Wide Open
Monday was my day to deliver new work to Circle Craft shop and the Gallery of BC Ceramics. At the latter I was pleased to find the Alberta Potters' show 'Wide Open'.
While this show of small work travels to several locations in BC our 'BC in a Box' show is being shown in Red Deer and Medicine Hat, Alberta. I think their potters may have had a slightly larger box that the work had to fit in than we did - or is that an illusion?
The theme 'Wide Open' can convey the openness of prairie landscape, but also it may simply have meant that artists had a 'wide open' theme to work on.Certainly there is a large variety of methods, firings and ideas to be seen. I photographed the pieces that for one reason or another appealed to me. In some cases I was lucky enough to have met the artists in Medicine Hat last year and others I like because they celebrate Alberta and some just because they're unusual and they work. Sorry I couldn't document all the pieces. To avoid labels wandering too far from their image I'll put the rest on the next blog.
Good photos of new work
Some people use their jugbirds for milk and have asked me to make a sugar container to match. My recent batch of work included jugbirds, each of which has a sugarpot painted to coordinate with whatever bird it is.
Alan tried out our new photo lightbox for these photos. The depth of field is good but now we must remember to turn off the ceiling fluorescent lights in the kiln shed. You can see them in some of the images. Otherwise, what do you think of the photos?
I delivered the first three jugbird and sugarpot sets to the Gallery of BC Ceramics, and some small vases. 
These I did just for fun. The flattened sides are inspired by a temmoku-glazed one I own, made by Richard Batterham. I made two at Medalta last year so they're salty. The ones from this September are decorated with slip patterns in my usual earthenware.
To Circle Craft I delivered another three jugbird and sugarpot sets, a single Flicker jugbird and two salt-glazed jugbirds from the Shadbolt Centre firing in the summer.
September in the gallery
I took photos of work all around the Gallery of BC Ceramics while we were there. 
You can see that there is a tremendous quantity and variety of work available. Gallery manager Sharon Cohen and her staff take good care of our work and do a tremendous job of informing customers and admirers all about the pieces.
I generally take a photo of my current work so that I can decide what pieces to take in next. 
Keith and Celia Rice-Jones, major volunteers in the guild, arrived to see Mary's show.
A new initiative is to have all represented artists submit a recent photo and a short bio. These will be printed in a standard size card for display next to the work of each artist, and can be taken home by customers with their pot. In my photo I'm holding my salt-glazed rooster.
Mary Fox: Classic Forms Revisited
Last Saturday we took our bikes into Vancouver so that we could cycle all around False Creek after checking out Mary Fox's opening at the Gallery of BC Ceramics. Mary was very busy explaining her work to interested visitors. The show features elegant vases with her distinctive layered and textured glazes as well as smaller bowls with similar organic surfaces. You've done lots of work, Mary! 
Nearby, customers could see Mary's functional line of pots, in several colours.The show continues for all of September so do make a point of seeing this great selection of Mary's work.
SPOTTERY!
This weekend sees the opening of 'Spottery' at the Gallery of BC Ceramics. I expect it will be a colourful, lighthearted show for Spring, with work by well-known and not-so-well-known BC potters featuring spots, dots, holes, circles and knobs. Spotty/Pottery.. They say the weather will be sunny on Saturday and we need to know that May, the next day, will bring warmth too for the garden!
Venture down to Granville Island right away before it becomes crowded the following week with visitors to ECUAD's Graduation Exhibition. That opens to invited guests on May 7th, runs from the 8th until 22nd, 10am - 6pm, and is always a great time to see the most creative new art and design.
Heather Cairns, next TCP presenter
Tomorrow the fellow executive members of TriCity Potters will meet here to discuss final arrangements for next Wednesday's meeting, the Vincent Massey workshop in a couple of weeks and other speakers and hands-on activities for the rest of the year. June MacDonald spoke to Fraser Valley Potters Guild last Thursday so she can tell us all about that. It was a dreadfully rainy night for June to drive out to Surrey but I gather she had Eliza Wang's company for the drive. Linda and I had tickets to the Opening Gala evening of Port Moody Canadian Film Festival and saw 'Incendies'. It won the best film Genie award that night! And it's a moving, thought-provoking film, set in Canada and Lebanon with a shocking revelation at the end. We heard that we had all voted it the best of the festival this evening.
