Lisa Donaldson Ceramics

I have been making pottery for 15 years, starting as a student at Otago Polytechnic and Wellington Potters, and classes around NZ.

My background is as a Geochemist, and I make my own glazes.  Glazing is the thing I love to do to tell stories on pots with colour and overlaps and melt.  Glazes are inspired by mountains, rivers and forms seen tramping NZ, and are often named for places – Heaphy gold, Karamea blue and Glacier are my celadons.  The latest is Te Manahuna (Mackenzie Basin) reflecting the yellow & green grasses, with red seed heads, of the basin.  The bright blue break is the colour of the roadside weed Vipers bugloss.

I make simple repetitive forms in clay playing with surfaces to enhance the glazes.  I throw on the wheel, hand & slab build and slip cast depending on the function or form.  Function is important to me – the fit in your hand, the rim over your lips.

Come along to my open studio, pick up the pots and see how they fit you.