About

Fran Maguire grew up in Christchurch.  The third of seven children .  She moved to Auckland in the early 1980s. A short overseas trip of a few months extended to being seven years, living in London, New York and France.  Fran returned to New Zealand in 1993 and lived in Marlborough for 23 years where she set up her ceramic studio and developed a national reputation as a ceramist.  In 2016 she was awarded Marlborough Cultural Living Treasure.

"Influences that shape my thinking include being brought up in the 1960/70s in a Catholic family.  I am the third of seven children.  My father was an artistic and sensitive Englishman who taught me wonder, to enjoy beauty in detail, discipline and fear.  My mother is musical.  Besides composing and writing orchestral pieces she groups voices to create choirs and strings words into short stories.  My mother is practical with a slightly quirky edge and inspires me with endurance and fortitude.  Our household was noisy, chaotic and creative, with religious expectation, angels, saints and martyrs.  The extended family displays brilliance in art, science and music.  

I seldom read and unless necessity forces my eyes across lines of black on white, for most of my life, I have avoided it.  I endeavour to empty my head rather than be filling it up and hope that the process continues until I can hear the clear resonance of myself as a tone, in my vacuous and uncluttered head.  

Until then, I continue to cluster thoughts into bodies of work, sift and sort ideas for future projects, discard anything that I can't 'make' anything intentional out of, and rearrange what is left into neat piles so that I can enjoy the spaces which I fill with growing awareness.  

For as long as I can remember I have made objects, developing the necessary skills in numerous crafts along the way.   The name Facing the Wall arose with a shift away from ceramic with its predominant territory being tables and shelves, to making digital artworks for walls.  

The transition is exciting."