Pottery & Purpose

Humble yet driven, potter Tony Sly has been selling his timeless ceramic collections from a welcoming space on Teed Street for the past seven years, while still creating by hand the organically beautiful pieces that some customers have been collecting for decades. By Helene Ravlich.

The Waikato-born creative was first introduced to the art form forty years ago, after a night class in pottery basics saw him immediately hooked. Studying at university at the time, he realised the moment that he plunged his hands into clay that “I was being channelled in one direction academically, but from a young child I got the most joy from working with my hands. It just felt so right, and I think if I wasn’t a potter I’d probably be a chef or a baker – it just feels so natural to me to be a maker.”

His then-teacher soon recognised his talent, and connected the enthusiastic young amateur with Elizabeth Woodfield, a Waikato-based potter in need of an assistant. Woodfield went on to school him in the lengthy process of clay preparation, throwing, and glazing, and soon he began making and selling his work at markets around the country, progressing to a network of wholesalers. This lead to the opening of his own studio and store on the wharf in Whāingaro Raglan over 15 years ago, where he lives and operations are still based today.

As we chat outside his Teed Street store, Sly continues on a culinary note, explaining the Raglan studio where he works with a small team functions more like a restaurant kitchen, as it’s essentially small batch production run on a human scale. “I do the making, but have someone doing the prep and someone doing the finishing, glazing and so on,” he explains, “so we’ve been able to achieve scale but still keep everything authentically handmade by me.” The team has a lot on its hands with Raglan, Newmarket and an online store running seven days a week, with a manager now in place to ensure the process is as seamless as possible every step of the way. The life-long potter admits that the work is very physical, and he trains to keep his shoulders strong as the whole studio depends on him. “Having said that,” he adds, “I’ve been doing this for so long that I love the ease with which I can make now, shapes just come off my fingers like a musician playing a piece they know well. It’s as natural as breathing.”

When his popular Newmarket location opened seven years ago, it fitted seamlessly into Teed Street precinct’s community of proudly independent businesses. “When we were looking to open somewhere in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, we originally did a popup in Ponsonby that went really well for us,” he explains, “then one night my partner and I were seeing a film at the Rialto and spotted that this space was free. It was the best decision I ever made, as while Aucklanders shop in our Raglan studio, those visiting Auckland from elsewhere love coming to Newmarket.” His long-time customers from around the country travel to Auckland at least twice a year and always pop in, usually coming to Newmarket to visit the mall and then decamping to Teed Street to spend time browsing in the independent stores who have made it their home. “I love that we have a real neighbourhood feel around here,” he says, gesturing at nearby creative, owner-operator businesses like Madder & Rouge, Allium Interiors and The Botanist, “and that we all share a commitment to creating something really special for the people that come to our stores.”

That personal service is what keeps the Tony Sly Pottery name top of mind when people are looking for something to invest in and cherish for years to come, “and we have a fantastically loyal client base that have been coming to us for a long time. Our stores are like an extension of my home, I tell my team that I don’t really want them to be salespeople. I want them to be good hosts so that customers leave with a good feeling.” There are pieces from his Rustic range that have been in production for twenty years, mainly due to the fact that “a good shape is a good shape, and I often look back into the archives and slightly rework something that
has been a firm favourite for decades”.

When asked if he has an end user for his pieces in mind, Sly admits that no, he doesn’t, “as like any artist, when you start thinking about making something for a perceived audience you stray from your path. You really have to make for yourself, and I’m always asking myself: what do I want to eat and drink out of, what sort of thing would I would most like to serve dinner on. I would never have anything in my stores that I wouldn’t have in my own home, and that gives us a truly edited point of view.”

Talk turns to the ongoing appreciation that many have for artisanal and handmade products, despite the fast-paced, tech-driven world that we live in. “I think it’s the new luxury,” says Sly, “because it’s so easy to buy anything online these days that to have something that isn’t available everywhere is really quite special. The more ruled by the digital world we get, the more we need gardening and cooking and pottery making, things we can get our hands stuck into and create. Pottery classes around the world are going crazy, which may not create a lot of potters but it does mean a lot of pottery appreciators.”

These include a second generation of Tony Sly Pottery customers, young people who tell Sly and his team that they have been eating off their plates for years. “I think a lot of the appeal is that we work with a lot of classic shapes, and use colours that are chosen for their ability to make food look its best. All of the colours are designed to work together too, so you can buy anything from the shop and make it work.”

With his studio and flagship store on Whāingaroa wharf, a lot of the main colours are directly influenced by the landscape and the sea – greens and blues and chalky whites. “I try to evoke that mood in the look and feel of our stores too,” says Sly, “where alongside our pottery we offer a range of homewares and furniture sourced from Europe and Asia as well as from here in Aotearoa. All are things I would personally use in my home, because when I started working as a potter that was my main goal: to create things that I needed and wanted, that would complement my cooking and make the act of cooking even more enjoyable.”

Lastly I ask him, why does he still call himself a potter, as opposed to the more lofty ‘ceramicist’ that seems to be increasingly favoured by those in the industry these days? “My partner is a gallerist, and people from within the art community often say to me ‘oh you’re Tony the ceramicist’,” he says with a smile. “I always correct them and say, ‘no, I’m just a potter’.”

“My pieces are made to be used and enjoyed… not to sit on a plinth with a light pointing at them.”

Tony Sly, 18 Teed Street, Newmarket

tonyslypottery.com