Haus-A-Rest

A zine shaped by artists, for the bold, the curious, and the uncompromising.
Haus-a-rest exists for the creatives who notice what others miss, who translate lived experience into striking images and fearless words. This is a space for the daring, the different, and the deeply authentic.

Each issue brings together work that resists the obvious, fresh perspectives, quiet rebellions, and art that moves without asking permission. We’re drawn to the unseen, the unfiltered, and the moments that linger. Our Open Calls remain free and open to all.

They’re an invitation to share what’s been forming, to test new ideas, and to connect with a community rooted in curiosity and creative risk.

Step into the zine.
Let’s carry forward the voices that refuse to fade into the background.

Issue 75

Clay Every Which Way

What is clay?

A material.
A substance.
A piece of the earth.

Something we dig up, get our hands into, shape, fire, break and sometimes throw away. But clay has never really been just clay. It has been a vessel, a building, a body, a brick, a toy, a tool, a ritual object, a record. It has carried food and water, held the imprint of a hand, recorded a moment, and survived long after the person who made it has gone. It can be ancient and completely new at the same time.

For this issue of HAUS-A-REST, we asked artists and writers to take clay every which way.

Not simply ceramics, or pots or something that must go into a kiln and come out as a finished object. We wanted to see where clay might lead, and to know what happens when artists push at the edges of a material we think we already know. What happens when clay is left raw, when it cracks, when it breaks, when it is returned to the earth? What happens when the process becomes more important than the finished thing, when clay becomes more than a material, it becomes a way of thinking?

There is something wonderfully democratic about clay. It doesn't require perfection. It can be picked up and squeezed, it can be pushed too far and started again. It allows for accidents, marks, fingerprints, mistakes and changes of mind.

Perhaps this is why it has travelled with us for so long.

We shape it, but it also shapes us. It connects the hand to the ground and the body to the earth. The present to everything that came before.

And maybe this is where Clay Every Which Way really begins.

So this issue is deliberately open.

There are no rules about where clay should sit, what it should look like, or what it should become.

Only a material, a starting point, and a whole lot of possibilities.

Explore the results here One line Gallery to see the full range of visual work submitted, and who the artists are. There is a rich and varied collection of great work.

Step into the Writers' Corner for the words that come to surface, where contributors have reached into the spaces between sentences to share what usually stays unwritten.

Alongside the submitted work, we are delighted to share writing from some our brilliant poet Peter Devonald, and resident writer Michaela Hall

Editors,Dr Jenna Fox, and Nichola Rodgers have been busy with exhibitions, commissions, and setting up workshops, see their News and updates in the blog.

You can also find the collection rolling out across Instagram and Facebook, where we're sharing work, stories, and a closer look at the artists and writers behind the pieces. Follow along and join the conversation.

Thank you to everyone who submitted, who shared, and who trusted us with their work.

As always, HAUS-A-REST remains a platform for experimental, independent, and boundary-pushing work. If you have an idea that fits this brief then get in touch.

THE FEATURED ARTIST THIS ISSUE is oktavia schreiner find out more below

Oktavia schreiner

Discover Oktavia Schreiner's ceramic and wood sculptures and installations, shown in Glasgow, Salzburg and Linz.

Oktavia is a visual artist working primarily with ceramics, often combined with wood or metal. The sculptures are symmetrical, creating a sense of calm and order. In contrast, the images they paint on the ceramics with glazes are full of tension and strangeness. They depict architectural structures that have fallen out of balance and landscapes and natural forms that take on a peculiar life of their own. They draw inspiration from scientific, literary, or mythological texts, as well as from dreams and memories.

Oktavia has also been long-listed for The Art Prize which is a great achievement

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Micro Residency Open Call

We’re excited to continue these Micro-Residencies, a small but intentional space for artists, writers, and creative thinkers who want to deepen their practice, expand their ideas, and receive thoughtful guidance along the way.

The HAUS-A-REST Micro-Residency is built on the belief that artists don’t always need grand studios, vast budgets, or months away from the world, they often need attention, exchange, and a context in which their ideas can breathe.

In a time of constant accumulation, of information, pressure, expectation, this residency offers a moment to sift, sharpen, and reimagine. It’s a place to sort through your creative overflow, to cultivate clarity, or to find excitement in the mess.

you can apply on our opportunities page.
Stay tuned, stay curious, and keep making.

