50 Years of Driving Creek

Next date: Friday, 01 November 2024 | 12:00 AM to Sunday, 03 November 2024 | 11:59 PM

Join us from November 1st to 3rd to celebrate 50 years of Driving Creek Pottery. A weekend full of talks, firings, and food planned and would love to share it with as many of the DCR family as possible. Celebrating the legacy of Barry Brickell, if you’d like to join, RSVP using this link https://creativecoromandel.co.nz/event/celebrating-50-years-of-driving-creek

or contact DCR. 

UKU Clay Hawke’s Bay is getting close.

Opens 15th September at 4pm. All welcome. @artsinc.heretaunga, 106 Russell St, Hastings

My work is a personal response to my mum’s journey with Dementia. I’m really interested in creating opportunities to share our experiences with dementia.  During World Alzheimer’s month I will be exhibiting a series of ceramic works at Te Kōputu a te whanga a Toi – Whakatāne Library and Exhibition Centre. The exhibition will run for 6 weeks from Saturday 14 September – Saturday 26 October. 

In the calm glowing warmth I remembered.

Opening with artist talk:

Saturday 14 September

1-3pm

Te Kōputu a te whanga a Toi – Whakatāne Library and Exhibition Centre. 

This is my artist statement about the exhibition:

What if the thoroughfare of memory has holes and continually moves around without knowing where to settle? How does this affect one’s identity when the interlaced path of our whakapapa is without context and the stories we are born into and with are uncertain traces of our past? How do you move forward into the future with a past that doesn’t remember the way? 

Exploring functional ceramics on the wheel to create the outcome of waste; slurry is evaporated to become tiles or fragments and trimming twists are used unfired and fired as a form in their own right. Much like when someone has dementia, it leaves a trace of what was, in the hope of finding some understanding, surpassing the desired outcome, and instead recreating an alternative purpose. Redefining the intentional outcome of domestic pottery and expanding the definition of ceramics. 

The strength of copper anchors thoughts in preparation for conversations. Intentionally contrasting to the organic materiality of clay. Capturing the disconnect when others see you clearer than yourself. Inferring conversations around capacity, realisation and acceptance of a hectic dementia mind. 

Debbie’s practice explores concepts of time, memory and identity pairing quotes from her mums memory journal to deepen our understanding of a dementia mind. 

Installation and purpose built ‘plinths’ connect and ground the elements. Much like treading a neurological pathway between memories or gathering a space for stories to sit together. 

This is a little about me:

Debbie Barber is a ceramic artist who holds a BFA in Sculpture from Ilam School of Fine Arts, Canterbury University. Currently living in Tāmaki Makaurau, Debbie began establishing her own art practice in 2019 influenced by her mum’s journey with dementia and grounded in a reflective practice considering identity, time and memory. 

Past exhibitions include: Abstraxt Abstraxt at NorthArt 2024. Molly Morpeth Canaday Award; finalist, 2024. Portage Ceramic Award; Merit Prize winner 2023. Grounding exhibition at Depot Artspace, The Parkin Drawing Prize; finalist, National Contemporary Art Award; finalist, Auckland Studio Potters Fire and Clay; finalist, and Shifting at Arthaus Contemporary Gallery, all 2023; Pushing Clay Uphill, the inaugural Contemporary Ceramics Award Exhibition; finalist with two artworks, Nelson 2022, Bread and Butter at Grey, 2022, Owhango Summer Sculpture Show 2020/2021.

And here’s a couple images of my work: