I owe a lot to now-retired Emily Carr University ceramics instructor Sally Michener. In 1991 when I was applying to attend a Summer course at then-called Emily Carr College of Art and Design Sally was assessing my portfolio.When I explained that I regretted not having been to Art School she challenged me to do so. Why take a 3-week course when you can be a full-time student?! Three years of hard work, inspiration and growth followed, with Sally on my Grad committee at the end. So thank you mentor Sally!

This month’s show at the Gallery of BC Ceramics is titled ‘Back to the Future’ and features the work of Sally. Curator Mary Fox (not the Ladysmith potter Mary Fox, I discovered) helped Sally to decide which of the many pieces in her collection would best represent the character of her work over the years.

There are some early thrown pieces from her student days in Minnesota as a student of Warren McKenzie, some handbuilt sculptures and then several of the kind of work we recognize as Sally’s now.

There is a wall-piece that I remember from a show of her work in the Charles H. Scott Gallery in the early nineties. It is an amusing mosaic of hands, people and colours.

A funny memory from that show’s opening. Sally is well known amongst her students for wearing bright colours and outrageously odd socks. So to fondly support our instructor I suggested we all wear mismatched socks that day, preferably wildly different. At that time I was taking the bus to school…  I think Sally enjoyed our show of support.

The biggest sculpture in the current show is a head and torso clad in her signature mosaic of donated and scrounged ceramic and glass pieces. I neglected to make a note of titles but just take a look at these few photos of the show. Or better yet, pop in to the Gallery of BC Ceramics this month to see the work.