Last Wednesday’s presenter for the monthly TriCity Potters’ meeting at PoMoArts was Roberts Creek potter Jack Ploesser.
We met him during our two days of touring the Sunshine Coast Art Crawl last October.
https://www.gillianmcmillan.com/blog/2022/11/01/scac-jack-ploesser-the-niebergall
His natural-gas fired cone 10 reduction pieces are exuberant, very colourful, and mainly functional. Jack was pleased to be invited to talk to us and had prepared lots of thrown forms to demonstrate how he assembles them.
As Jack explains in his biography, he is mainly self-taught but says that he is much influenced by Minnesota potter Jeff Oestreich. He was the ceramics technician alongside instructors Donna McLaren and Sam Kwan at Capilano College, before he and his wife purchased property in Roberts Creek, on the Sunshine Coast, and he built his gas kiln.
To keep body and soul together Jack has a day job as a school bus driver. In fact he took the ferry to the Lower Mainland after work and arrived at PoMoArts just in time to begin speaking at 7pm!
We had a good turn-out for this evening’s talk and we really enjoyed Jack’s enthusiasm for pottery and particularly his extensive knowledge of the cone 10R glazes he has perfected.
He started the evening with slides of many of his pots over the years. We were then entertained by explanations of his process and tales of his coastal life.
All too soon our time ran out before Jack had had time to show us all the techniques he had planned. But there was a return ferry to catch so members helped him to pack up and head home.
Thank you Jack for a really enjoyable evening. We’ll recommend your studio to next year’s visitors to Sunshine Coast Art Crawl, and ‘Fresh’ Gallery in Sechelt.
Twenty-two members of TriCity Potters have now delivered their selected pieces to PoMoArts Gallery Manager Janice Cotter. Our show CERAMICS IN FLUX opens this Thursday, 6-8pm. You will see an amazing variety of clay techniques displayed. See you there!
Thank you Gillian.