Pottering around Grey Street
“I like anything made with clay,” says ceramicist and market stall owner Lyndsay Baine.
Baine’s life has been shaped by a love of pottery and dedication to family. The avid collector shares his story.
Baine’s life has been shaped by a love of pottery and dedication to family. The avid collector shares his story.
Baine, a trained accountant based in Wellington, threw in his job and attended Dunedin School of Arts where he honed his pottery skills in the late 1980s. “A bit weird to go from accountancy to pottery but i was still young, a bit of a rebel and not ready for the excitement of the accountancy world at that time.”
This love is evident in the eclectic range of objects which adorn every surface of Baine’s two living rooms. They depict a life spent collecting and the memories that accompany them.
In 1991 he and Cathy Baine married. They swapped cosmopolitan Wellington for the lifestyle change of Taihape. They moved into the old 1900’s Doctor’s surgery where they set up their BnB in the main house. Baine became a full-time potter in the converted surgery.
Back in Baine’s first living room, the Crown Lyn collection lines the shelves, dwarfing the typical Kiwi household’s inventory tenfold. Bowls of varying shapes and sizes huddle together on the window ledges.
The Baines pair treasure family most of all, however. Lyndsay Baine recalls the uprooting he experienced when life would demand a return to suburban living.
“Our daughters were approaching high school age. Cathy and I had to make the difficult decision to move from Taihape to Waikato for the educational opportunities that a bigger centre is able to offer.”
“I had to give up potting and move back into accountancy to provide for my whanau,” says Baine.
He continued his interest in pottery by collecting and began to sell pottery at the local collectables market in Tamahere. When the market moved to Claudelands, Baines followed. The Hamilton East Street market has been a fixture in Grey Street for 25 years.
Around Baines’ kitchen are the teapots. His favourite is a rather unusual looking teapot that would not look out of place in a sci-fi movie. “It’s a Rick Rudd teapot which I recently bought for $795 out of my market profits” he says proudly.
Baine’s prowess as an accountant has created a self-sustaining endeavour. A skillset he shared with his youngest daughter Amelia, who wanted to go on an exchange to Germany. The deal was that she had to raise the airfare using the market stall. She rallied the wider whanau and community for any bric-a-brac they wanted to get rid of. Amelia sold more than enough to cover the airfare.
On the floor in the second lounge/storage facility/warehouse, are the items waiting to be sorted – cups, saucers, plates, teapots and mugs along with bric a brac like jigsaw puzzles, toys, tupperware, a yo-yo, a pair of slippers and a golf club donated by friend and family.
Along the way, Lyndsay discovered a lively community of collectors and fellow market stall enthusiasts. Some weeks he makes barely enough to cover the modest stall cost, yet he’ll be there, happy with his community.
“It gets me out of the house,” he laughs.
“It is the community which keeps me coming back; to swap yarns, to scope out possible bargains on other stalls and to enjoy the ritual of the morning coffee while wife Cathy minds the stall.”
With the opening of Made in Hamilton East, Baine is hoping that he may be able to focus on selling all kinds of pottery at his stall as it is likely that people who enjoy handcrafted wares will flock to the area. “I’m not giving up the day job just yet, but who knows, maybe in a few years I can spend weekdays buying and selling pottery”, he says, a big smile on his face.
