Our second day on the Sunshine Coast Art Crawl started with a pre-arranged visit to Creek Clayworks. On this day we were four. Linda, Owen and I picked up fellow TriCity Potters member Sue Griese from her home in Upper Gibsons and we headed to Roberts Creek. The home, studio, showroom and salt kiln of Elaine Futterman and Mike Allegretti are on beautiful rural acres, up a country road north of Highway 101.
Creek Clayworks wasn’t listed on the SCAC brochure this year because the couple had planned to be travelling. Circumstances found them at home on this day so they were looking forward to spending it visiting other local artists on the CRAWL. We met them again later, in Jack Ploesser’s home/studio.
Elaine and Mike work entirely in Cone 10 stoneware and most is fired in an electric kiln where they achieve an astonishing variety of luscious colours. Some work is fired in their salt kiln. Elaine is the wheel-thrower and Mike is the slab plate-maker. As a retired High School chemistry teacher he is fascinated with creating coloured glazes. These are sprayed on the slab vases and plates and Elaine’s thrown ware. I was amused to see the beautifully coloured screens in their spray booth.
They led us outside to see the ultra clean salt kiln which sits in its shelter in a big field, well away from the forest.
Thank you Elaine and Mike, for allowing us to visit you on Sunday morning. It was good to get to know you more and I expect you’ll be seeing the two Gibsons people in our group again before long, if not me!
Our next stop was nearby 1551 Lockyer Road, where we found the studios of Beth Hawthorn Ceramics and Robert Studer’s ‘This is It’. Beth works in a studio that was the horse barn below her house. We were told that the whole property was a horse farm. Here is Beth along with her quiet cups and bowls, standing in her gravel-floored studio. Practical!
Right next door is an enormous industrial-looking studio/home which is where Robert Studer makes his multi-media sculptures. It’s an astonishing find in the middle of such rural acres. We four spent quite a while exploring the work space. For the Crawl Robert shared his space with painter David Macdougall.
| There are sculptures all around the outside of the studio/workshop, comprising glass, metal, plants and found objects and really useful rain chains. Inside we found glass men with coloured liquid insides and the David Macdougall oil paintings which explore ‘usefulness & redundancy’. | |
| Deleted: We were most impressed by Robert’s enormous kiln. Its lid was hoisted up to the ceiling and we saw that this is where he melts huge slabs of glass. |
| Robert told us that he’s preparing big sheets of glass which will be used to fabricate teeth and a huge round eye. They’ll be part of a new Vancouver public art piece to be launched next Spring. | |
| Deleted: There are enough photos in today’s blog so I’d better stop and assemble at least one more to tell you about our visits to the studios of clay artists Jack Ploesser, the Niebergalls and Laurie Rolland last Sunday afternoon. Maybe tomorrow… |
