Here we are half way into January and so far 2021 doesn’t appear to be any different from most of 2020.. horrid. Alan and I are keeping strictly to ourselves with the hope of avoiding Covid19 while we wait to get vaccinated. Now it looks as if our turn for a jab is delayed until later in the Spring.

Down in the studio I am able to keep my mind off world problems by concentrating on projects. Some days Alan or I will feel sad but we try not to do that on the same day! When the rain stops, or the sun even shines we make a point of taking ourselves out for a local walk up in the hilly Chines nearby, around our neighbourhood or at the end of Burrard Inlet (near our grocery shop). One day last week son Steve suggested we meet him in the parking lot of UBC’s Malcolm Knapp Research Forest in Maple Ridge. He and his family often hike there as it’s near their home. With distanced conversation with Steve and oodles of ancient tree stumps nursing younger trees, and ferns, lichens and a rushing creek to photograph, it was a restorative hour or so in the forest.

Jonathon Bancroft Snell seems to have taken a real interest in my work, both current and ancient. He and Brian Barnum Cooke collect and find new homes for early work by Canadian clay artists, and he had asked me to take some photos of any older pieces I might have around the house. Meanwhile he came across an ad on Kijiji for a jug I’d made back in 1993, while I was a student at ECCAD. It was here in Port Moody so Brian asked if I could collect it. By the time I contacted the seller she had changed her mind. But I did have one more jug just like it that I’d saved all these years. I took a photo of it.. and of nine other pots that I felt were gallery quality and which hadn’t ever left here. When Jonathon saw them he asked me to send them all to the gallery NOW!  It makes sense to let them go to the homes of collectors so, with the exception of two pieces I need to hold on to, I have today packed up eight ‘historic’ pots and tomorrow will mail them to Ontario. In these Covid times Jonathon has taken to having Brian film him discussing his gallery’s work and sharing the videos on Instagram. You can watch at noon Eastern time, 9am here, canadianceramics on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Ware spotted online is shipped to collectors or can be picked up at the door by London residents.. and it is. When my parcels arrive at the gallery Jonathon will open them live on video, and he’ll complain that I’ve overdone the packing!

Take a look at some of my early work, most made before I became enamoured of birds. I have always had a thing for jugs and spent some time dreaming up unusual handles. For several years I had a small gas kiln in a metal shed in my back yard so some pots were glazed in shino, celadon and temmoku. At Art School I switched to mainly using earthenware so only needed an electric kiln. Silly me.. but probably converting the well-used kiln to salt firing wouldn’t have been possible here in the ‘burbs.

Now that I have made another batch of teeny plates and some Red Cardinal jugbirds which are going in to their glaze firing tomorrow, this week is switch-over time from working in earthenware to throwing some stoneware. I am booked to participate in another soda firing workshop at Shadbolt Centre in mid-February so I want to get started on making my allotted two cubic feet of pots.

An invitation to speak to Richmond Hill potters (outside Torono I’m told) has had me polishing up a Power Point presentation and revising my slip recipe list. I shall endeavour to show a sequence of my work via Zoom on Feb 1st.

In my next blog I’ll show you how the new teeny plates turn out.

There were also some custom Christmassy plates in this firing. I’d made a tiny plate with this crisp lime green, a dark green and some red dots and I was asked to make some bigger plates to match. If you would like me to do the same thing for you with any of my colour combinations above, I’d be happy to make your order.. not a whole dinner set btw! a bowl, dish, bigger plate, cup, you tell me. I have a feeling I’ll want some projects to pass the January and February days as we wait for Spring again, and a vaccine!

Meanwhile my bisque firing ended this morning so I’ll be getting some stoneware creatures lined with glaze and wadded ready to deliver to Shadbolt Centre on Wednesday.