Kay Austen, Squamish potter
Enjoy this excellent youtube about Squamish potter, Kay Austen.
Les Manning
Les Manning: Common/Opposites, April 30 – June 19, 2011, Esplanade Art Gallery, Medicine Hat, Alberta
Review by Quentin Randall
Quentin Randall, Public Relations person for Medalta, has had his review of Les Manning's Show in Medicine Hat published in the latest edition of Galleries West. Many of us have met Les on his frequent trips out to BC when he's given workshops and lectures. Quentin explains that this new show introduces some entirely new work which is informed by his home of the last 11 years, Medicine Hat and Southern Alberta. I believe some of his previous work was included in the exhibit but unfortunately I did not get to see the show at the Esplanade. But from the two photos in the article it is surprisingly different from his highly recognizable work which celebrated his spectacular Banff environment.
Working from his studio in the Shaw Building at Medalta, senior resident artist Les brings a lifetime of expertise in clays and clay surfaces and a special interest in ceramic criticism and curating to his new explorations. As Quentin indicates, these sometimes really colourful, highly glazed sculptures are intended to start thoughts about the prairie landscape, not depict them. Much like Tam Irving's completely new work shown at the Burnaby Art Gallery, made sometime after he'd retired from his Emily Carr teaching position, Les' work shows he's as focussed and inquisitive as ever and has made as surprizing a leap. It'll be so interesting to observe the evolution of this new direction in his work, inspired by his home environment.
Read the review yourself: http://www.gallerieswest.ca/Departments/ExhibitionReviews/6-108282.html
Nicely done Quentin.
BC-in-a-Box 3: The Edge of Here
My little Eagle Jugbird is one of 34 miniature pieces selected for BC Potters Guild's upcoming show BC-in-a-Box 3: The Edge of Here. The show is booked to travel to Red Deer and Medicine Hat, Alberta, Gallery of BC Ceramics and possibly to Seattle. I'm so pleased! There will be an on-line catalogue of all the works available on the Guild website later this summer. Alberta Potters Guild has arranged a matching show which will travel around BC. Fun! I'll post the details of itineraries for both shows when I get all the details.
Meanwhile Al and I have been struck down with really cases of the flu so are feeling sorry for ourselves. No gardening or pottery recently. Happy Canada Day tomorrow all of you and fun pottery activities all summer.
My day at Tate Modern
The first photo here is from our first day in London. We walked over the Hungerford Bridge, stopped in Trafalgar Square and photographed this splendid ship-in-a-bottle and hiked on up to Jane Hamlyn's Private View. I always feel happy to be back in London, I was there for 3 years as a student, taught in Bristol for 1 1/2 yrs, returned to London to teach for 1 1/2 yrs, left for Canada and in 1969-70 Al and I lived there for the Winter. Even travelling on the tube makes me smile.
The next day Al went up to the British Museum and UCL while I walked from Waterloo Station to Tate Modern, about a 15-minute walk. Once there I wandered all through, taking photos of pieces that appealed to me, mostly sculptural. I had lunch in a cafeteria and snuck into a private area on the top so that I could take a photograph down at The Globe Theatre. And I took far too many pics of the clouds gliding over St Pauls and the Millenium Bridge (which doesn't wobble at all now!). To see titles for the pics glide the cursor over the image and the words should appear.
Pacing myself
At the end of last week I was working very hard to finish assembling and slip-painting 10 earthenware jugbirds as well as make a decent number of pieces to put in Cathi Jefferson's kiln next weekend. A dozen or so mostly Fraser Valley members will meet at Cathi's, prepare their work and load the salt kiln. It will be turned on at the crack of dawn on Monday June 27th and the group will be there for the salting around 5pm. With one tall vase for the top shelf, 3 mugs and one small vase I had to accept that it wouldn't be worth 3 days and the ferry cost to get these fired. Instead I now have a start on a group of pots to fire at the Shadbolt gas/soda/salt kiln later in July. How on earth did I manage to get so many pots made at Medalta last year?
Having made that decision I felt less stressed. One day I would like to visit Cathi's studio and kiln but I just wasn't ready. I will chat with Linda Lebrun who is going and see what slips she may have used and check her results when someone has brought them back from Vancouver Island.
