No painter, Lois,
but a true artist Lois Templeton’s textile work Technically a Quilt – Listen recently won top prize in the Pollok Arts & Craft Co-operative’s August competition but this busy artisan has no time to reflect on the win as her every spare minute is presently devoted to the Franklin Arts Festival Society’s September pop up art show as HELEN PERRY discovered.
Call Lois Templeton an artist and, despite many successes, she is likely to do a double take. “I’ve never considered myself an ‘artist’ I’m a creator. I grew up thinking of artists as people who painted pictures and went to art school. That image has [to some degree] stuck in my head, but now, I see all creativity as art – poetry, woodturning, singing, they’re all art.” But to deny that this Big Bay creative is anything but an artist would be entirely wrong. Her ceramics and textile works are evidence of her talent and her ingenuity. Furthermore, the fact that they are seldom left sitting at an exhibition or in a gallery for long, attests to their desirability. Now, Lois has works in the Franklin Arts Festival Society’s Pop Up Art Show which, as festival president, she has been instrumental in organising. In progress at The NZ Steel Gallery and Franklin Arts Centre in Pukekohe, her entries include ceramic and wire sculptures, Multi Flora and Pink Blush Floral. Yet, still she shakes off the mantle of ‘artist’ declaring she only began delving into her creativity some 12 years ago and every work is still part of learning and exploring.
Louis Templeton
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Photos Wayne Martin | south | september 2020
Although Lois didn’t start ‘creating’ until well into adulthood it could be said her artistic journey began in school when she won a colouring contest and took home a camera. However, any childhood idea of becoming an artist was soon forgotten. Rather, like others of the era, Lois was soon embroiled in sewing, knitting and gardening all of which called for some creativity. “And, I still love gardening; many of my ceramic works are made for the garden which is definitely a place where one can find plenty of outlet for creativity,” she says. But it was visits to her grandmother at Manakau-Otaki, near Wellington, which were, perhaps, the catalyst for Lois’ later interest in ceramics. “Well-known potter of the time, Mirek Smisek, was my grandma’s lodger; watching him work, I thought, ‘I’d like to be a potter’.” But that thought was also fleeting – Lois went on to train as a primary school teacher and then, while on holiday in Australia, she met her husband to be, Graeme. ‘We married young and lived in Oz for 11 years before returning to New Zealand so Graeme could take up a job at the NZ Steel Mill. It made sense to settle locally but we didn’t want to look at the mill every day so when we found a property at Big www.southmagazine.co.nz
