Family ties push boundaries
The use of quirky characters on colourful ceramics is Sophie Holt’s trademark style, but a recent collaboration with her mum has led to sculptures that capture the imagination.
The exhibition features oddities and masks which, depending on who’s viewing the pieces, could be called anything from cute to strange to completely bizarre.
Holt normally focuses on creating pieces for her commercial line, including cups, plates and wall hangings, but a recent visit from her mother, Lot Brandt, led to the pair spending nine months together at Holt’s Motueka home and creating 18 works.
Holt moved to New Zealand from her home town in the Netherlands 10 years ago, and began using the skills she had learned by osmosis while watching her mum and her grandad when she was a child.
She said she was as young as two or three when she saw her mum making big sculptures, and she remembered her grandad’s workshop, which was ‘‘right in the middle of town’’ and ‘‘very beautiful’’.
Brandt has been creating clay sculptures for more than 30 years, adopting her own style and technique, which Holt said she was ready to learn.
‘‘You have your own little way of doing things, and that’s what she taught me.’’
The sculptures take weeks to develop, from the moulding and painting to drying for at least a month before they can be placed in the kiln – and even then, there’s no certainty the creation will handle the heat.
‘‘You have to cross all your toes and fingers if it survives or not,’’ Holt said.
‘‘When you work for so long on one big piece, it’s a really special feeling that you get once it’s out of the kiln and it all survived. My heart does a dance – it’s so beautiful.
‘‘The Japanese have a very beautiful way of looking at it – everything that comes out of the kiln is a treasure from the kiln.’’
She said her sculptures were an expression of herself – a way of making words into images.
‘‘I’m not really good with words. I always envy people who are, they just talk so beautifully, and I’m not one of them.’’
The pieces were created from things she had been through, she said.
‘‘If I go to something sad, I like to make something from that, and then I can give it a space in my brain.’’
But while she had a story behind every piece, viewers could take their own meanings from them.
‘‘You might get a totally different feeling from it than the person standing next to you, and that’s what I love about art – everything is OK to feel.’’
And creating the art brings up just as many feelings as viewing it.
‘‘It’s very special for me. I can feel that connection, because my grandpa is not alive any more, but I can feel our genes are all connected – it’s a gift I got from him. It’s a gift, it got passed on to me, and I treasure it so much.’’
‘‘Everything that comes out of the kiln is a treasure from the kiln.’’ Sophie Holt
Holt’s exhibition, The Unsayable, is at the Quiet Dog Gallery, 33 Wakatu Lane, Nelson until August 3.