Eric Metcalfe has asked if he can paint a couple more of my small oval plates and he wants to bring Eli Bornowsky to have a go at painting on a not-flat surface too. They'll probably come out on skytrain one day next week. I have the plates all dry - Eric uses underglazes, not slips.
Meanwhile Al returned from his 6 days in Barkley Sound with a really horrendous cough/cold. Damn, now I have it too. Luckily we don't have to go to work and can behave like retired people and rest. I posted photos on facebook in an album called 'reasons to stay home in June'. There really are some fabulous colours in my garden - to enjoy on the 2 or 3 days it hasn't been raining! And I have spent far too long making the first album for picasa (for those friends who don't like facebook) of our tour in Italy. I've chosen what appealed to me - ceramic seats, flowers and ochre-coloured buildings. This is the link so let's see if it can work.https://picasaweb.google.com/jugbird/Italy1?feat=email
My next blog will show photos of my visit to Tate Modern and the mainly sculptural pieces I like.
TriCity Potters’ June meeting & new salty pots!
Last Wednesday was the final meeting of the year for TriCity Potters. We were pleased to have about 15 people there seeing it was also the actual Stanley Cup final game. But as it turned out those who came don't particularly care for hockey and we were all better off not watching Vancouver's debacle and the shenanigans afterwards.
To celebrate our first four years in existence we shared an excellent T & T cake. Our local Chinese-Canadian grocery store do make fabulous cakes! Then we looked at a variety of candle-holders and pictures to get inspiration for making some. Just as we started Hazel Postma and Joy Silver arrived to give us a short explanation of Amnesty International. I think members are comfortable with the idea of making candle-holders for their December fund-raising dinner. As mentioned in my previous post about last Wednesday's meeting we are hoping members will make 3 or so over the summer and bring them to the September meeting.
Cone 6 white clay was made available and the rest of the evening was spent with people hand-building and sculpting candle-holders. Hazel and Joy are quite happy with whatever designs are made. Some experimented with incorporating the barbed-wire which can be seen in the AI logo with a candle. Linda Lebrun and I each made one on the wheel. I showed a trick of throwing it hollow right down to the wheel-head, narrowing the cylinder and then inserting a tiny cookie of clay to seal off the lower part. Pics later!
The next day I drove over to West Vancouver to collect my carefully packed pots from Vincent Massey's in-laws. He'd dropped them off there on his way from Whistler to the Interior. I'm so lucky that he comes into Vancouver quite often. The firing was quite salty and there was reduction visible. I am pleased with the way they look. Vincent warned me that he had used about 50lbs of salt to make sure that some large pieces were truly juicy and that a couple of mine maybe had too much. Yes, one jugbird and a mug were on the bagwall and did get a bit much. But a casserole that was refired is now perfect and a large silly bird basket that I made at Medalta is now fired. He has good green on his head - there isn't as much of the fine titanium green on this batch. I wonder if it needed an atmosphere-clearing time at the end? Vincent says he does want to fire the salt kiln again early in the Fall to keep up the momentum and he's happy to include some of mine again. I think the smaller pieces fill his gaps. Thanks Vincent!
This is just a quick snapshot of the group. You can see the orange peel is good on most but a little too much on one or two.
Contemporary Ceramics in London
To continue the postings about our time in Europe in May I will post photos of the other pots I saw when I was in the Contemporary Ceramics Centre for Jane Hamlyn's opening. Again, I expect my text will become separated from the relevant photo so just click on it for info. I photographed ceramic work that appeals to me so there's earthenware, sculpture, hand-built and stoneware.
Candle-holder making at Wednesday’s TCP meeting
It's a rainy day today so I'm not tempted to be out in the garden. My clay work began with my inserting spouts in the 4 earthenware jugbirds I threw on Saturday. They'll firm up overnight. Then I threw some candle-holders to reaquaint myself with how I used to do that. Wednesday's TriCity Potters' meeting will focus on the making, either by throwing or hand-building, of candlesticks. Hazel Postma will be there to explain to members about Amnesty International because we are making candle holders for one of their meetings/fundraisers. 75 are needed and will be given to attendees. Our making them should be a fun evening of shared ideas. I popped up to the High School today to make sure that we have a wheel available. I trust we'll have some volunteers to show their hand-building techniques. Cone 6 clay will be available. Come prepared to get white clay on your clothing!
