Potters group reflects on support
Artists back at the wheel following devastation from Cyclone Gabrielle
More than a year on from Cyclone Gabrielle, the Taradale Pottery Group at Waiohiki Creative Arts Village has reopened its doors for business after being inundated with water and silt during the early hours of February 14, 2023.
A lot of hard work, volunteer hours and equipment have gone into rebuilding the pottery group’s rooms.
In the days following the cyclone damage many of the pottery group’s members made their way out to Waiohiki to help dig out the village and salvage whatever could be saved.
Taradale Pottery Group president Christine Heaney wasn’t able to personally see the damage done to her club for a couple of weeks, as she lives in Puketapu and was dealing with her own flooding and silt issues. However, she was told the damage was extensive, flood waters had run through the whole village and left behind a layer of silt; in equipment, in the walls and just everywhere.
By the time Heaney eventually got through to Waiohiki a lot of the cleaning up had already been done by pottery group life member John Gisborne, who lives in the arts village, along with help from other pottery members and volunteers who came to help.
Heaney said, “It was fantastic to see so many people come together and achieve so much.”
For Heaney, the hardest part of the clubroom being hit by Cyclone Gabrielle was knowing where to start and what to do.
“We were a bit like stunned mullets for a couple of months, but it slowly became clear that our old workshop could not be renovated and refurbished for several years,” she said.
The Waiohiki Charitable Community Trust gave the club an alternative area in a section of the old dairy that hadn’t been as badly damaged, so the group got to work water-blasting, building walls, cleaning away yet more silt and painting walls.
With many volunteered hours, an addition of three new kilns and four new wheels to add to the six wheels saved after the cyclone, boxes of donated tools and other miscellaneous equipment, the old shop was transformed into the new pottery workshop and the club is now open again.
Heaney said, “We’ve been overwhelmed by the generosity of others and have received so much aroha.”
The club felt the love not only from locals but across the country as they received cash donations from complete strangers, other pottery clubs held art sales and exhibitions, Givealittle pages were set up, and goods and services donated from local businesses.
Heaney said, “We’ve been gifted brand new tools and equipment and a large collection of handmade mugs from different potters around NZ, even one from a potter in the UK.
“It’s been a mammoth task to get the new clubrooms to where they are now and we can’t thank enough those who volunteered their free time to make this happen.”
The Taradale Pottery Group was founded in 1966, back in the days before affordable Warehouse and Kmart crockery when many Kiwi households relied on homemade or handmade pots, casserole dishes, mugs and more.
Now with a new clubroom up and running, the group is happy to carry on and welcomed back members to the Waiohiki Creative Arts Village at the end of March.
The pottery group currently has 60 members, but Heaney said that number is growing now they are back in business.
Anyone over 16 can join and the group is hoping to start some children’s pottery groups in term 2.
Membership and course fees apply, but as a not-for-profit registered charity, all fees and profits go back into running the club.
There are several classes during term time, teaching the wheel, hand and slab building, and casual drop-in sessions on a Tuesday evening open to members and the general public.
“Many people believe ‘they don’t have a creative bone in their body’, but we urge them to come a pottery class and we’ll change that belief,” Heaney said.
For all enquiries and details of classes you can find extra information at www. taradalepotteryclub.com.