Introducing SANDRA MATHER

Hi, my name is Sandra Mather, I really enjoy making quirky pottery for inside or outside. I love spending time in my shed making unusual, weird, and wonderful creations like funny fish, curious chickens, and mad mugs. Things that make me laugh and I hope to make other people smile too. The world is so full of mass-produced manufactured stuff, it’s great to bring original handmade, one-off pieces into the world that brighten our lives up a little. I love reading. Peoples stories fascinate me, often our back stories have an impact on where we end up in the future and what we create. So here goes, my back story… I became a gib-stopper the year the twin towers came down, when I was in my mid 30’s. A gib-stopper friend of ours asked me (well, challenged me!) to come and learn and work with him. At the time, I was working different jobs around my children, part-time varied horticultural work pruning grapes, and on the flower farm and other seasonal jobs in and around Matakana. Then my friend offered to train me to gib-stop. He had been looking for someone to work with him as it’s so much easier with two people than one! So, why not - what did I have to lose? I was ready for a challenge. It was great because my friend also worked school hours around his children too. I bought a trowel and some stilts, and I was off! It was hugely challenging, I was sore every day for a year, all those muscles I never knew I had, and some days I just thought I’m never going get this. I had never even used a screwdriver before, my husband did everything like that! And then you know what they say – 10,000 hours… something just clicked! I worked for my mate for a couple of years and then he pushed me out on my own… fly little bird! It was daunting but I had no choice. Then I got a few jobs, and then a new work partner. Then she went back to Auckland, so I employed some people, but that didn’t work out so well. Then I met a gib-stopper that hadn’t been in the area long, and we worked together for about 15 years. As with any partnership we had our ups and downs, but as “chalk and cheese” it really worked. I enjoyed working on building sites, everyone was very nice and respectful having a woman on the site. It was hard work, but it got a lot better when we gave up pole sanding and we splashed out and bought a vacuum sanding machine (Urgh! – pole sanding a ceiling while on stilts!). In the end we were both tired and everything hurt, my knees felt wooden (so did everything else). All the gib-stoppers I knew were having major operations, and I had started on the falling off ladders phase! There was no future for me in gib-stopping. I had to look for a different future for myself.

I have always made pottery. I was very lucky there was an after-school class when I was at primary school, and I’ve gone back to pottery throughout my life. In Auckland there were night classes and then when we moved to Matakana 25 years ago, I joined the Kowhai Arts and Craft Club when my son was at school, and my daughter at Kindy. I am now a member again and they have fantastic clubrooms with lots of pottery equipment, kilns, and all types of creative clubs going on there. I started going to Auckland Studio Potters while I was still gib-stopping to learn to pot using the wheel as I had always done hand building with clay. I wanted to cut down my work hours and to find a new fun challenge for myself. So once a week I went to learn new techniques with clay and the very big challenge of trying to make something useful on the wheel! This year I had my first open studio with Mahurangi Artists Studio Trail which was scary but what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger! It was actually lots of fun, and great to get good feedback. I’m now making pottery, mainly hand built, as it’s so much fun to make, selling it at various places, and teaching kids pottery at Estuary Arts Centre in Orewa this year which I’ve also never done before. It’s so enjoyable and so rewarding! I feel really privileged and lucky for the various paths I have travelled down at different stages of my life. Making pottery is mostly JOY – except for when your wonderful new creation breaks, or the kiln fails, or the glaze either sticks to the shelf, or doesn’t come out to your expectations. Pottery isn’t for the faint hearted!! Some fails but mostly wins and its pure joy!