Mergatroid building – Gillian McMillan — Rara Avis

Our Crawl

Gillian McMillan — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 05:43:22 +0000

The weather was perfect for this year’s Eastside Culture Crawl, with no rain or snow. Alan and I chose to drive in to Vancouver on Friday evening to begin crawling. The annual Visual Arts, Design and Crafts Festival is now enormous so we made a list of studios to visit on our first planned crawl for this year. I had hoped to post my blog before the event finished but failed. Perhaps my photos can encourage you to plan on joining the enthusiastic arts supporters who tour Vancouver’s East Side studios, next year.

https://culturecrawl.ca

Predictably, for anyone who knows me, we opted to start by visiting studios in the Mergatroid Building where many of my clay artist friends work. Why have I never popped in to Georgina Lohan’s studio before? She has a fine space right next to the Potters Guild of BC gas kiln, where I’ve joined other potters for cone 10R firings a couple of times. I was happy to see Georgina’s colourful porcelain functional ware and most impressed by her tall multi-part sculptures. For this weekend she was sharing the gallery area with her husband Rob Middleton-Hope. She tells me that he has built her excellent display shelves.

https://www.georginalohan.net

On the second floor of the Mergatroid Building I enjoyed chatting with Diane Espiritu, Jackie Frioud and Emily Sheppard. I found myself unable to risist taking home a sweet porcelain ‘chip goblet’ made by Midori Mckenzie. She works in her studio next door.

Just nearby we found painter and potter Susan Marczak. She makes fine paintings of our beautiful province. Her pots are fired in the Shadbolt Centre’s TopHat kiln, as she is a member of Burnaby Potters Guild.

Russel, who spoke to NorthWest Ceramic Foundation earlier this year, can be found in his studio on the first floor. He has been working on these special vessels for a while. I think it’s worth including his description of ‘The Last Confirmed Sighting’ here:

TLCS was inspired by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature ‘Red List’. Also known as ‘The Barometer of Life’.

Established in 1964 the Red List of threatened species has evolved to become the world’s most comprehensive information source on the global extinction risk status of animal, fungus and plant species.

All the animals depicted are ‘endangered’ or ‘critically endangered’ according to the list.

The last comfirmed sighting of the Dodo bird was 1662.

Other potters who had their studios open for the Crawl on that floor were Heather Dahl and Cheryl Stapleton. Both were very busy.

https://mergatroid.ca/listing/cheryl-stapleton-clay-addiction-pottery

https://www.heatherdahlstudio.com

While I was spending far too much time chatting with potters and admiring glass-blowing Al headed over to the Parker street studios to find the food trucks. In the cool evening I joined him for yummy chicken korma at picnic tables along with many other crawlers.

Our next step was to walk down the ramp to the huge gallery and workshop of famed local sculptor David Robinson. His wonderful, sometimes anxiety-provoking pieces can be spotted around Vancouver and, clearly, around the world.

https://www.davidrobinsonstudio.com

There are lots of woodworking studios on the first floor. I was pleased to find the MCM sculptures in wood made by unstoppable BC Pottery collector Tyler Fritz. Here are some of his pieces, and a photo of him with fellow collector and gallery owner John Lawrence, taken at the recent NorthWest Ceramics Foundation’s 30th birthday party and auction. It was held in the nearby Mayer studio. On this day we saw paintings by Carol Mayer and her studio mates. Somehow I missed finding Fredi Rahn’s studio.

We joined the Friday evening crowds of people who were exploring the next two floors of the rabbit warren of a building, saw paintings, prints, fabric creations and much more. Each studio was having a party! It really is an exciting weekend for all these artists. After a while it became clear that we’d run out of steam so we did not reach the top, fourth floor. So sorry Susie Birstein! But we still had a fair walk to our car, and the drive home.

Circumstances intervened and this turned out to be our only chance to enjoy the Culture Crawl. There are so many more areas of that part of Vancouver that we’d hoped to check out, so many interesting studios to see and artists to meet. Maybe next year…

CSA Space

Gillian McMillan — Tue, 09 May 2023 04:39:47 +0000

I booked myself a glazing spot for noon at the Potters Guild of BC gas kiln last Saturday. Four pots were already glazed in my studio so it didn’t take long to dip the last one in the guild’s Malcolm Davis shino. It seems stupid to join the firing for so few pots but I fancied a Vancouver day anyway. Next Saturday I’ll see how these ones fared in their Cone 10R firing.

Several studios in the Mergatroid Building were open that day so I took a little ‘crawl’ around and chatted with potters, embroiderer Bettina Matzkuhn, glass artist Maria Ida, and more. I still miss working in a building full of artists!

My next errand was to deliver a sgraffitoed plate to Chris Brayshaw at Pulp Fiction Books on Main street. He had chosen my wee plate some time ago but I’d retained it for the recent TriCity Potters’ show at Port Moody Arts Centre. Here was my chance to visit his gallery upstairs.

http://pulpfictionbooksvancouver.com

https://www.facebook.com/CSAspace/

Chris joked that CSA stands for Contemporary Sophisticated Art but here is the actual definition: “CSA Space named for its founders: [C]hristopher Brayshaw, photographer-collector-curator; [S]teven Tong, curator; [A]dam Harrison, artist-curator. Open [hard to believe] since September 2005. 100% self-funded by the founders & [very occasional] art sales; we receive no public funding of any kind.”

The current show includes photos taken by Chris when he visited the closing of the Studio in what had been much-loved potter Don Hutchinson’s studio in Surrey. The ceramics are by artists who used to share the space, and include some hallowed kiln bricks.

