Ceramic artist Anthea Stayt: I’m very lucky to have tihs psace.
Artist Anthea Stayt’s studio is nestled amid a bounty of nature.
Every window provides a tantalising view – lush bush, not one but several expansive green lawns, trickling streams, bold sub-tropicals bobbing under protective kowhai and kahikatea that tower overhead, and not to mention every colour palette imaginable.
Her home is tucked away in its own microclimate smack bang in the centre of New Plymouth yet hidden from view and deliciously private.
It is full of texture and colour and light, movement and sound with dancing trees and brilliant foliage and abundant birdlife – everything an arty person needs to whet the mind for creating.
Anthea loves her art space, nestled underneath the main home in what was once her son’s basement bedroom. He’s flown the nest now and so left a wonderful space for his mother to not only work but also exhibit her creations, vivid oil paintings and bold ceramic pots and sculpture.
“I’m very lucky to have this space. Just coming down the drive, it’s so special, so peaceful, something just happens when you enter this place. And my studio, with all these windows and space, I just love it,” she said.
Stayt, who calls herself a contemporary ceramicist, has been painting only four years. She started her artistic life decorating ceramic pieces which led onto creating her own clay and porcelain works. She moved onto painting when she wanted to develop backgrounds for her porcelain flowers that are wired onto boards.
“I began making sculptures, leaving them unglazed,” she explains, showing her fashion series, a wall of busts that are shaped into dresses that have all been worn by celebrities or royalty on the red carpet. They are entirely white, made from either stoneware or paper clay, including the tiny finishing edges, folds and buttons.
Stayt has also created beautiful New Zealand-inspired torsos embellished with ferns and tiny leaves so intricately worked and again in white. But she has delved into colour too, not just in torso forms, but also in spectacular clay pots and vessels in different shapes and sizes. This is her latest work along with her oil paintings, vibrant abstracts, which she is currently preparing to exhibit for the Taranaki Arts Trail next month.
She has worked alongside former teacher Vjelpslav Nemesh an Auckland artist who she discovered on the Internet when she began searching for someone to teach her the style and technique that she envisaged using, both as the background painting for her porcelain work and as the finish for her clay sculptures.
All of her work is hand created, delicately developed over many hours. But to Stayt it isn’t work – its doing something she loves, and there just isn’t enough hours in the day to do all that she wants. She is often up late at night or working until the early hours in her studio, music playing and she is totally unaware of time or reality when she is creating.
“Trance music is my choice of company – the energy of the beat fits the rhythm of my work. I use oil paints to finish my pots because the vibrancy of the colours plus the ease of blending and layering, produce the results I desire.
“I really like how I can transform a hunk of clay into a unique and vibrant sculptural art work. Either I hand build each piece from coils of paperclay joined together or sometimes I start off by pressing the clay into a mould to give a foundation to build upwards from. I always know what I want to make when I start – a torso, a bowl or a pot, but I don’t work to a plan because I know that clay can have a mind of its own.”
She relishes the finishing stage.
“I have moved away from the more traditional glazing and into an area that to me is definitely more exciting, expressive and contemporary. The clay becomes my canvas as I use vivid oils in abstract designs. This style of work resulted in my selection as a finalist in the 2014 Portage Awards.”
The Portage Awards are an annual National exhibition with fewer than 50 pieces selected from ceramicists throughout New Zealand. Stayt was selected by Japanese Master of 50 years, Takeshi Yasuda, and is very proud of her achievement.
Stayt is always busy, and likes to be so. She works two days a week at an engineering firm, looks after the house and 3.7ha garden and is mum to five children, all grown and left home but some live nearby and she enjoys being involved in their lives.
The garden is a type of escape for her. When she isn’t in the mood to create, she finds pleasure in the soil and creating outdoors. She and husband Chris have owned the property for 10 years and as well as the house, it also includes a swimming pool and tennis court which has been well used, especially by son Tristan, recently returned from a US tennis scholarship for the past four years.
The garden used to be spectacular, says Stayt. It was a regular entry many years ago, in the Taranaki Rhododendron festival but as it changed owners over time, and some of them not being avid gardeners, it has needed a big boost of energy, time and money to attempt to keep it looking attractive “and presentable”, says Stayt,
“We aren’t quite there yet but we have brought it up to a standard we are happy with,” says Stayt.
“We are almost at a stage where we feel it’s time for the next person to come in here. We have always felt we were only ever caretakers of this wonderful place. We aren’t cut and slash people, we have left its very natural beauty develop.”
There are some old and grand trees on the property, magnificent magnolias, cedars, puriri, rhododendron, maples, azaleas and beautiful old pohotakawa as well as a myriad kingfern and nikau, many of them self-sown specimens. Pigeons, tui, fantails and morepork live there in harmony – as do Anthea and Chris.
– Stuf
