After a great five-night family holiday on Saltspring Island, Alan and I took the ferry on to Vancouver Island for a further four nights. Our first stop was in Nanaimo where we found its Art Gallery, met the curator and potter Jesse Birch and spent some time with the current show, We Do Not Work Alone. Of course this Ceramics show has been on my radar for a while so I was pleased to finally get to Nanaimo’s public art gallery.
https://nanaimoartgallery.ca/exhibition/we-do-not-work-alone/
Nanaimo Art Gallery has a good collection of work by BC potters so curator Jesse has included them as part of this summer’s show. A ‘pottery librarian’ is on hand each day for visitors to see and hold the pieces and see them in use, whether as vases or food and drink containers, rather than simply as museum display items.
The theme of the show ‘We do not work alone’ is taken from the writings of Japanese potter Kawai Kanjirō and refers to a potter’s collaboration with the elements, and with previous generations of artists.
The show has three components: The Archive, The Study, and The Library.
For the Archive segment we are invited to admire work by master potters Hamada Shōji, Kawai Kanjirō and Maria and Santana Martinez alongside captivating film excerpts by Marty Gross/Mingei Film Archive.
The main gallery space features contemporary work by artists Laura Wee Láy Láq, Steve Brekelmans, Roy Caussy and Kate Metten.
The exhibition’s introduction booklet does not include images of the work but is an extremely useful explanation of the purpose of the show and gives a short biography of each artist involved, including all the potters in the museum’s library. I will merely show photos of what I saw.
In the lobby there is a group of pots made by members of Nanaimo’s Tozan Society. These can be purchased and can serve as a way of having pottery be a permanent part of our lives, and to support the maintenance of and further firings in the Tozan wood kiln.
