ABOUT

Jo Raill

Tutor
Bachelor of Horticulture, Diploma Teaching, Diploma Ceramics, Diploma Fine Arts

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I started making with clay thirty years ago. I like using the pottery wheel and hand building big sculptures.

 I find beauty in the wildness of New Zealand bush. Tangled vines, chewed up leaves, ferns spilling out of clay banks, disorder excess and imperfection everywhere but at the same time the bush is a perfectly balanced ecology.

Hand building with clay gives me a way of expressing ideas about my environment. Sometimes this is exhausting and to relax I head to the pottery wheel making simple forms like mugs or bowls. The pots start off being perfect but often end up altered because imperfection to me is more beautiful than the flawless.

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My studio and gallery is at Half Pint Pottery where I teach  hand building and some pottery wheel workshops.

I  also teach one night a week at  Auckland Studio Potters.

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Jo Raill (@joanneraill) • Instagram photos and videos

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Tutor
Bachelor of visual arts, Diploma of ceramics

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My journey with ceramics started when doing a diploma of ceramics in 2015. This exposed me a to range of assorted styles and forming techniques.

I have spent the last 4 years as a ceramic technician at the clay centre and briefly at Auckland Studio Potters before that. Which involves mostly mixing, formulating glazes, firing, and glazing ceramic pieces.

But have since left to focus more on what I enjoy most which is teaching and producing my own work at Half Pint Pottery.

My practice involves both domestic ware and more experimental works.

Learning is a big part of my practice, and my ceramic pieces are an extension of this exploration into different glazes and surface applications. I started out studying painting before ceramics and this love of line and mark making has continued into my current ceramic work.

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Aidan Raill (@aidanraillceramics) • Instagram photos and videos

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