I bought this vase in a TradeMe auction this week. The seller just called it 'Pretty Vase', but I recognised it as a nice example of the work that Chuck and Lesley Simpson and Andrew Williams made at Inglewood from about 1988 - 1990. So I was thrilled to find once I received it that it was well signed with the full name Joan O'Leary and the date 1989. Joan worked with Chuck and Lesley at Inglewood in 1988 and 1989, and while I have several pieces of her work from that period, this is the first I have seen that is so close to the work that Chuck and Lesley were doing themselves. Other pieces I have resemble much more closely the work Joan did later when she moved to work with Mandy Angus in New Plymouth in the 1990s.
Several pieces I have from this period are marked 'Glassplant', which was the name former owner Tony Kuepfer painted on the studio wall as a spoof on the Taranaki Think Big projects of the 1980s - the Methanol Plant, the Gas to Gasoline Plant, the Glassplant...
But the one at right is signed Lesley Justin 1989, and the one below is signed Chuck Simpson 1989. Justin was Lesley's surname before they married, and she signed her own pieces with her own name, though they also signed pieces jointly as Chuck and Lesley Simpson