Meet our Next Micro resident artist this will be thier last month with us

da:ze

NEWS IS NOW ON THE BLOG

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links to exhibitions

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book workshops

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NEWS IS NOW ON THE BLOG 🎨 links to exhibitions 🎨 book workshops 🎨

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!! Calling Artists & Writers!!

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OUR NEXT OPEN CALL

“Clay every which way”

CAN BE SEEN HERE

Our Open Call details are here

or via the link here at …..

CLAY EVERY WHICH WAY — NOW LIVE Our latest issue of HAUS-A-REST is now live. Clay is one of humanity’s oldest creative companions. Taken from the earth, shaped by hand, transformed by water and fire, clay has carried stories, held memories and recorded the traces of those who have worked with it. But clay is so much more than the pot. For this issue, we wanted to explore where clay could take us — beyond ceramics, beyond tradition and beyond the expected. Inside this issue you’ll find artists working with clay through sculpture, installation, the body, landscape, touch, process, memory and material. Our writers take the theme further, exploring clay through history, archaeology, geology, labour, identity, belonging and our relationship with the earth. From the physical act of making to the histories held within the material, Clay Every Which Way brings together different ways of thinking, making and writing with one of the most enduring materials we know. A material that can be soft or hard. Temporary or enduring. Controlled or unpredictable. A material that begins in the earth. And perhaps, eventually, returns to it. Read the full issue now at www.haus-a-rest.com Thank you to all of the artists and writers who contributed to this issue and helped us take clay every which way. HAUS-A-REST - Don’t forget to check out our Blog with news of a new from our editors of a Mural in Reading by Dr Jenna Fox and an exhibition with editor Nichola Rodgers for Farnham art and craft month with a group called Merge @farnhamcreativesnetwork @farnhamcrafttown  We Are A FREE online art and writing zine. 👩‍🎨🖌️🎨🌳🧶💥 @jennafoxartist @jennafoxartist @michaela_hall_artist @peterdevonald @da.ze_art #freeopencalls #artzine #creativefreedom

haus_a_rest // Issue 75 - Featured artist this month is Sculpture Artist Oktavia Schreiner @oktavia_schreiner_art https://www.oktaviaschreiner.com Octavia works in ceramic and wood, building large-scale painted sculptures through a process-based, improvised approach. She builds classical forms in clay and let them interact with wooden structures, using the strength and character of each material. The images painted and scratch into the surface are playful and fleeting, in contrast to the solid, rooted forms they sit on. Oktavia has been long listed for The art Prize for her work “Milk of Human Kindness” : This sculptural installation consists of a fully functional ceramic tea set for five, displayed on a painted wooden table. Her work often deals with fragility, loss, order, healing and pleasure, and with the mental and relationship we have to objects and space. Follow Oktavia’s newsletter, The Leaky, for studio notes and the ideas behind the work. #featuredartist #artzine #artsprize #scuplture @oktavia_schreiner_art @jennafoxartist @nicholarodgers.artist

CLAY EVERY WHICH WAY — ISSUE 75 Artist & Co-Editor : Nichola Rodgers  Work: Becoming Clay ( The lead Photos for this Issue) Clay is part of the earth, we are also part of the earth, and my work seem to have come full circle as the earth does, I seem to be turning to clay constantly as my practice works with nature. Through working with clay we change its form and purpose. This series explores the relationship between the human body, clay and our connection to the earth. One of the works began with a body shape being traced. Rather than creating a recognisable figure, the work records the outline and presence of a body that has been there. It is a trace rather than a representation — thinking about presence, absence and what we leave behind. Other works developed through physically working the clay with the hands. Pressing, spreading and moving the clay across paper became a way of exploring the physical connection between the body and the material. The hands become part of the process. The clay covers the skin while the hands leave their own marks within it. For Nichola, clay offers a way of thinking about our relationship with the natural world and questioning the idea that we exist separately from it. We come from the earth, we work with it, and eventually we return to it. Read more about Nichola’s work and practice at www.nicholarodgers.com @nicholarodgers.artist @peterdevonald @michaela_hall_artist @jennafoxartist #clayart #claysculpture clayartist contemporaryart artzine contemporaryartist materiality bodyandlandscape earthart naturalmaterials

