Kōrero: Crafts and applied arts

Patricia Perrin studied under potter Robert Nettleton Field at Avondale College in Auckland in the 1940s and held her first exhibition in 1948. She became a pottery teacher at Avondale College the following year. Barry Brickell, later to become a leading potter, was one of her students. Perrin was an expert sculpturalist and put form before function. She rarely used glazes, instead preferring to explore the effect on clay of heat and atmosphere in the kiln. This is Perrin in her studio at the family home in Arthur Street, Ellerslie, in 1967.