LIVING COLOUR
Once one of New Zealand’s most popular ceramic artists, Christine Harris was browsing in an op shop a couple of years ago when another customer spotted one of her decorative pieces for sale. Picking up the red and green cup, he turned to his friend and said he thought the person who made it had died. “I ran out and phoned Carly, saying ‘They think I’m dead!’” recalls Christine.
“She was shocked,” says her fashion designer daughter, Carly Harris. “We had quite a giggle about it.”
The two have worked together for many years, in the past two decades as partners in Carly Harris Designs, creating classic and floral boho-chic kimonos, wrap dresses, jackets and pants.
From a young age, Carly learnt to busy herself in the studio as solo mum Christine made her Domestic Purposes Benefit stretch to cover the cost of her study under sculptor Terry Stringer at the Auckland Society of Arts. Carly was still at her side in the late 70s, when Christine went into business selling hand-painted vases and decorative ceramics, working from a studio in Hobson St. After the 1987 stockmarket crash, she began creating
