Clay Symposium – Gillian McMillan — Rara Avis

FVPG Show & Sale

Gillian McMillan — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 05:11:12 +0000

Deer Lake Art Gallery is just a few steps away from the Shadbolt Centre and the sun was shining so I left the Ceramic Symposium for half an hour to see Fraser Valley Potters Guild’s Annual Juried Show & Sale. Amy Gogarty was volunteering to sit the show that day.

I see that the show actually closed today. It was well worth the visit. I didn’t take lots of photos but found the 1st prize winners and a few others which impressed me. The variety of pieces (with no defined theme for the show) and the calibre of the work was impressive.

From so many excellent pieces I chose to record these few. Ying Yueh has set her elegant porcelain heads in crusty wood-fired stoneware vessels. Holly has produced an amazing red crystal glaze for her lidded jar. Gloria Han surprised me with her traditional Korean work looking luscious after an atmospheric firing.

Duncan Ryans won the first prize in the Student Category for this large sgraffitoed vase. Then I was drawn to an installation of earthenware dishes, also made by Duncan. I’m told they depict worrying viruses in petri dishes, but how beautiful they are! Painted plates are inspirational.

There were several other ceramic shows in Vancouver, timed to offer out-of-town Symposium attendees a chance to see more Ceramics. The truth is that I don’t get in to Vancouver as much as I used to so I missed them. But I can’t help taking photos of what grabs me when I do attend a show.

Tomorrow evening I plan to join fellow TriCity Potters at the Opening Reception of Ceramics from Atmospheric Firings and More at Place des Arts in Coquitlam.

How Hard Can It Be? CCS 2026

Gillian McMillan — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 05:47:46 +0000

The latest Canadian Clay Symposium took place at the Shadbolt Centre, as usual, on March 21st, and it’s taken this long for me to sort my photos and put together my experience of a super weekend. On the Friday evening Jesse Birch of Nanaimo AG gave the keynote speech at the Emily Carr U campus. He spoke about ways of sharing ceramic collections with gallery visitors.

Before his talk we were warmly welcomed by a local First Nations singer and drummer, and then by ECU Ceramics prof Brendan Tang. People we have lost since the last Symposium were remembered, and two longtime Shadbolt Centre employees were specially honoured. Sharon Reay and Linda Doherty published their thanks in the following BC Potters Guild newsletter.

Our thanks to the Canadian Clay Symposium Collective for all their hard work over the years and being such a joy to partner with. Our thanks to the Shadbolt Centre and City of Burnaby, for their support and for giving us the opportunity to work in one of the best jobs ever, with an immensely talented group of people, at the most beautiful location imaginable.

Back in 2004, British potter, Jane Hamlyn, spent a long day and night at the Shadbolt, setting-up for the ‘Re-Inventing the Wheel’ Symposium. Jet-lagged and exhausted, she asked “Where on earth did you ever find so many people, who care so much?” We would simply like to point out a few of those people, who cared so much, and made our jobs so much easier:

Cathi Jeﬀerson: Who started the whole Symposium ball rolling.
Keith and Celia Rice-Jones: For feeding and housing so many weary, travelling potters from all over the world.
Carol Mayer: Who always lent her voice and her support to any event we asked her to.
Bob Kingsmill: Whose response to whatever request we had, even at short notice, was always: “What do you want me to do, sweetheart?”
And, of course, Jay MacLennan: The guy with all the answers, all the time – who never learned to say, “No” to us.

Thank you all, so very much, from the bottom of both our hearts.

Thank you Linda and Sharon for your enthusiastic help to us, Shadbolt’s workshop and class attendees over the years. Below are my poor photos of some of their work, displayed at the Centre for us to see the next day. Here also are Robin and Eden Dupont who fervently asked for our assistance in the ongoing saga of saving the famed Ceramic programme which was the Kootenay School of the Arts. Selkirk College has announced its closure but there is hope for saving it..

The following day in Burnaby was filled with presentations, vendor and information booths, the Potters Guild of BC one-day show ‘Sur La Table’, the Nelson Airstream Gallery, and adjacent shows in the Lower Mainland. I think I’d better make a separate blog to show some of Fraser Valley Potters Guild’s show at the nearby Deer Lake Art Gallery.

I spent the first hour in the large room where Calgary potters Vin Arora and Lael Chmelyk were demonstrating. I believe they are studio mates in Calgary. Vin has only moved over the Rockies in the last year or so, having taught here in the Lower Mainland for many years. As Vin spoke enthusiastically about his journey in clay, with a good slide show, Lael quietly got on with throwing parts for teapot and other forms she would later assemble. Vin then worked as she gave her presentation. Later in the afternoon I saw several pieces that they had completed.. or nearly.

Some of their pots were displayed in the same room, for sale.

Then I checked the studio theatre presentation room to see Vancouver’s Jai Sallay-Carrington and Grace Han from Winnipeg. Unfortunately this wasn’t a room you could easily come and go from and I’m sorry to admit that I was only there once. I didn’t see any of Grace’s work displayed in the hallway but I have good memories of her work from a show with our own Gloria Han at Coquitlam’s Evergreen AG a while ago.

In the hallway there were displays of presenters Jai and Lael’s work. We were so amazed by Jai’s intricate sculptures at the recent PGBC 70th Anniversary show at the Italian Cultural Centre.

I grabbed a lunch from one of the food trucks outside, visited the Airstream Gallery, walked down to Deer Lake AG, and checked the vendors and information booths for a while. Suddenly it was time for the presenters to be finishing their work and vendors packing up. All the conversations with so many friends in our clay community, and lots of good pots and supplies to admire, made my day complete. I’m just sorry I never got back to see what Grace and Jai had spent their day making.

As I returned to the parking lot I passed the display of bisque-fired pots made by previous Shadbolt Centre workshop presenters. I have enjoyed so many of these workshops and meeting the artists.

Eric Metcalfe’s Gouache Paintings

Gillian McMillan — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 22:48:37 +0000

Twelve of Eric Metcalfe’s gouache paintings have recently been installed at his Dogwood Care Home. You are invited. I wasn’t able to join his many Western Front colleagues for the tea-party launch. But when his good friend Paul Mathieu invited me to accompany him on another tea-time visit to Eric on Friday we made a point of seeing the splendid display in the care home’s common room.

Eric doesn’t talk any more and is now dependant on a wheelchair, but he is safe and comfortable in his private room. It is decorated with pieces of his art, and I’m told he often has visitors. His family’s decision to donate a carefully selected group of his jazz-inspired gouaches means that the staff can now appreciate Eric’s Art career, here in BC.

During the months when he is not living in his delightful-sounding home in Tuscany, Paul makes a point of taking a thermos of tea and home-made goodies to Eric’s home for an hour or so, most weeks. He invites a friend of Eric to join him for conversation. It was so good to see Eric’s huge smile as he listened to us talking.

Thank you for including me in a visit to see Eric, Paul. We always find lots to talk about!

Later that evening I attended the NWCeramic Foundation-sponsored talk at Emily Carr U, given by Canadian Ceramic Symposium keynote speaker Jesse Birch. It was a great introduction to the big event at Shadbolt Centre the next day. I’ll share my experience of that in my next blog.

Eric gave me this painting in recognition of our years of working together, on the occasion of the Raiders’ show on Bowen Island in 2019.

This is a link to a blog I wrote in 2023 with more details about Paul and Eric.

https://www.gillianmcmillan.com/blog/2023/12/11/paul-eric/