Kickstart Your Creative Career
Coromandel’s historic Driving Creek Pottery is offering a unique opportunity for an up-and-coming creative: an apprenticeship position to join the production pottery team and be fully trained in the craft of making pots.
Most Coromandelites will be familiar with the story of Driving Creek: established in the early 70s by polymath potter, train enthusiast and conservationist Barry Brickell, Driving Creek evolved organically over its more than fifty-year history. It became a significant hub for the clay arts in Aotearoa and around the world, hosting and fostering many of this country’s most notable potters and creatives. Before Barry died in 2016, he had the foresight to put Driving Creek into a charitable trust. This model ensures that profits from the tourism operations go back into supporting the arts and conservation efforts at Driving Creek.
On the opposite side of the world in 2014, Cornishman Callum Trudgeon joined The Leach Pottery production team as their first fully trained apprentice in more than forty years. Established in 1920 by legendary potters Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada, The Leach Pottery in St. Ives is arguably the most significant pottery in the world. It is the birthplace of the ‘studio pottery’ movement that rebelled against industrialisation and mass production in favour of the handmade and bringing craft back into the home. The Leach became a training ground for some of the most influential potters of the last hundred years.
Two years ago, Callum traded The Leach and his homeland for Coromandel Town. He was recruited by Driving Creek for a special purpose: to establish a production pottery at Driving Creek. His task was to combine the traditions, structure and rigour of production at The Leach with the creative freedom and vernacular charm of Barry’s Driving Creek.
With this in mind, Callum set about designing a pottery range that would pay tribute to these two histories. After a stint training at The Leach herself, Tokomaru Bay-born potter Matilda Halley joined the team. For the past two years, she and Callum have been steadily churning out pots in the red barn at Driving Creek. The handcrafted pottery range they produce can be found in the Driving Creek shop, online and in select shops around the motu.
Both Callum and Matilda are aware of how lucky they both were to have had the opportunity to learn the craft through apprenticeship schemes. Apprenticeships were once common in Aotearoa, but with the decline of the pottery industry in the 1980s, they have become rare. Despite pottery’s recent resurgence, formal training opportunities to master the craft remain scarce. And so begins the Driving Creek Pottery apprenticeship scheme. For the first time ever, we will be offering a position to join the production team and be fully trained in the craft of pottery.
This will be a hands-on, three-year apprenticeship aimed at someone wanting to make a career in pottery. No prior pottery experience is required, but the ideal candidate will have an appreciation for craft, an eye for detail, and the patience required for repetitive tasks. The apprentice will be trained in the entire production process, from mixing clay to packing and shipping finished pots.
As a multigenerational St. Ives local, Callum acknowledges that “the opportunity to train in a professional pottery in my hometown changed the course of my life.” Similarly, Driving Creek would love to find a Coromandel local for this position. While the apprenticeship will be open to all New Zealand residents, priority will be given to local applicants.
Applications close on 18th April – help us spread the word and start a new chapter of craft education in Aotearoa.
For more information and to apply for the apprenticeship, click here.
“The opportunity to train in a professional pottery in my hometown changed the course of my life.” – Callum Trudgeon
Words by Matilda Halley
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