Heather Cairns of North Vancouver will be TriCity Potters featured speaker at our Wednesday March 16th meeting. 7pm at Port Moody Senior Secondary School. All are welcome. Heather's work is wheel-thrown, functional cone 6, decorated with colours and black brush-strokes. She plans to show pictures of her work and do a demonstration of her painting technique. These photos were taken at the Gallery of BC Ceramics in February.
My two galleries on Granville Island
When I was on Granville Island last Thursday I popped into the Gallery of BC Ceramics. Apparently I just missed Keith and Celia Rice-Jones who had been doing some touch-up work on the gallery walls. My work is in a new spot, a nice long shelf. I like to take a photo so that I have an idea of what might be suitable to take in next time.
Dan Severance, a TriCity Potter who works mainly at the Port Moody Arts Centre, has a really colourful group of practical but fun ware displayed. I was particularly impressed with a slab-built plate. His teapot and two mugs were shown in the TriCity Potters' show last September. (see my blog: 'TriCity Potters show opens' Sept 13th 2010) Dan's first pottery lessons may have been from me back in the nineties!
After I'd given the Circle Craft staff the large green bird for a customer going to Taiwan I checked out my display there too. They have two small shelves for me just now and I noted that the salt pieces are mainly still there. There is only one earthenware bird out at the moment so that means I must get more colourful birds in to them. The salty pieces went quite quickly at first - useful sized jugbirds, but it may be that I love the Medalta pieces too much and have put too high prices on them because I don't actually want them to go! How unprofessional.
Having one's work on consignment always leaves one wondering about how it is promoted and why some work stays in the store room. It is a privilege to be in such a high-profile location and I know that production work pays the rent and the staff. Mine takes longer to sell but I know that lowering the prices is the wrong thing to do.
Even though they only ask for 6 or 8 jugbirds at a time, I do like the fact that the Airport Crafthouse buys the work wholesale and do pay me promptly.
Sad news by email is that Handworks Gallery in Oliver, BC is to close at the end of March. Esther Brown asked for my work when she opened the Craft Gallery a few years ago and I was happy to be represented in the Interior. I suppose summer visitors don't make up for really quiet months over the winter. Esther will be returning any unsold stock soon, she tells me so that can help my Studio Tour display in April. But I'm sorry to see Handworks close.
Keith Rice-Jones’ show ‘Size Matters’
Yesterday Alan and I went in to Granville Island for the opening of Keith Rice-Jones' show 'Size Matters' at the Gallery of BC Ceramics. He worked on the ideas for these large garden pieces while on a 3-month solo residency at Sturt Pottery in Australia. The work looked fine in the gallery space, on plain concrete, in September sunshine.
As gallery manager Sharon Cohen said, it was a complete contrast to the previous wildly colourful show by Laura VanderLinde. September is a great time for a show there - I am remembering my 'Ornithikos' show which opened at this time 7 years ago. It launched my jugbirds and was a very exciting time for me.
Two guests were Ken (photographer and sculptor) and Carol (ceramics curator) Mayer,
Best wishes for a successful month, Keith.
Glaze firings in the lower mainland
As the summer draws to its end I'm trying to finish some more birds. The airport Crafthouse ordered another 8 medium so that's always an incentive to get a kiln filled. Here are some drying in the lovely sunshine. 
Interesting news is that Keith RJ phoned to tell me that he and Celia liked the display in Circle Craft's window and that he planned to finally get his salt kiln firing soon. So I popped over to their house yesterday with some of our Medalta slips for them to sample, and of course the couple of pots that didn't get in to our last firing in MH. Took a few to refire too.. Wouldn't it be marvellous if it is a fine firing on Saturday? Keith has a solo show opening next week at the Gallery of BC Ceramics. There'll be some new sculptures.
My glaze firing here will end tomorrow morning and then I'll be wanting to see how that other firing is going along. K and C used oodles of salt in their previous firing. Mmm...