Do please bring along any candle-holders (standard candles, not tea-lights) you have, whether they're made of clay, silver, glass or wood. We might be inspired.
We are asking that members please try to make about 3 each, either at the meeting or later when you have some ideas. Bring them all finished to the September meeting and we'll take some photographs.
Once I'd thrown a few more earthenware pieces I cleaned the red clay out of my wheel ready to start throwing stoneware. Hah! I have just about a week to make, dry and spray with slips 2 1/2 cu. ft of pots for Cathi Jefferson's firing for Fraser Valley potters. First I combined Plainsman H550 and H570. That's the combination I found to work best for me last year at Medalta.
Meanwhile Vincent Massey says he has now fired his salt kiln. I can hardly wait until we can meet up and I can see the results!
Jane Hamlyn’s ‘Special Reserve’ show opening
Even though we've been home for a week now we still aren't back to normal - tired, unable to focus on jobs. I had a request from YVR Crafthouse for more jugbirds while I was away so I must get those made asap. I left 4 partially made a month ago and yesterday I found that they have retained enough flexibility for me to continue to work on them. They were wrapped in dry-cleaner plastic and sealed in lidded bucket.
Today I've heard from Vincent Massey that he has just unloaded his salt kiln and that my pots are just fine. I'm so excited - I can hardly wait until I can get them from him next week. They'll give me more ideas for my next adventures in salt.
Now I'll post some photos from the happy evening attending Jane Hamlyn's opening at the Contemporary Ceramics Centre on May 11th. Al and I had taken the train up from Winchester after 2 days spent with my sister Mary and her husband John near Romsey. We walked gradually all the way to the gallery from Waterloo, first across the Hungerford Bridge to Charing Cross, into Trafalgar Square and up through Soho toTottenham Court Road. The gallery is directly across from the British Museum where my husband happily spent much of the next day. (I'll post pics from my day at Tate Modern soon).
At 5 to 6pm. a taxi pulled up and out hopped Jane Hamlyn and her husband. Forgive me, I didn't make a note of his name. We introduced ourselves - 'We met in Vancouver 5 years ago, I took your making and salt-firing workshops at Shadbolt Centre etc'. While they went on in we waited a while and with permission took photos of pots by other people in the shop front. I'll post those photos in my next blog. The Jane Hamlyn work is all displayed in the back part of the gallery where there is another door out so there's another window for display.
I'll insert the photos 
chronologically but won't be able to have captions in the right places after a while. Just click on the photo to read its title. The abstract vessels are large!
The show ended on June 4th but I expect the gallery will feature Jane's work indefinitely. I love the tea-pot shapes, their colour and the salty surfaces. The 'Abstract Vessels' are strong and striking and make a good contrast to the intricate shapes of Jane's tea-pots. That's all there was - the vessels and tea-pots. Lovely!
May adventures
There were no new blogs after May 8th because Al and I were on the other side of the Atlantic until June 1st and I didn't take my cumbersome Macbook with me. I'm getting close to convincing myself that an ipad is essential for our next trip! Downloading photos, checking gallery opening days, arranging boarding passes etc.
Now, as I start to sort, crop and delete over 900 photos I would like to post some very selected images - pots I've seen, trees, brick buildings, sculptures that are inspirational. Maybe summer will come to BC and I will want to be out in the garden. I have signed up to participate in two salt firings, Cathi Jefferson's for Fraser Valley Potters later in June and the Shadbolt Centre's salt/soda firing in July with Linda Doherty and Jay MacLennan so I need to get out the Plainsman clay right away.
Our travels in May took us mainly on a tour of Italy with 5 days in England first and 6 days in Berlin at the end. The fun thing for me was being able to attend the 'private view/opening' of Jane Hamlyn's show at the new Contemporary Ceramics Centre in London. More on that and photos of the show and other work in that gallery later.
