When I left for Lund, BC, a week ago I had a large group of photos on my desktop awaiting their insertion in a blog about my visit to the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. So, although I’d rather be telling all about the fabulous salt-firing workshop with Jackie Frioud at Tidal Arts Centre, I would like to keep things chronological.

I was impressed to find a show of pots at AGGV. As you’ll see in the text accompanying this show the gallery had hosted a major show, ‘Back to the Land: Ceramics from Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands 1970-1985’ in 2012. This generated the donation of many more pots and the current show features ones that have been acquired since then. Most are from Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands again, with a few from other parts of Canada.

As usual I felt the need to take photos of most of the pots so I’ll just post them here so that you can get an idea of the gallery’s collection. It’s fun to see work by well-known potters, made at different stages in their careers. Who’d have recognized Greg Payce’s bowl? Alexandra McCurdy’s work from Nova Scotia is so different in colour and firing range from most of the Western pots.

Enjoy your ramble through this selection of Victoria’s pots, see if you can guess who made what. The pieces are labelled with names from left to right.

Now that I’m home again, first from this little trip to Victoria and now, this week, from Lund, I have already bisque-fired some more plates for a planned ‘Raid’ next week and tomorrow we plan to take photos of the 16 new salty pots.

Very soon I will try to find time to assemble an account of loading and firing the salt kiln and add photos of the beautiful scenery around the end of Highway 101.