This post features photos of the latest plates painted by the other two recent visiting artists, Eric Metcalfe and Renée Van Halm. Eric had painted two quietly at home and on this day painted one more. One of them is unusual for him and is titled ‘L’Age d’Or: Beunel/Dali, and was inspired by a random film image. I’m particularly enjoying the first plate shown on the left. Today Eric was commenting that his graphic work has moved so far from his earlier signature leopard spots, and he does credit the evolution to his working on clay forms, starting with our Attic Project more than fifteen years ago.

Renée had asked me to make up a Pope’s Hat plate for this session. Now it’s fired it measures 15 1/2″ across and stands 4″ high, with a little foot ring which I threw under the slab-formed platter. As she usually does, Renée came prepared with collages from which to paint on the form.

Her second piece, one of our regular oval plates, is well, gorgeous! It has a large flat yellow area offset by cool blue sections where you can see parts of glasses.

She also asked me to refire three previous plates from a couple of years ago. They’d developed the crazing that earthenware sometimes does and the refiring of one previously had been successful in healing the problem. Sure enough, the three plates, placed on the bottom shelf of the cone 04 glaze firing, are now craze-free. How to avoid the crazing in future? Me, I live with the interiors of mugs becoming crazed but I do avoid microwaving earthenware pieces. And perhaps the regular use of a dishwasher is too hard on them?

Marian Penner Bancroft was here for her second visit and painted a group of four plates.Her signature leafless trees are set in an ever darkening sunset. Hung together they’ll look spectacular. The regular size oval plates are roughly 8″ x 9″.

Lyse Lemieux came for the first time so was experimenting with the medium. Her first piece, a small triangular dish, is filled with layered colours and is fun. It’s about 7″ across. The second piece is a larger platter that I happened to have on hand. She has painted it boldly yellow and it is 11″ x 12″.

As with my previous visitors I asked Lyse for a little biography. Here is some information on her.

Lyse Lemieux works mostly on paper with ink, paint and fabric. She is represented by Republic Gallery in Vancouver and has exhibited her work in Canada and in Europe since 1978. She currently lives in Vancouver.

Her work can be seen at www.lyselemieux.com or  www.republicgallery.com

Tomorrow Alan and I will pop in to Vancouver to attend a reception for artists who’ve contributed artwork to to the Western Front fundraiser recently. I guess my making plates for them counts! Certainly the tradition is becoming a delightful way for us to have visiting artists spend a day in Port Moody, and Eric and I agree that painting on 3D functional forms is proving to be an informative, pleasurable and worthwhile experience for them. En route to the event we’ll stop off at the Western Front and leave the plates with Eric. I do hope they all like how their work looks now it’s bright and shiny!