Some weeks ago I noticed that a group of potters had decided to hold a raffle as a way of generating donations in aid of Ukraine. Tickets for the raffle were $25 each and two winning tickets would receive some pots in the mail directly from the eleven donors. Very quickly masses of tickets sold. I bought one. Click this link to go to Kaitlan Murphy’s Jumping Creek Pottery website to see what was donated.
On March 18th I received a happy email from Katy telling me that my name was the first drawn from the hat! After thinking about it I wondered if some of the six pots intended for me could be shared with more winners. Katy agreed and three more people will now have received surprise parcels.
A final parcel arrived from Saskatoon today. Thank you very much Carole Epp. I am so pleased to own such a meaningful piece of your work and thank you for the note you included with the vase.
Carole explains that she was feeling devastated when Russia invaded Ukraine and found that she needed to put her feelings into a piece of art. I see that there are three distinct images to show so I’ve put several views into one collage. You can feel her anguish in the troubling image above, where the world is on fire, a peace symbol is the centre of a Ukrainian sunflower and the skull is cracked.
Another view of the vase shows a dirty-faced and very sad girl wearing the traditional Ukrainian head-scarf. I imagine that, as a Saskatchewan resident, Carole is especially horrified by the news from Ukraine. So many Ukrainians escaped their home country and emigrated to the Canadian prairies in the early 1900s.
The third image shows a plane dropping bombs, but we see that the bombs become birds as they land. There is hope.
Jackie Frioud contacted me shortly after I’d heard I was a winner to say that she’d like to deliver the oil pourer she had donated to the cause. She and Helen Weiser trundled out to Port Moody and it was so good to have an excuse for a pottery visit. I’ve hoped to buy a piece of Jackie’s elegant salt-fired ware and I’m delighted with this very useful sample of Frioud pottery, with its signature kanthal wire handle on the snugly fitting lid. Thank you for this Jackie. It will remind me of the happy workshop you gave in Lund in 2019.
My other winning pot came from the raffle organizer herself, Kaitlan Murphy of Jumping Creek Pottery in Revelstoke. I am now the owner of this stoneware tea-pot. It was promptly used for that afternoon’s cuppa. Here it sits in Spring sunshine. Thank you Katy. I hope the other raffle winners enjoy their surprise winnings!
I was pleased to learn from Kaitlan that the spontaneous raffle had been enthusiastically supported and by the time proceeds had been counted it turned out that it brought in over $17,ooo! After mailing costs and credit card processing I’m told that $16,368 has been sent to the Canadian Red Cross to help bring relief to the desperate people of Ukraine.
Canadian artists who donated their work to this cause were Carole Epp, Sarah Pike, Lilli Turner, Gabrielle Labbe, Susie Kathol, Kaitlan Murphy, Pamela Nagley-Stevenson, Katy Dribjer, Jackie Frioud, Emma Smith and Heather Smit. Thank you to the donating potters and to all those who bought masses of tickets!
I shall treasure my winnings, and thank you.
Sadly, it seems we’ll need to keep finding ways to support Ukraine for a long time.
Great post Gillian. Thanks for your support and sharing the winnings. Xo
Kaitlan.