Heather Grouden
Heather Grouden was born in Hawera and studied painting at the University of Canterbury graduating with a Diploma of Fine Arts in 1965.
She moved to Coromandel with her two young daughters and spent six years working with Barry Brickell at Driving Creek. This established her love for clay and ceramics and sculpture. This lead, over the years, to several commissions, from an original chess set cast in bronze, portraits and a large relief head of Apollo above the three entrances into Capital Gateway, a large retail centre on Thorndon Quay in Wellington.
Heather gained a post graduate Diploma of Teaching in 1985 and spent the following years teaching, travelling extensively and is currently retired but working full time as an artist in both ceramics and painting. She has more recently returned to her interest in portrait painting and has been working on some interesting commissions.