WFH

ISOBEL THOM

Born in Tāmaki Makaurau and brought up in a family of practical makers and engineers in Howick, Isobel Thom graduated with a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau in 1990. After living and working in New York from 1995 to 2005, she returned to Auckland to undertake a doctorate in Fine Arts at Elam. Around 2010, Thom began working with functional ceramics. In 2018 she embarked on ILK (Isobel Lone Kauri), a dwelling and studio in the Waitākere Ranges where she has hand-built the cladding tiles, bricks, floor tiles, sinks, rain chains and other elements of architectural hardware used in the home.

Thom’s work has been exhibited widely and is held in the collections of Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki and Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand. Recent exhibitions include ILK (Malcolm Smith Gallery Howick, 2016-17), Pocket Histories (Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary, 2018-19), Seasoned (Brett McDowell Gallery, 2021), Toro Whakaara: Responses to our built environment (Objectspace, 2021) and As is where is (with Wendelien Bakker and Ben Pyne at Pyne’s partially renovated New Lynn home, 2025). WFH is her first exhibition with her mother.

ELLEN THOM

Born in Whangārei in 1931, Ellen Thom is the daughter of a carpenter and a music teacher, who met when he came to her for banjo lessons. After growing up at Glenbrook Beach and attending Waiuku District High School, Ellen left home at 16 to move to the city, where she worked for a dressmaker and later in a legal office. When her family relocated to Howick, she joined them and became involved with the Howick Pottery Group. Her father built a diesel-fired kiln for her in the backyard of the family home, and it was through the pottery group that she met her future mother-in-law, Jessie Thom. In March 1960, Ellen married Jessie’s son, Ian, at All Saints Church, Howick, and between 1961 and 1968 they had five children.

A skilled dressmaker, Ellen made her own clothes, wedding dress, bridesmaids’ dresses and her children’s clothing. She also knitted extensively for her family, producing everything from baby booties and Fair Isle jumpers to hand-spun and dyed jerseys for her grandchildren. As her family grew, Ellen continued to make pottery from a wheel in the family garage and later ran evening classes at Edgewater College. She also volunteered with the Civilian Maimed Association and Save the Children, serving for a period as local area president.

After inheriting Jessie’s spinning wheel, Ellen developed an increasing interest in wool crafts. Taught to knit by her mother as a child, she has never stopped. She began knitting garments for charities, initially making fine wool singlets for newborns through Plunket before later producing boldly striped blankets for new mothers at Middlemore Hospital. Now nearing 95, Ellen continues to host a monthly charity knitting group in her home and still knits every day, using her unique combinations of colour.