About the Maker
I am Aimie Whiting a Metal sculptor, a Ceramicist and Tapestry artist from New Zealand working in the land of Oz.
I make one off functional art pieces.
I like the idea of having the picture perfect website…That clean modern aesthetic everyone wants with beautiful handmade high end products in all the pictures…I want my hair to look nice without doing a thing to it…I like the idea of having really really nice clothes and belongings…
Lets be real I make those sort of things for others to enjoy and I look like a rat that has crawled out of a drain most days.
I can’t do both so I going to stick to the making beautiful homewares and unique sculptures for everyone else to enjoy.
How giving up climbing lead to starting ceramics
Aimie is a kiwi entrepreneur who went from climbing rocks, working with steel to finding a medium where she could combine both after having to stop doing both activities she loved and undergoing a full hip replacement at the age 38.
"Stopping climbing left a huge hole in my life both physically, mentally and socially."
Time it wasn’t something I had spare as I do ALL the things, but with rock climbing out as my right leg was literally dangling from the socket with a 12 month wait until my surgery I tried a class at Ceramique in Geelong…I was hooked from the intro class.
I completed 10 classes each for 2 hours on a Monday night when I would have climbed, this was the start of my new obsession.
So I put my welding and construction skills to use found the only area in our small house that I hadn’t already converted into some art room.
I was relegated to the outside covered deck and walkway where there was a 3.5m x 1m stretch of dirt my dog would lie in and drag mess inside.
Seemed the perfect spot, so I got to work and built myself what was meant to be a roll away easy pack up ceramics studio.
Its not rolling away any time soon… it is here to stay as once I got the wheel a short time after was having a 32 amp electric kiln wired into the walkway between my house and ceramics alfresco area.
Again I reassured myself as I dug into my savings to buy a kiln…6 weeks stuck at home what is the point off making ceramics and not being able to fire them on my schedule and learn from 100’s of mistakes over the 6 weeks.
I didn’t want to burden my fiancé Mike with several trips to the studio each week with my wacky creations.
“I thought they would most likely roll around the back of the ute a few days before being delivered in pieces.”
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