Visiting artist has a unique way to engage with clay

Sam Duckor-Jones with his work in progress at the Glasgow st studio. Photo/Stuart Munro

Visiting Featherston artist Sam Duckor-Jones has turned a careless taunt into a thing of beauty.

A serene-looking clay figure has the words "Lil Bitch" resting on its forearm and Duckor- Jones says it was inspired by an insult yelled at him from a passing car.

"I was walking back from the supermarket on my first day in Whanganui when someone yelled that out to me.

"It wasn't friendly but I decided to use it in a good way."

The large figure will become a permanent fixture at the Glasgow St Arts Centre in Whanganui, where Duckor-Jones is the current artist in residence.

In just four weeks, he has filled the studio with clay figures, which he is in the process of firing and he says he plans to finish them with metallic glazes.

"The way I engage with clay is quite different," he says.

"I try to tell small stories by sending out into the world characters at once heavy with my own fears and buoyant with dreamed-of accomplishments."

Duckor-Jones studied poetry at Victoria University in Wellington and says he discovered clay at the Wellington Potters Association.

"I was a sad, young person in dingy flat building figures from Fimo and I went there to try a different medium."

That was a decade ago and he has discovered his own unique way of working with clay but stresses that he is not a potter.

"Some people are very good at making pots but I'm a clay artist rather than a potter."

He was honoured to be chosen as a guest selector for the recent Wellington Potters Association 60th anniversary exhibition.

Apart from a bit of drive-by abuse, the artist says his Whanganui experience has been very positive.

He has procured a bicycle to ride while he's here and is enjoying discovering Whanganui artists' work and visiting places like Article in Drews Ave.

Duckor- Jones has also worked with paint, pencil, papier mâché and found objects to produce his artworks.

More of his work can be seen at Bowen Galleries in Wellington.