Today it has been an uncharacteristically cold day for Vancouver. I read in Brendan Tang’s note on facebook that it’s far colder in Medicine Hat but he posted photos of the artists there working away. The studio must be nicely heated. But I felt connected to that community as I potted today because I was using the Plainsman clay mixture I prepared while there. It’s H550 and H570 50/50. I thought of the people I worked with, Joanne Zabudsky, Brenda Sullivan, Claude Morin and Teresa Gagne. We shared ideas on clays, slips and liner glazes for the salt kiln. I’ve been back in my note book from that intense month to check on what was successful and which to use again. Brenda was not making her usual functional ware but pushed beyond her comfort level and had a marvellous time experimenting with sculptural forms based on natural objects. Joanne tried all manner of slips and glazes to have a vast selection of samples for future work. Several other residents happily joined in with preparing salt burritos even though that particular type of firing was not their main interest – Sukjin, Leigh, Luanne. I miss them.
I’m throwing with stoneware because I have the possibility of having some pieces of mine fired in salt in March. I could just refire some work that isn’t ‘done’ – that often produces lovely juicy results. But I do want to reinforce what I learnt last year, try my blue, red and yellow slips again and spray with titanium dioxide. Oh I do wish I had access to a salt kiln all the time. Aaron has told me that I can book the Medicine Hat kiln when they aren’t too busy with residencies ie not June and July, but the logistics of doing that are challenging.
These thoughts have been running through my mind today as I pulled handles, mixed the two kinds of clay and inserted spouts onto Jugbird bodies.
Meanwhile I’d like to mention the 2nd Coquitlam PechaKucha night, hosted by our local Arts Council, Artsconnect, scheduled for this Sunday evening at the Evergreen Cultural Centre. The first, last November, was a great chance to have a concentrated look at the pursuits of artistic people in this community and hobnob with their admirers. I wonder if they’d like to hear about the Medalta Artist-in-Residence Programme at a future PechaKucha? Each presentation has to be condensed into 20 slides with 20 seconds for talk with each one. It makes for a varied but fascinating evening.
When I arrived at Medalta in November to fire with Claude it felt like I was coming home. Here’s to a salt firing in your near future.
Thanks Teresa.
It was a ghastly snowy night and I didn’t go to PechaKucha Coquitlam. I hope enough people did.