie Pointon, Fiona Tunnicliffe and Bruce Walford.

Bruce Walford is a ceramic artist born in South Africa. He was just 16 when he began his apprenticeship in ceramics and design under world-renowned ceramicist Federico Fabbrini.

Bruce has established studios and practised his craft in Florence, Edinburgh, Cape Town and Noosa and now lives near Palmerston North.

He is constantly pushing the boundaries to produce fresh, unique statement pieces and organic and freeform tableware. Also a glazing pro, he is currently working on his own translucent porcelain clays to create a perfect canvas for his reduction lustre and crystalline glazes. 

 Fiona Tunnicliffe has a passion for clay kindled during her school years. She did the ceramics course at Whanganui Polytechnic, expanding her knowledge and expertise under the tuition of George Kojis, Ross Mitchell-Anyon and Paul Winspear, and later completed the Otago diploma in ceramic art.

Fiona is best known for creating animal figures in various forms. Her unique creations and surface treatments of the clay make her work highly collectable.

Debbie Pointon is a multi-media artist working in the fields of painting, sculpture, doll art and assemblage box art.

She enjoys the complexities of deconstruction by tearing fabric and papers to produce layered images. Debbie is an elected member of the NZ Academy of Fine Art and her work is held in many public and private collections.

Debbie’s box-art pieces, intricate assemblages crafted from antique furniture, ornaments, and other assorted paraphernalia, are like antique memento boxes.