Baye Pewhairangi Riddell (born 1950) is a New Zealand ceramicist, composer and musician of
Ngāti Porou and
Te Whānau-a-Ruataupare descent.
Riddell was born in
Tokomaru Bay
Tokomaru Bay is a small beachside community located on the isolated East Coast of New Zealand's North Island. It is 91 km north of Gisborne, on State Highway 35, and close to Mount Hikurangi. The district was originally known as Toka-a- ...
in 1950 and began working with clay in the early 1970s, while living in Christchurch.
[
] His early work fits within the contemporary movement in New Zealand craft pottery, largely influenced by the Anglo-Orientalism of
Bernard Leach and Japanese potters who were influential in New Zealand, such as
Shoji Hamada.
Riddell, who had become distant from his Māori heritage, started putting Māori motifs on his pots, and in 1974 he became a full-time potter, the first Māori artist to commit to this profession.
Riddell built his first kiln in Christchurch at this time, but soon moved back to the North Island, living in Central Hawkes Bay and Anaura Bay before settling in Tokomaru Bay in 1979.
Here he sold work through a cooperative founded by
Helen Mason, who introduced him to other potters, including
Barry Brickell
Ian Barry Brickell (26 October 1935 – 23 January 2016) was a New Zealand potter, writer, conservationist and founder of Driving Creek Railway.
Biography
Born in New Plymouth in 1935, Brickell was the son of Shirley Margaret Wooler and Mauric ...
,
Harry Davis Harry Davis may refer to:
Sports
* Harry Davis (1900s first baseman) (1873–1947), Major League Baseball first baseman
* Harry Davis (1930s first baseman) (1908–1997), played for the Detroit Tigers and St. Louis Browns (1932–1937)
* Harry Da ...
and George Kojis as well as the artist
Theo Schoon.
Through his aunt,
Ngoi Pēwhairangi, who was working to revive traditional Māori art and culture, Riddell also reconnected with his own heritage.
Through the resurgent contemporary Māori art movement at this time Riddell connected with other Māori clay artists, including
Colleen Waata Urlich
Colleen Elizabeth Waata-Urlich (1939 – 10 September 2015) was a New Zealand ceramicist. Of Māori descent, she belonged to Te Popoto o Ngāpuhi ki Kaipara and Te Rarawa. Through education, involvement in Māori art collectives and production ...
and
Manos Nathan Manos Ross Nathan (20 December 1948 – 2 September 2015) was a New Zealand ceramicist. Born in Rawene, Hokianga, to Eruera and Katina (née Toraki) Nathan, he was of Māori (Te Roroa, Ngāti Whātua and Ngāpuhi) descent on his father's side and Gr ...
and spent time working alongside them at workshops and hui (meetings).
In 1986, with Manos Nathan, Riddell was a co-founder of
Ngā Kaihanga Uku Ngā Kaihanga Uku is a New Zealand collective of Māori Clayworkers. They formed in 1986 during a Ngā Puna Waihanga (Māori Artists and Writers collective) gathering, under the leadership of Baye Riddell and Manos Nathan. Founding members also in ...
, the national Māori clayworkers’ organisation in Aotearoa New Zealand.
In 1989 he and Nathan were awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to establish an exchange with Native American artists.
In 2011 he was awarded the
Creative New Zealand Craft/Object Fellowship.
[
]
References
1950 births
Living people
New Zealand potters
New Zealand Māori artists
People from Tokomaru Bay
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