Welcome to Shoal Bay Studio

Shoal Bay Studio is a welcoming creative space where nature and art meet, situated in Eucalyptus mallee woodlands overlooking the azure and turquoise Bay of Shoals on the north shore of Kangaroo Island.

Here you will find a unique and interesting collection of handmade pottery and jewellery, original artwork and photography.

Each piece has been created with passion and skill, inspired by the beauty of the natural world as well as the rich heritage of the world’s different cultures.

You are invited to visit this peaceful setting to explore the different mediums presented and to see creation in action.

Meet the Artists

My creative journey began in South Africa, where I was born to English parents. With artists, potters, and musicians to be found on both sides of my family lineage, the creative urge is in my bones. My mother was a potter, painter, and art teacher, and so I grew up with the earthy smell of clay around me and learning to make things.

This early foundation led to a lifelong fascination with photography and a passion for learning crafts like silversmithing in my twenties. Although I pursued a career in science as an ecologist for over 20 years, my travels to some of the planet's most beautiful places served as a constant source of inspiration, fuelling my photographic eye and deep connection to nature.

In 2014, we found a new home on Kangaroo Island, a profoundly peaceful and pretty place to live with a welcoming community. I feel blessed to have been able to build my studio and after my mom’s passing to have received some of her materials and equipment to add to my own. And from there came the idea to open to the public so that I have an outlet for my creative pursuits and the opportunity to offer locals and visitors alike the chance to visit a working studio.

I still teach yoga and offer my services as a shamanic energy practitioner, and am grateful for the joy and balance these things bring to my life.

~ Phillipa Holden

Gloria Holden

Gloria Holden was born in North Yorkshire, England, and studied art in London before emigrating to South Africa in the mid-1960s. There she founded The London Potter, a teaching and commercial pottery studio that flourished for many years. Her creativity later expanded into teaching ceramics, silversmithing, painting, and stained glass at the National School of the Arts in Johannesburg, where she inspired young artists for nearly two decades.

In the early 1990s, Gloria returned to painting — the medium that would carry her voice most powerfully. Both her paintings and ceramics are held in public and private collections in South Africa and other countries. She was celebrated for her masterful use of colour, capturing light in a way that seemed to breathe life into her art.

Having lived in Africa for more than 30 years, Gloria carried within her a profound love of the land, its vast beauty, and its wild inhabitants. The spirit of Africa — with all its contrasts, mystery, and wonder — became the heartbeat of her work.

In 2014 she moved to Kangaroo Island, where she continued to share her gifts through private teaching. Gloria passed away in 2021, leaving behind a legacy of creativity, colour, and deep reverence for the natural world.

“The wonder of the world, the beauty and the power, the shapes of things,
their colours, lights and shades; these I saw.
Look ye also while life lasts.”

— Inscribed on a North England gravestone

Historical Photo Gallery

Chatting with the locals in Banhine, Mozambique about their fishing methods and customary management of their natural resources

My cousin, Justin Randolph Joffe, still a terror!