MY FAVOURITE VIEW
For potter Keith Brymer Jones, the wild landscape of New Zealand’s Kapiti Coast brings fresh perspective on his life and work
Potter Keith Brymer Jones on the inspiring magic of
New Zealand’s Raumati Beach
I do love a wilderness. An empty beach gives me the feeling of being a tiny particle in a huge expanse and ignites my love of the natural world. At home, I live not too far from Dungeness, which is raw and beautiful. Raumati Beach, on
New Zealand’s North Island, is similar. The sand is darker, volcanic, there are turtles, and Kapiti Island on the horizon – it’s incredible, almost Jurassic. My pots took me there, and I’ve been back every other year since.
I’d been invited to a pottery convention in Australia, not long after I started filming the first Great Pottery Throw Down. Clay Gulgong is an internationally renowned ceramics event, held in a one-horse town northwest of Sydney. While I was there, I met some potters from
New Zealand who invited me and my partner Marge to Raumati. It turned out that Marge has close friends living just 20 minutes away. I used to do a talk called ‘The clay, the universe and everything’. It was about how, if you have a passion for something, you’re inevitably drawn to like-minded souls. Discovering Raumati was like that; it was amazing how I connected with the place and the people living there.
I remember walking along the beach on my own early one morning. Coming from the northern hemisphere, you land in New Zealand and really do get a sense of being on the other side of the world. You look at the moon and it’s upside down – you take it for granted, but suddenly the craters are the wrong way round. I have dyslexia and I have a greater sense of form and texture because of it. I definitely respond to the beauty of Raumati Beach. But it’s more significant than that. I remember being on that immense stretch of sand and remembering a decision, years before in a similar empty landscape, not to be like my father. He was never really happy with his life, and he urged me to find work I loved, as I’d be doing it for 80 per cent of my life.
I often think about being on
Raumati Beach. It’s like a dreamscape, neverending sands, with a huge island off the coast. You could argue the island is a metaphor for those things that are out of reach, but you’re aiming for. Just like my dad told me to do.