Friday, September 05, 2014

Crown Lynn designer to feature at Going West Festival


The national impact of a Crown Lynn designer will be echoing through the Titirangi War Memorial Hall at Going West Books and Writers Festival when Mark Cleverley— a Crown Lynn son –will take the stage to discuss his design career and the recent book published about him in the session called Home Grown on Saturday 13th September at 9:00am.
Mark has been honoured by his peers this year as a Master of Craft, and a retrospective recognising his work is currently showing at Objectspace Gallery in Ponsonby. His bilingual communication design has been recognised with a Winston Churchill Fellowship Award, and in 2013 he was inducted into the Massey University, College of Creative Arts Toi Rauwharangi Hall of Fame. 
Cleverley worked as Development Designer at Crown Lynn Potteries from 1967 to 1979 and is best known for designs such as the classics Echo and Juliana.  Juliana features a simplified tulip shape, although Mark says a relative of his thought they looked more like chickens. In the 1970s, Mark designed  the dinnerware used at Bellamy’s Restaurant in Parliament, commissioned, reputedly, after the ‘Minister for Wine and Cheese’, Jonathon Hunt, then MP for New Lynn, insisted that the Parliamentary crockery should be made in New Zealand.
Mark’s experience at Crown Lynn and his work as a packaging, graphic and postage stamp designer and typographer contributed to his subsequent successful career as a highly respected lecturer at Wellington Polytechnic and Victoria University, where he has taught generations of students who will in turn shape the future of design in New Zealand.
The session is called Home Grown and is on Saturday 13th September at 9.00am.  At this session Mark will be joined by Jonty Valentine, one of the authors of the recent book Mark Cleverley: designer, and Valerie Monk, author of Crown Lynn: a New Zealand Icon and the Crown Lynn Collector’s Handbook.  The session will be chaired by Objectspace director Philip Clarke.

Going West Books and Writers Festival is keen to add your Crown Lynn stories to their archives . Send in your favourite Crown Lynn story to info@goingwestfest.co.nz  (put Crown Lynn Story in the subject line and include your name and full contact details) and if we receive your story before the 11th of Sept. you have a chance to win a ticket to attend the Home Grown session.  Stories will be accepted up to Sept 30th, and will be added to the Going West Archives, held at the West Auckland Research Centre, Waitakere Central Library, Henderson.


The Going West Books and Writers Festival, 12 – 14 September 2014, Titirangi War Memorial Hall. www.goingwestfest.co.nzTickets at the door or from www.eventfinder.co.nz

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