The next stop on our tour was Forst Pottery Studio in Gibsons. Pat Forst specializes in reduction-fired cone 10 sculptural work. We saw several of her wall-pieces and noticed that she sprays darker oxide stains from one direction to accentuate the forms.
Pat kindly took us outside to see her gas kiln, and I recognized a Bob Kingsmill mural on a nearby wall. She had invited him to give a workshop there and managed to keep this piece.
Some of Pat’s wheel-throwing students have formed a pottery club and three were invited to display some of their work here too. Sorry I didn’t record the name of the man whose work is shown below.
Thank you for showing us all around your studio, Pat, and for conversation, including about sharing your facilities with your students on some days.
We continued on then and found the wee studio of artist Georgina Brandon. George and I were fellow students in the Ceramics department at ECIAD starting in 1991 and it was so good to see her again. She had some slip-decorated earthenware tiles for sale. Mainly she now sells cards, posters and calendars featuring her charming drawings of local flora and fauna.
After we grabbed a quick lunch at Black Bean Café, Owen suggested we go down to the beach and be tourists for a little while. We walked along beside the water, out on to the big Gibsons dock and back past Molly’s Reach café.
Our last stop for this first day was Gibson’s Public Art Gallery where we saw the current show ‘We Carry our Bundles Forward’, curated by Kamala Todd.
https://gpag.ca/current/kamala-todd-curator-we-carry-our-bundles-forward-mixed-media/
And then, after all the venues had closed at 5pm Owen led us down to his family’s comfortable cabin beside the Salish Sea. He suggested Linda and I take a stroll along the beach to watch the sunset. Perfect magic to end a busy day!
Tomorrow I have four Raiders coming here for a day of plate-painting, lunch, tea and conversation. After that I’ll continue by describing our second day on the Sunshine Coast Art Crawl.
What a lovely trip you had. I really miss the west coast, maybe I’ll move back there. And you found George. I sent her an email. I haven’t been able to find many people from school other than you and Margaret. So happy you found George. Thanks for posting.
Love seeing what you’re doing and others’ ceramics. That trip looks wonderful. Keep blogging!