Amy Li Chuan Chang spoke to TriCity Potters – Gillian McMillan

The presenter for last Wednesday’s meeting of TriCity Potters was North Burnaby ceramic artist Amy Chang. We were thrilled to see and hold her extraordinary ceramic creations once again. I first came across her work at Deer Lake Art Gallery in 2018, and she had another solo show at Port Moody Arts Centre in 2019.

https://www.gillianmcmillan.com/blog/2018/04/03/industrial-revolution-amy-li-chuan-chang/

This is the poster TCP member Emily Cheung designed for us this month. Our meetings are held monthly at Port Moody’s Arts Centre/PoMoArts and all are welcome to come and see what clay artists get up to. On this evening an excited group of mostly members were fascinated by Amy’s extraordinary constructions, and amused by the story behind each one. I took the photos below from her slides so the quality isn’t the best.

Amy tells us that she works very carefully in a tidy space in her home, and has a kiln in her garage. She searches out useful equipment at hardware stores and then makes plaster moulds for each nut, bolt, pipe or other gizmo, and then presses clay into the mould. In just a few instances she uses real metal posts or screws for stability or movability. Clearly concerned about the destruction of our world she imagines all sorts of fantastic science fiction combinations of biological and mechanical beings. Some are imagined to address pollution or disaster problems and others she makes just for fun. There’s a functional kaleidoscope and a nonsense flamingo.

Amy earned her first BA in Business while she was still living in Taiwan and then worked for eight years at Cloisonné. When she first arrived here in Vancouver she studied for an Arts diploma at Capilano University in 2003 and followed that with a BFA from Emily Carr University in 2007. Since then she has had a solo show and residency at the Yingge Ceramics Museum in Taipei, Taiwan in 2016, and again in 2021. So with the shows at Deer Lake AG and at PoMoArts Amy’s work is becoming well-known and collected. She tells us that otherwise her work is available at the twice-a-year Burnaby Potters Guild sales. Clearly that’s an event to look out for.

With the time it must take to make and assemble these sculptures we wondered if Amy makes functional work and yes, we saw a hand-built mug and the plaster moulds for the unusual industrial-themed handle. After her ‘slide’ show Amy then unwrapped several pieces, and showed us how she assembles them and demonstrated the kaleidoscope and lit the diving helmet’s interior.