Ceramic and bonsai artist Robyne Dowdall is inviting you into her world for a rare and wonderful opportunity - not just to learn the secrets of the bonsai pot, but to shape one with your own hands. This immersive workshop is the perfect creative prelude to an upcoming Campus favourite: Bonsai 101 with Dawid from Bonsai Place. Two awesome opportunities to create one living masterpiece, as well as, its home.
Using stoneware clay, Robyne will help participants understand the specific requirements of a pot needed to grow a healthy bonsai. The session focuses on designing and forming a pot to meet those needs, with an emphasis on drainage, depth, and structural integrity, but also, creativity and expression.
Participants will leave with that new insight having formed their own unique pot by hand. Finished work will be left for firing and will be able to be picked up within 3 weeks of the workshop, or they can be left for Dawid's workshop.
Visit the Creative Campus webpage to book for Dawid’s Bonsai 101 workshop, as well. Only 6 spaces available, so make sure you get in quick.
Robyne Dowdall is an emerging multidisciplinary artist based in Tauranga, Aotearoa. Drawing on past experience in photography, garment design, and creative direction for stage and screen, her current practice focuses on handmade ceramic vessels. Her work is defined by a passion for research and a dedication to sustainability. Dowdall’s transition to clay was inspired by the world of bonsai; the practice’s focus on patience and natural form highlighted a need for thoughtfully designed pots. This insight now informs her zero-waste practice, where she creates functional, small-batch ceramics that celebrate the unique over the mass-produced.