workshop – Gillian McMillan — Rara Avis

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.

TriCity Potters in JingdeZhen

Gillian McMillan — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 00:33:15 +0000

Fourteen years ago, in October of 2010, five members of TriCity Potters spent an amazing two weeks in JingdeZhen, the famous porcelain-production city in China. Last Wednesday these intrepid potters, Grace Siu, Carlene Akester, Kay Bonathan, Hannah Chan and Eliza Wang, presented their experience there to us and then spoke a little about how the residency has influenced their own work.

Kay introduced the five, and showed slides of their intense adventure. She wrote an account of their time in JingdeZhen and nearby for the Potters Guild of BC newsletter in February 2011. (the link to newsletter archives is inactive on the PGBC website.. I hope it can be reactivated soon)

Grace has contacts there so had arranged accommodation and attendance at several workshop opportunities, and the JingdeZhen International Ceramics Fair had just opened. How marvellous it must have been for our own Eliza Wang to see her work in the International Ceramics Exhibition. She was one of only three Canadian artists represented.

The five joined residents from Australia, Switzerland, Sweden and the United States for two days of orientation, during which time they visited a ‘shard & antique’ market, bought tools, decals and underglazes, visited brush-makers and ordered custom stamps. Then they began six days of half-day workshops, experiencing mould-making, casting, decorating techniques, carving and finally, flower-making. When their work was ready to be glazed and fired they found an itinerant glazer and public gas kilns.

On most evenings the group attended lectures, on Turkish ceramics, smokeless wood kilns, Bellingham’s Jason Walker, and brush painting. They even gave a lecture themselves, featuring the work of TriCity Potters! There was interest in our various firing methods and the fact that we potters undertake all aspects of production individually.

While their pieces were being fired the five travelled to the more rural ceramics site of Yaoli to see a waterfall, villages, kilns and a waterwheel driving hammers to pound kaolin and saw the Tianbao dragon kiln.

They visited the Sanbao International Ceramics Institute, and finally marvelled at huge pots and tiles, amazed at the artists’ skills.

Their experience in these two short weeks has left them with thoughts and hopes of returning for longer.

Then each of the lucky five spoke a little about what influence the experience has had on their work. I love their aprons!

Thank you Kay for arranging for us to visit somewhere most of us will never see.

Members brought along jugs for our pop-up show at Willow & Wallflower Gift Shop. Owner Samantha MacDonald is delighted to be showing our work in her charming Port Moody shop for a few weeks in May. Do make sure you check the display from May 4th to 26th. You may find just the right Mothers’ Day gift. http://www.willowandwallflower.ca

Pene brought along the platter she’d made for our February ‘Exquisite Corpse’ underglaze painting evening. Her collaborators on this piece were Kay, Nicole and Sheila. Well done!

Who painted it?

Gillian McMillan — Fri, 23 Feb 2024 23:26:54 +0000

Are you intimidated by colourful underglazes? Some Tricity Potters are happy to make pots in classes and then glaze them but worry about using underglazes. With that in mind we arranged a fun game of cooperation for last Wednesday’s meeting. Members were asked to bring along a bone dry or bisque-fired pot, any underglazes they have and a brush or two. We had lots of extra pots, and I brought along my many jars of Raiders’underglazes.

Inspired by the old ‘Exquisite Corpse’ parlour game we split up into groups of four, and three. By giving each person a number, one through four, and then telling all the number ones to work together, twos at another table and so on, I split up usual groups and had people working alongside unexpected colleagues. Then I asked that each pot be passed to the person on one’s left. We painted for ten minutes, then passed the pot to the next. The last to work on it was its owner who could make final touches.

It was really good to hear the conversations in the room that evening, as folks advised each other or discussed the placing of their 1/4 or 1/3 of the designs. Here are photos of the collaborative session.

Doesn’t that look like fun? Feel free to copy the idea for a worktime with your pottery friends. Now the owner of each pot will get it bisque-fired and clear-glazed. I hope the pots will reappear at our next meeting so that we can all see the results of several artists having worked on one piece.

Below are the 19 items painted that evening. They’ll be even bolder when glazed. There are fascinating combinations of ideas and techniques, some based on the shape of the pot and others not. But the best part of the evening was the companionable time spent working alongside name-tagged fellow members.

I hope that this playful session, learning alongside each other, will have lessened members’ anxiety about using underglazes.

Our presenter for the next TriCity Potters meeting on March 20th will be current Kwantlen PU instructor Jen Woodin. All are welcome to attend.