This Instagram announcement was posted by Western Front, where Eric Metcalfe has his home and studio.
A tradition at Western Front is the awarding of a ceramic platter, made by @gillian.mcmillan and painted by Eric Metcalfe, to a person who has gone above and beyond for the organization in the past year.
This year we are happy to recognize the work of our archivist Anna Tidlund, who has been instrumental to the development of a new open source and custom-build CollectiveAccess database to improve the management, preservation, and access to our unique archival collection. The CollectiveAccess database was developed across 2019-21 in collaboration with the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery (@belkinartgallery) and the Residential School History and Dialogue Centre (@ubcirshdc), both at the University of British Columbia, through the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. We are excited to launch the online version of our archive database in the coming months. Thank you, Anna, for your tireless and detailed work on this project!
Now that Western Front has announced the recipient of this year’s Ceramic Platter award I can post my photo of it. Eric had painted two smaller lunch-size oval plates too. All three certainly cheer up sombre February days!
February hasn’t been a very productive month for me.
I shipped a fairly large box of selected pots to Jonathon’s in London, Ontario and Canada Post delivered them within a week. Jonathon and Brian chose mostly soda-fired pieces, including jugbirds and one more ‘historic’ piece.
The now-familiar little video showing Jonathon unpacking the box, live, was exciting for me, and I hope encouraged collectors. Hah! J tells me that one grooved piece is staying in his personal collection! It was fired in the Shadbolt soda kiln last year, has a band of green underglaze and is the one for which I found a perfect cork at Greenbarn Pottery Supply.
A ‘half-pipe’ jug that I’d made in an Advanced Wheel-throwing class with Tam Irving in about 1993, when I was an Emily Carr student, is unsigned. It is formed from four wheel-thrown sections and is glazed in shino which trapped carbon nicely. The half-pipe reminds us of the noise created on the one built in our back yard when our sons were teenagers! I’ve only made this form a couple of times but perhaps I shall do another one, now that I’ve let this one go.
On one day I drove in to Vancouver to top up my stock in Circle Craft. Their shelves were empty after two very good months of sales. That’s when I left Eric’s plates with him. ( I dreamt that we had a Raid at last.. I wish) .
Otherwise, I have started the making of more earthenware jugbirds but now, on March 1st, I’m just getting around to slip-painting them. Coping with sad family news, I found comfort working on a project involving bricks and plant plans on the one or two warm enough days. And then it snowed and we were reminded that it is still Winter! There are snowdrops and many promising shoots in the garden.