Issue 75 - Clay Every Which Way Rosie Gunn @gunnrosie Rosie is an artist, academic and activist, working with photography, film, music, dance, performance and, most recently, experimenting with textiles, metalwork and clay. She campaigns for environmental and social justice and believes creative practice is key to the resilience and wellbeing of individuals and communities, both locally and globally. Former course leader and senior lecturer at UCA Farnham. Rupture & Repair is a series of abject pot-like sculptural experiments that I have been making for just over a year. Artist Mary Branson opens her studio to artists from other disciplines to explore new ideas through clay. I have a well-established background in photography, film and digital art but have almost abandoned these in preference for forms that give me a direct, tactile experience by engaging my hands and senses with real physical materials and to avoid the constant glare of gadgets and screens. I wanted to combine my interest in stitching and crochet by sewing into clay forms and as a conceptual reference to things in the world seeming to be breaking down and my need to try to fix things. #clay #opencall #artgallery #artzine #sculpture @nicholarodgers.artist @jennafoxartist @michaela_hall_artist @peterdevonald @wildearth.studios

// Issue 75 - Clay every which way // Galina Panov Kreymer @kupava_art_home Poppy Mirror I create functional and decorative ceramics where colour and ornament are my main means of expression. I am drawn to rich, sometimes excessive decoration, its rhythm and many visual layers. The garden is my greatest source of inspiration, but these works are about more than botany and changing seasons. I carry with me craft traditions, textiles, embroidery, ornament, and fragments of cultures from places where I have lived or travelled. These memories, patterns, and colours find their way into clay and become something new. I build and paint every piece by hand. I fire it, paint it again, and fire it again, continuing until it becomes what I imagined. My work began with functional objects, but lately it has been growing larger, almost eager to escape the boundaries of functional ceramics. The same flowers and ornament that cover a platter can move onto a mirror and begin to surround the reflection. I am fascinated by what we can see in mirrors and through them. Clay becomes more than an object to look at: it enters the reflection itself. A mirror can surround us with greenery, crown us with bright flowers, or, for a moment, transport us into a fairy tale with magical birds. #clay #artopencall #artsubmission #opencall #artopportunity @peterdevonald @michaela_hall_artist @jennafoxartist @nicholarodgers.artist

// Issue 75 - Clay Every which Way // Artist: Mel Graham @mel.graham.art “An Hour” is an interactive installation comprising 120 individually hand-sculpted black porcelain tablets, each imprinted with phrases associated with coercive, manipulative and abusive language, drawn from survivors’ and my own lived experience. The tablets are arranged across white plinths and invite visitors to pick up, handle and move them. Through this interaction, language that can be psychologically damaging becomes something tangible that can be held and physically encountered. The repetitive process of forming each tablet and hand-punching each letter embeds time, labour and physical pressure into the clay. Black porcelain challenges conventional associations of porcelain with delicacy and fragility, instead emphasising its strength and permanence once fired. An Hour explores the relationship between language, memory, touch and control, while allowing audience interaction to become an integral part of the work. #clay #artopencall #artsubmission #opencall #artopportunity @peterdevonald @michaela_hall_artist @jennafoxartist @nicholarodgers.artist

// Issue 75 - Clay every which way // Artist: Li Feng @xujie_huazang https://xujiehuazang.com Mingzheng (明正) / Suifang Zhuyuan (随方逐圆) / Mingyuan Sifang (鸣远四方) For thirty years, my practice has focused on the tectonic possibilities of unglazed Yixing clay through the archaic method of all-handmade slab construction (Xiangjie). Rather than shaping clay on a potter’s wheel, I beat raw aged Zini into dense, uniform planar slabs with wooden mallets, miter the edges by hand, and assemble them without plaster molds. This process directly addresses the violent physical transformation of clay: unglazed native purple clay undergoes a severe 10–12% volumetric thermal shrinkage in the kiln. To create a crisp, functional square vessel, every plane must be calculated to counter internal tension and gravitational sag. In Mingzheng, rectilinear walls curve almost imperceptibly outward to generate internal pressure. In Suifang Zhuyuan, rigid square planes soften into continuous curves, capturing a dynamic structural mutation in raw earth. These vessels are micro-architectures for the hand. Touch is essential: the velvety, dual-pore mineral surface and the deliberate balance of knuckles against clay reveal the honest dialogue between human discipline and the unpredictable geology of fire. #clay #artopencall #artsubmission #opencall #artopportunity @peterdevonald @michaela_hall_artist @jennafoxartist @nicholarodgers.artist

Issue 75 Clay every which way