As a potter Janeen has worked exclusively with a local Taranaki rock, an early tertiary mudstone from Mount Messenger/Parininihi. By varying ingredients of ash and volcanic remnants she has created a palette of natural colours for her ceramics.

With recent support from Creative New Zealand Janeen has had the opportunity to expand her work with natural glazes and explore the landscape beyond Taranaki for its glazing potential. This research has greatly expanded her knowledge of New Zealand geology and the relationship early New Zealand potters had with these materials.

In the 1950's Potter, Minna Bondy, extensively researched the geology of New Zealand and published her book “Rock Glazes of New Zealand” Visiting up to a hundred sites within New Zealand creating approximately fifty glazes. The book however is limited in its descriptions of locations, rock identification, and is black and white, with no plates of geology, or the final results. Bondy refers to her paper as "a progress report on experiments to date and it's presented in the hope that other potters will be encouraged to use New Zealand indigenous materials."

Using Bondys publication as a field guide Janeen has expanded on her work, re-collecting, mapping, photographing, documenting and testing the rocks and sands for their glaze potential. On the journey Janeen also collated information from other potters (past and present) throughout New Zealand who share a passion for local ingredients.

"Imported ingredients are easily purchased but do not provide the beauty of the accidental that glazes sourced from natural rocks provide. The regional differences of New Zealand geology in natural glazing embrace the impurities and deliver a wealth of beauty specific to New Zealand.

While onsite at Kina I look forward to sharing this process and journey with you all, as I continue working to record and document my findings."