Attracted by the sea, the arts community and affordable housing, Fiona and "Cloudy" McLeod are new to Whanganui but enjoying their new home and the people in it. They've left the farm and settled in seaside suburbia.
Fiona is a potter and has opened her studio at their home in
Kotuku St, Castlecliff.
"I've been potting since I was 18," she says. At that age, as an agriculture student, she arrived in New Zealand from Guernsey with a backpack with gumboots and overalls and a position on a farm. She met Cloudy in Hamilton, who is a little older, and to make friends her own age she joined a pottery evening class. She persevered and now is a full time potter.
"I make my own stuff and sell it at the markets and in galleries, I teach [pottery], and I also have a part-time job as a teacher aide at St George's School, and part of that is teaching pottery."
Fiona says the St George's students, Years 3 to 6, have a "Discovery Class" once a week. She gets 14 students for a term. "At the moment we're making items to tell the Hungry Caterpillar story, their version."
Fiona is also a qualified ESOL teacher.
Her work in clay ranges from the artistic to the utilitarian. "I like pottery that's useful and also beautiful.
"I really enjoy garden art ... it's big. I like making big pots." Fiona has work in the Whanganui Potters' Art in the Garden exhibition on this weekend at 38 Pauls Rd.
She is also aware of current trends in the market, so tumblers are popular, as are salt pigs ... hopefully.
"Riverside Markets are really good on events weekends." Fiona says that's when people from out of town come to Whanganui and spend.
She has a teaching event this Saturday at Space Studio and Gallery — Wine and Clay: Tealight House, from 7 to 9pm. Fiona will teach participants how to make a tealight house from clay while everyone enjoys wine, juice and nibbles. She will then fire and glaze the houses in the colour of the creator's choice. She's expecting about 20 people.
"I work at Marton's Art Centre. I do a beginners' pottery class there once a week on a Tuesday evening. I have got a children's class happening on Mondays for four weeks; for the past two terms I have been doing home school classes at Space." This term it has moved to her studio and has become an after school class. She also does two-hour Give it a Go lessons for adults. Fiona says school holiday programmes are popular. "With six children, and it's generally make a mug, make a bowl, make a plate, make a monster."
Fiona has three big market events coming up, with the Hospice fundraising markets at the racecourse, a market in Marton and another in Palmerston North. She loads up the car with tried and proven product like bowls and little jugs, for example. She finds them a good opportunity to advertise her lessons.
"I sell a lot to galleries, as well." Seven galleries have accepted Fiona's work. "We just need international tourists to arrive to buy."