Roll call

Over the weekend we visited our friend Simon Manchester. We've known Simon for a while now and have also come to know his remarkable collection of ceramics. Simon is one of those people for whom the word collector was invented. He is utterly incapable withholding a bid at auction or keeping his hands off his wallet if he finds a pot or a vase or a jug if he thinks is important to New Zealand’s ceramic history or hits him in the heart when he sees it. And his collection of ceramics, one of a number of things he collects in depth, is thousands of objects strong. Well it was. Unfortunately Simon’s apartment tops a tall, thin heritage building in downtown Wellington and, as the earth moved a few weeks ago, so did many of his prized pieces.

As we have seen in earthquakes before in Wellington, and as was shown many times in Christchurch, shaking and rolling has the strangest effects. And that’s how it was with Simon’s collection. A tall vase stayed put while a flat dish was thrown across the room. Things attached to the wall remained where they were supposed to be as pots, jugs and sculptures on the floor toppled, some shelves spilled everything while some nothing at all. The result is a huge clean up job and boxes of shards.

One thing Simon told us which is worth passing on is the fact that Quake Wax takes a few weeks to harden into its stay-right-where-you-are form. His experience was that a couple of vases that had been carefully quake waxed a few days before the shake obeyed gravity leaving a sticky wax ring behind them. The loss has certainly taken a toll on the Manchester collection and a toll on Simon himself and so this pic of them both in happier times.

Potted history

With the Creative NZ cake being cut into thinner and thinner slices it's easy to forget how important some of those slices have been. We saw a solid demonstration when we visited John Parker a few weeks ago. He was in the midst of a firing for his next exhibition and as we stood around the kiln John mentioned that he had been firing his work in it for 23 years almost to the day. He has had two arts council grants. With the first he bought a wheel and with the second of $14,000 in 1990 this electric kiln. Thousands of pots later it's still going strong.

You can check out who received grants from the latest CNZ round by going here at 5 pm. The fact that we know this is thanks to CNZ now pre announcing when grants will be made public.