What: Portage Ceramic Awards
Premier Award: Joint winners Jim Cooper, of Dunedin, for Drug Jars and Vendor; Madeleine Child and Philip Jarvis, of Dunedin, for Doodads & Doodahs and Widespread Occurrence of Possible Symbioses
Merit Awards: Phillipa Durkin, Wellington; Kristy Palleson, Wellington; Emily Siddell, Auckland
John Green Waitakere Artist Award: John Parker, Sang Sool Shim, Keum Sun Lee, all of West Auckland
Judge: Scott Chamberlin, professor of ceramics at the University of Colorado and artist in residence, Unitec
Where and when: Lopdell House Gallery, Titirangi, to December 6.

Drug Jars and Vendor, by Jim Cooper, shows `an ability to look at something that is over-decorated, chaotic, wacky and crazy'. Photo / Supplied

Drug Jars and Vendor, by Jim Cooper, shows `an ability to look at something that is over-decorated, chaotic, wacky and crazy'. Photo / Supplied

Scott Chamberlin is sore. This is what happens when you are swimming for your life in a tsunami, in churning water with fractured trees, chunks of buildings and other debris, at Lalomanu Beach in Samoa.

While his wife and children were scrambling up the steep hill behind, water surging to their waist, Chamberlin was submerged in the turbulent sea. The family was alerted by a Wellington schoolgirl who saw the retreating sea and bare reef, realised what it meant and ran screaming along the beach to warn her family. Because of this, no one from their part of the resort perished. A little further along, with no vigilant schoolgirl and no hill to run to, lives were lost.

Chamberlin is relieved - to put it mildly - to be recovering back in Auckland, and enthusiastic about the exhibition he has put together for Lopdell House Gallery. The Portage Ceramic Awards have been a part of the art calendar for nine years. With the richest prize money ($12,000 for the Premier Award; a total of $9000 for the other awards) and entries at almost 200, they are a barometer of the state of ceramics in New Zealand.

But Chamberlin is concerned. "I think there are a lot of very interesting artists in this country but the Portage does not always attract them for some reason or other. I don't know the answer to that.

"Every award show will attract a lot of people who probably are not going to get in - that's normal. My attitude was to hone entries down with the objective to get a stronger, clearer show. I was hoping to get emerging artists as well as people working in the field for a long time and this has happened."

Chamberlin has made changes to the standard format of the "one-pot-shot". He wanted a smaller artist group and once he decided who they would be, went back asking to see more work so "what is displayed is a larger and more representative body of work from each, and this, I think, has turned out to be interesting".

This widening of dialogue has created more of a curated show, with several works from individual artists rather than a selection of single works showcasing what is happening in studio practice, as seen previously.

"I tried to primarily choose artists who could be shown in other contemporary art contexts and be understood and appreciated in that broader arena.

"The vessel-makers in this particular exhibition could be shown anywhere, by and large. What surprised and somewhat disheartened me was there was almost nobody submitting utilitarian ceramics for the show.

"If they feel only sculpture is acceptable, then that is a sorry set of circumstances and it runs antithetical to what you think about when you make art - you don't make art for a judge."