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One of the area’s most celebrated artists, Ant Morris, is cleaning out his workshop and the Matakana Op Shop will reap some of the rewards.
A potpourri of work ranging from tiles, pots and bowls to unused art supplies is expected to be offered for sale at next month’s Workshop Sale on Saturday and Sunday, May 3 and 4.
“When cleaning out the mezzanine of one of the sheds recently, we found five tea chests of beautiful, salt glazed domestic ware that I’d made at Green Farm in Suffolk 50 years ago, before starting Morris & James,” Morris says.
“There is also a shed stuffed with ceramic experiments including practice runs, experimental brush strokes, new patterns or colour combinations, and different glaze thicknesses.
“Some good, but heaps awful!”
Morris and former wife Sue James founded the pottery in Matakana nearly 50 years ago.
Since suffering a stroke in 2006 at the age of 68, and selling Morris & James to staff in 2009, Ant’s creativity has taken an alternative path as he has had to re-learn to write and other day-to-day skills. He started painting clay panels, then landscapes and portraits, before getting back to his creative roots.
Morris & James Pottery will continue to sell his premium pieces, cast glass and early salt glaze ware through its Matakana Showroom, in Tongue Farm Road, for as long as stock lasts, but everything else, including pots, plaques, dishes, platters and paintings will go into the Workshop Sale.
There will be tiles and pots that he brought home from trips to Europe – inspirations from Italy, traditional peasant decorated bowls from Spain and Portugal.
“There are pots showing how the Chinese stacked pottery a hundred years ago in wood-fired kilns, which I found in the Thieves Market in Bangkok, as well as beautiful celadon-glazed ware and sgraffito scratched stoneware bowls from Chiang Mai, which are all hand thrown.”
Morris says when doing a sculpture course at Unitec, his lecturer told him to make maquettes. “I would give myself 10 minutes to make one and then stop. There are boxes of them, although they have been well picked over.”
The items will be presented in a “jumble” and in an “as you find them” condition.
“I see them as raw material for new pieces of art, a mosaic pathway, a mural plastered on a wall. Arms, legs and torsos painted in different and surprising colours. They just need a new creative eye.”
Morris is issuing a special invitation to former staff.
“None of this could have happened without the staff who have worked in Morris & James, so I would like to invite anyone who has worked here, to come in the day before the sale opens to the general public, and have first go. They can buy a couple of pieces for themselves to remind them of their time here.”
The Workshop Sale will be held in Morris’ garage and on the lawn at his house, behind the pottery.
It will be managed by volunteers, and Matakana Op Shop will receive half of the takings. Morris is pleased to think of the money going back into the community. Last year, the Op Shop distributed more than $90,000 to local entities.
