fairy tales – Gillian McMillan — Rara Avis https://www.gillianmcmillan.com Tue, 31 May 2022 03:39:48 +0000 en-US hourly 1 Sharon Reay https://www.gillianmcmillan.com/blog/2022/05/30/sharon-reay/ https://www.gillianmcmillan.com/blog/2022/05/30/sharon-reay/#comments Tue, 31 May 2022 03:36:00 +0000 https://www.gillianmcmillan.com/?p=13217

The speaker for last Friday’s talk to TriCity Potters was Burnaby artist Sharon Reay. Sharon is a potter and sculptor who uses her skill to celebrate her love of the illustrations in old childrens’ books. 

Many of us know Sharon from the many years she worked as the Arts programmer for Shadbolt Centre for the Arts, in Burnaby. For all this time she had a little studio in the garden of her nearby home but until retiring she found it hard to find time to pursue her passion, but she was able to take workshops from the many well-known presenters at Shadbolt.

The Patchwork Girl of Oz book sculpture

Since then Sharon had an adventurous nine-month stint as Ceramics artist-in-residence at the Museum of Anthropology, UBC. She told us all about working with museum visitors watching, and sometimes engaging with her as she made her sculptures. She was inspired by pieces in the Koerner Ceramics collection there. Books are her thing. She wanted to replicate the feel and look of fairy tales from childhood, and she has!

Characters emerging from the book's pages

Shadbolt instructor and ceramic studio technician Linda Doherty came to the meeting with Sharon, and it turns out Sharon has taken Linda’s extruder classes. So when Sharon mused about how to fabricate clay books Linda dreamed up a book extrusion die. On display for this talk there were some of Sharon’s sculptures, the books that inspire her and ‘A Discerning Eye’, the catalogue of MOA ceramics, and a folder giving details of the making process and her residency. In there we saw how the extrusion worked. 

TriCity Potters listening to Sharon Photo by Myrta Hayes
Some of Sharon's work and her inspiration

We were all most impressed at Sharon’s meticulously constructed work, delighted at her skilfull recreation of real books and her dedication to a life-long passion of working with clay and to drawing. This rather blue slide shows her newly re-furbished Burnaby studio. 

Thank you for a most interesting talk, Sharon. We loved seeing what you do and will look forward to seeing what else you have in mind! 

plate by Sharon Reay

Lucky me, I was able to acquire one of Sharon’s donated plates at last November’s NWCF fund-raiser ‘That Pottery Thing’. And I came home from FVPG’s recent show in New Westminster with this fine mug.

Sharon's soda-fired chicken mug

Just as I was about to post this blog I received an email from Susan Gorris of Langley. She sent me these fine photos of Sharon and her work. Thank you Susan. 

She also sent information on the sale of Santo Mignosa’s studio equipment and huge kiln. See below.

Sharon Reay with her elf-lidded pot

Now I must put this to bed as tomorrow there’s more excitement. Linda Lebrun is giving me a ride over to Shadbolt for the opening of last week’s soda firing. I’m car-less for a few days so I hope Linda will enjoy watching us keeners unload and study our work and then scrape and kiln-wash shelves. I know that Sharon, Linda D, Eliza W and Allysha will be there and I’ll look forward to seeing who the other participants are, in this May firing.

some pots that were waiting for soda firing last week
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