These photos will give you an idea of the theme of the show. There are lists of the ceramics and photos for visitors. I see I didn’t catch every piece, sorry to have missed some, and I haven’t included titles. When I returned the key to Chris, back in the shop, I told him I’d missed seeing an owl by Don Hutchinson himself. Hah! Chris delightedly took me back up the stairs to make sure I found the teeny little owl which was displayed on a much-glazed kiln brick in a secret spot under the table!

I’m pleased to have found this little gallery at last, sad to know that Don’s studio is no more, grateful to Chris for organizing this display, and looking forward to seeing what will be shown next in CSA Space.

When I headed back out to find my car I realized I was outside Kate Metten’s pottery workshop. It’s a great venue, with a front door on Main street, and a back door onto Kingsway. Kate’s colourful ware fills the front area and behind that she works, and offers lessons. What fun to run into a keen past-participant in ‘Raids’ in my studio.

My final stop of this busy day was Granville Island. In Circle Craft Co-op I checked my display of pots and then chatted with the weekend’s Pop-Up Artist, Martha Casey-Knight. Her slightly outrageous ware sells under the name ‘Hell Wench’! I first noticed the birds carved onto the surface of her hand-built pots at last November’s Circle Craft Christmas Market and she is now a member of the Co-op.

My own pots, the earthenware and the soda-fired stoneware pieces were on this shelf. It’s time for me to deliver some more jugbirds to the shop. May is going to be a busy month..

My Mergatroid Moments

Gillian McMillan — Mon, 19 Dec 2022 22:31:03 +0000

During 2022 I’ve been following the news about firings in the Potters’ Guild of BC gas kiln. Funding was secured and the current board purchased a big Bailey kiln from Emily Carr U. Thanks to the enthusiastic manager of the Mergatroid Artists Studio building, Morley Faber, it has now been installed on a levelled, covered concrete pad next to the building. Technicians have been trained, glazes mixed and several firings have happened. I’m easily distracted.. this year I’ve gone down a ‘native clay’ rabbit hole, explored sgraffito, made some whistles and now, (why not?) I decided to register for two cubic feet of space in the last firing of 2022. I felt that $25 per cu ft was worth the fun I’d have.

Six glazes have been selected for use by participants, but it has been agreed that PGBC members would be trusted to use some of their own glazes too. Fun! I found an old bucket of David Leach celadon that I must have mixed up 30 years ago. I added water and sieved it. My old black temmoku was gone but there was a small bucket of a copper red I’d used in the past. Apart from renting the Shadbolt top-hat kiln to fire a batch of plates and bowls for Steve and Jen’s wedding sixteen years ago, I hadn’t fired anything in a Cone 10 Reduction gas firing since having my own gas kiln in my back yard. I sold it thirty years ago when I switched to earthenware and didn’t like paying $25 a month to retain the natural gas line.

My adventures in salt and soda firing require that I use Cone 10 stoneware clay so I had suitable clay on hand, and after the last soda firing I threw these 14 pots to use as tests of the glazes available for the Mergatroid kiln. I was curious to see whether my earthenware slips would be useful here so coated part of a bowl with blue slip and enjoyed making a sgraffito pattern there. On a plate (we are discouraged from bringing plates to the soda firings) I painted a pattern with my blue and green slips.

The weather has turned very cold and Alan and I have been enduring another bout of bronchitis so I was anxious to have as much of my glazing done ahead of time as possible. Glazing has to take place outside, next to the kiln. So quite a few of my pieces wound up with the old DL celadon glaze. I’m glad. Here is a vase with sgraffito’d oak tree and, just because, another Batterham-style tea caddy. You’ll see that for each pot I’ve made a collage so that you can see more than one view of the piece.

I think this grooved lidded jar is my favourite piece from this firing. I’m addicted to the carving of a leather-hard form, and watching how the parallel lines make a predictable but pleasing design. Making a well-fitted surprise lid is part of the game. I showed a little video on instagram of the process and asked for glazing suggestions, ie temmoku, shino, white or celadon? Celadon won!

I used the mugs as tests for glazes. They show my celadon, the guild’s celadon, their chun and for that wild red one I dipped the mug in a little of the copper red glaze I had reconstituted from all those years ago. The inside and lower half are my celadon. I find that the guild celadon and chun look very alike and are shinier than mine. The celadon with red worked well and the glitz is beckoning! Let me know if you’d like to give a home to one of these sturdy retro-glazed mugs.

I was most interested to see how the guild’s shino turned out. The one I use to line soda-destined pots is reliable but not exciting. I’d seen some fascinating colours on pots glazed in the Malcolm Davis shino so opted for it on the yunomi above (with occasional David Robinson-recommended brush strokes of celadon). I’m pleased.

I painted blue earthenware slip on this jugbird’s bill. In soda this usually melts but here it has remained matt. The contrast with luscious MD shino on the body is good. I love the iridescence and variety in that glaze.

For the last three pots I chose to use the guild’s temmoku. I’d forgotten that for it to be really black you have to apply a thick layer of glaze. These pieces are more dark red/brown with black in the texture but others that I saw were black where the glaze was double-dipped. ..next time. My second jugbird has an orange earthenware bill so he’s quite striking.

Writing this descriptive blog is really just my way of studying my results carefully. I hope it might prove useful for others planning to take advantage of this locally available gas kiln and the guild’s glazes and technicians. My two brief visits to the location allowed me the rare chance to chat with like-minded ceramics souls: Heather Lippold, Amelia Butcher, David Robinson, fellow participant Sarah Coote, and Mary and Ursula and others. Thank you for giving me a chance to revisit cone 10R.