Douglas College opened in 1970 with campuses in New Westminster, Richmond and Surrey. That is when my husband Alan was hired to teach Anthropology there, and also when artists Laura Wee Lay Laq (who now carries the ancestral name Lumlamelut) and Marcus Bowcott started taking classes in Ceramics at the Surrey campus under their fondly-remembered mentor Fred Owen. By the following year Alan and I had decided…
The opening of TriCity Potters' show 'A Celebration in Clay' was last Thursday evening, in Port Moody Arts Centre. We are celebrating our first ten years with five pieces from each participating member. There was no theme, we were simply asked to submit our selected best. To give the show some cohesion it was decided that we would also acknowledge the local area's natural…
When I was in Circle Craft Co-op last Wednesday I saw that Friederike Rahn had just finished setting up a display of work by those Shadbolt Centre instructors and staff who have fired their work in the wood and soda kilns there. Last Cone Standing is one of many ceramic shows all around the Lower Mainland which have been organized to coincide with the Shadbolt's…
My favourite piece to come out of my two recent glaze firings is the Pileated Woodpecker Jugbird. In early January I posted a photo of his beginnings and here is a photo of him being painted later. He has a wheel-thrown body, head, legs and neck. Those parts are carefully fitted together and I add his jolly crest, a slot for filling and pouring and a handle, and…
Last Fall I took myself for a little walk behind Port Moody's Rec Centre to Noon's Creek. Salmon return from the ocean every year, swimming all the way past Vancouver and many miles inland to the end of Burrard Inlet where they fight their way up Noon's Creek. For a long time now volunteers have enhanced the gravel beds and put in 'ladders' to…