New Year Honours: Creative flair still as strong

By PHILIP ENGLISH

At the age of 88 Doreen Blumhardt believes she is creating some of her best pottery.

"I just opened the kiln the day before yesterday and got out some of what I think are some of the best things I've ever done," the new distinguished companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit said.

But yesterday, Dr Blumhardt preferred to be known for her contribution to art education and the nation's fascination with craftwork.

In the 1940s, she not only had to organise art and craft education in New Zealand primary schools but also the brushes, crayons, paints and paper when such things normally imported from Britain were in short supply.

"I've always been a painter as well as a craftsman but that's usually forgotten when people know I produce pots.

"I'm really an art education person primarily."'

Dr Blumhardt was born in 1914 and grew up on a farm just out of Whangarei.

During the 1930s, Dr Blumhardt, hoping to follow a teaching career, marked time in Christchurch after the Depression prevented teacher training.

But in 1940 she started teaching, then trained art teachers.

She was head of art at the Wellington College of Education for 21 years, retiring in 1972.

These days she can hardly move through a crowd without being recognised by former students.

"Different ones come up and say I taught them in 1958 or '63 or whatever.

"It's rather nice. I have friends all over the country.

" ... I'm still going strong."

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