Fire and earth
Every surface in Elena Renker’s pottery shed is lined with her creations, in various stages of completion. They occupy the wooden shelves, the white windowsills and even the exposed framework of the walls, and each is meaningful. “You get to know your pots so well, they become your friends,” Elena says. “I get really attached to them because I know I’m never going make a pot like that again.”
Elena moved to the lifestyle property near Long Bay, at the northern tip of Auckland’s North Shore, in 1986. From the large corner window of her shed, she looks along her sprawling, self-seeding vegetable garden to her wood-fired kiln with its large chimney. In the distance is a row of old pines
