The Work.
Over nearly fifty years, the pottery produced a huge range of pots and ceramics: garden pots, platters, wall panels and follies, all thrown, glazed and hand-decorated at Matakana. Today they live in homes and gardens around New Zealand and the world.
Made by hand.
Wheel-throwing combined with simple machines made bigger, more consistent pots. Over the years the pottery developed hundreds of colourful glazes.
Production range
Decorated and plain glaze pots, follies, garden art and more. Made consistently and refined over the years, this is what was sold from the catalogue, the website and in retail shops around New Zealand.
DLab
Or ‘Design Lab’. One-off and developmental works, sold only at the Matakana showroom. Finding these gems was part of the joy of a visit.
Terracotta
Unglazed terracotta in a variety of pot shapes and sizes.
01 · The production range.
Consistent in size and decoration, yet each piece handmade, so no two are exactly alike.
The production range was the heart of the pottery: plain glaze pots in the colours of the glaze palette, hand-decorated pots, wall panels and follies, platters, Kiwiana and tableware.
New designs were refined sample by sample until a master was agreed. From there, many hands carried it: the shape tweaked in the throwing, the under-glaze blended in the spraying, the detail added by hand.
Some decorators specialised in a design because its glaze suited their skill, so each brought their own interpretation. That is part of what makes a Morris & James piece its own.
DLab.
Pieces labelled D-lab were one-off works and new designs, often never repeated, made by the potters and hand-decoration artists and signed by the maker. Collectors sought out work by senior artists and designers Nick Charlton, Ian Foote, Jacs Connelly and Karen Gray.
The Design Lab began as the Ant Morris Department, the AM Department, where a creative team helped Ant realise large pots and ceramic works. Later, Creative Wednesdays gave the decorators an afternoon each fortnight for their own projects, and many became D-lab pieces. Now and then a D-lab design was adapted into the production range.
Terracotta.
Every piece began as terracotta, from clay harvested on site. Morris & James started out as a tile and terracotta business: floor tiles at times made up half of production, and the XL pots were sold as unglazed terracotta before the glazed XL range arrived.
04 · First Grade, Second Grade and Run of Kiln.
Every piece was checked as it came out of the kiln and graded. Second Grade and Run of Kiln were sold only at the Matakana showroom, never online: stock was unpredictable and every piece different.
First Grade
A piece with no faults. First-grade pieces carry the bronze Morris & James medallion, and were sold in the showroom and online.
Second Grade
A piece with a blemish, such as a glaze run, chip or crack. Not first grade (and priced accordingly), but still beautiful. Many faults were undetectable. Seconds could also include new design glaze trials, done on second-grade terracotta.
Run of Kiln
Surplus plain glaze pots, and work made by trainees as they learned the craft. It took a lot of practice to reach the level of the top glazers, decorators and potters. Run of Kiln pots were sold in the seconds area outside the showroom door. Although they are stamped Morris & James, they are not graded, so they do not carry the bronze medallion like first-grade stock.
Identifying a piece?
Look up past designs in the catalogue, and match the colour in the glaze palette.