Pod Forms

Over the past few years, I’ve worked alongside Liz McAuliffe, a Northland artist whose work draws on the quiet patterns of nature — the curve of a seed pod, the texture of bark, the stillness of collected shells.

Our shared fascination with organic form has grown into an ongoing dialogue between our materials: her porcelain and my glass.

Our latest series, simply called Pod Forms, brings that conversation into sharper focus. Each piece begins in Liz’s hands. She shapes and fires the porcelain, creating vessel-like forms with the softness and strength of natural seed pods. Once they reach my studio, I respond — adding blown glass elements that seem to sprout, hover, or bloom from within. The process is intuitive and slow, a back-and-forth between two materials that behave in utterly different ways yet find a kind of harmony in contrast.

Porcelain holds a grounded stillness; glass catches and scatters light. Together, they suggest something both rooted and alive — a sense of growth, of emergence. Some forms appear to cradle the glass; others seem to be transformed by it, as though the boundary between vessel and growth is blurring.

This body of work is showing at Village Arts Gallery in the Hokianga, opening this Saturday, 25 October. There are five pod forms in the series, each one a quiet meditation on collaboration, transformation, and material conversation.

These pieces are as much about process as outcome. They’re shaped by trust, the kind that comes from years of working together, allowing each other’s materials and instincts to lead the way. It’s in that space between intention and reaction that the unexpected happens.

Earth.Fire.Water.Air
25 October - 30 November
Village Arts, Kohukohu, Hokianga, Northland