Easter Weekend Exhibition Opening and Seconds Sale

Following the success of our first Off the Rails exhibition in 2025, we’re excited to bring you this year’s show in the Driving Creek Gallery. Featuring fresh work from our team, it will run for four weeks over Easter.

The show opens on Thursday, 2 April at 6pm. Join us to celebrate. The exhibition runs until 3 May and is open Tuesday to Sunday, 11am to 3pm.

Easter weekend also brings back our biannual Pottery Seconds Sale. We’ll set up a stall outside the ticket office on Saturday and Sunday, 4 to 5 April, from 10am to 2pm, with all handcrafted seconds half price. Most pieces have only minor imperfections or glaze variations, making this a great chance to stock your kitchen shelves or gift cupboard.

Make a weekend of it at Driving Creek this Easter. Celebrate the opening of Off the Rails and head home with a pottery treasure or two from the Seconds Sale.

Otago Polytech Students at DCR

A big thank you to our summer pottery staff, Brianna Shaw of Taranaki and Aurelia Pfaff of Tāmaki Makaurau. They joined us in mid-December, working alongside our regular tutors and helping deliver extra classes through the busy summer season.

Brie and Aurelia are ceramics students at Otago Polytechnic and are here as part of our collaboration with the polytech. Each summer, outstanding students are recommended to join our pottery team. Our goal is to give them a well-rounded experience of life in a busy studio.

Alongside teaching daily classes, they’ve been pugging clay, trimming and glazing pots, and loading and firing the electric kilns. They’ve also been making their own work in their spare time.

Brie reflects on her time here:
 “Teaching at Driving Creek has been an invaluable experience, strengthening my confidence as both a potter and a teacher. I’m loving having seven weeks fully immersed in clay.”

Recent Residents

Summer brought plenty of energy to the artists’ village, with local and returning residents alongside first-timers, including Taarn Scott (Tāmaki), Hana Pera Aoake (Kawerau), Angu Chen and Fleur van Eyndhoven (Twizel), Bronwyn Blair of (Papa Aroha), Tom Henry (USA/Aotearoa), Giulia Scott (Tāmaki), Peter Quin (Te Whanganui-a-Tara), Glenn Benmayor (Kapanga), Grace Uivel (Ōhinehou), Phoebe Ryder (Ōtepoti) and Henry Turner (Germany/Aotearoa). Read more about our residents at drivingcreek.nz/journal.

We are currently accepting residency applications for October to December 2026. Applications close 31 March. For more information and to apply, visit drivingcreek.nz/artists-in-residence.

Upcoming Pottery Workshops

Starting Saturday 21 March | 2 Day Jug Making Course with Callum Trudgeon

Starting Friday 27 March | 3 Day Hand Building Course 

Starting Monday 6 April | 5 Day Fundamentals of Practical Glaze Chemistry with Ronald Boersen

Starting Saturday 18 April | 2 Day Bowl Making Course with Callum Trudgeon

Coromandel Town, Waikato

Starting Monday June 1 | 5 Day Throwing Course

Ngā mihi nui, The Driving Creek Pottery Team