The NorthWest Ceramic Foundation’s featured speaker on Thursday night was Allan Collier from Victoria. Allan is a furniture designer-maker, teacher, collector and curator and the topic of his talk was ‘BC Pottery 1920-1950.’

We knew there were potters working here in the province’s early days but Allan has made collecting of any pottery from this period and research on the makers his particular passion. He explained who first taught here and how there were efforts to design a signature ware to appeal to tourists.

I found it fascinating to see the difference in values and sensibilities of these early entrepreneurs, and even of the Vancouver School of Art instructors. With so many images of his collection to show us there was no time to add related social and historical information. I don’t usually post photos taken at a ‘slide’ show but you may find these ones to be very interesting.

This lecture will be the basis for a book to be published soon so it will be good to have the knowledge and research available for ceramic historians.