Paul Herbert
I work with various clays, mainly in a sculptural style, tending towards a bare aesthetic. My work is a response to relationships - people with each other and people with the Earth around them.
The relationships that govern how we navigate the shared use of resources, while retaining our humanity and protecting our individualism, are central to my creative motivation. I aim to evoke a connection to the natural world, which ultimately sustains us.
The mixing of clays into patterns is representative of rocks, water or clouds, but also is symbolic of a melting pot of ideas, ideologies, peoples, populations. All running together within a vessel, in harmony or otherwise.
A K' Road local, I began my ceramics journey after the first lockdown in 2020. Being an itinerant woodwind tutor in schools, my artistic outlet was abruptly changed when I needed to adapt to teaching through a computer screen. At that point I decided to create with my hands and enrolled in a few courses at Studio One on Ponsonby Road once lockdown ended.
Drawn toward hand-building vessels rather than the wheel, it became clear that clay, for me, would be an artistic voice separate from music/teaching. Ceramics is itself a great teacher: it demands patience, never does quite what you think it will, and always surprises….just like life.
