Every shelf in my latest bisque and glaze firings held plates, except for the top one. There I placed four requested Red-breasted Sapsucker Jugbirds, the ‘North by North-West (NXNW)’ mugs and two bowls for donation for the September NWCF fundraiser ‘That Pottery Thing’.

To save space here I’ve assembled the photos with the ‘layout’ app so that you can see the top and side view of some pieces or have several plates in one image.

I keep trying to make larger pasta plates for a Calgary family. They ask for colourful and varied and large. These three might fit the bill and I am rather pleased with the blue one. I rarely use the Sienna pink slip but with a touch of red underglaze the flowers look good over the dark blue. It’s just lucky that this rose presented itself just as I was looking for a spot to photograph it.

An idea I shall use again is this happy result of concentrated parallel line painting. The combination of lime green, peacock and porcelain white slips resulted in a pleasing design. It’s just a small 7″ plate.

Eric Metcalfe was pleased to have another chance to draw and paint on plates to relieve the current Covid loneliness. His three have a D theme which may refer to his questionable grades in school compared to his recent honorary Arts doctorate from his Alma Mater, the University of Victoria. Congratulations Eric! I intend to start making more white earthenware plates for a possible small re-start of Artist ‘Raids’ in the coming months.

It was a treat to join other NorthWest Ceramic Foundation board members for a garden meeting last Tuesday evening. This was the first time I’ve met the group in person since joining the board. I delivered the two bowls (there will be unusual contents in these and more surprise bowls at the September Gala, Auction and Award-presentation event That Pottery Thing), my auction donation of a special soda-fired Jugbird and I gave Carol Mayer a box of elderly pots of non-gallery pieces from my studio shelves for donation to ‘the HOB’. The latter is a Hospice Charity shop in the Dunbar area which is featuring donations from NWCF this week.

These are slab plates on which I used Port Moody artist Sara Graham’s Maple Leaf design as stencil and imprint.

Here are two more plates … I need to donate some for That Pottery Thing.

The RB Sapsucker Jugbirds were all collected last week, three for the Sunshine Coast and the last went to a NXNW listener.

Last week Sheryl emailed me to set up an interview and the next day we chatted. She promised me that my story of when I started potting, why jugbirds? and how have I coped with Covid? would all be condensed to five minutes. In fact she aired 8 or 9 minutes and it sounded OK. I am honoured to have been the first BC potter to be interviewed for this new project. If you’d like to hear what I heard on Saturday click on this link to the podcast and slide along to about half way through the show.

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-43-north-by-northwest

Sheryl starts her spot about ‘year of mugs’ at 7.45am in this link.

Now I must subscribe to the podcast so that I can listen to all the other potters she’ll be interviewing. It’ll be so interesting!

Meanwhile I have thrown some new mugs and plan to offer a wildly decorated mug like this one for the winner. It will have NXNW sgriffitoed into the pattern.

My segue takes me to ‘That Pottery Thing’ because the same Sheryl MacKay has agreed to be the host for a planned September fund-raising event.

Normally the North-West Ceramic Foundation would hold a Gala ‘Oven and Kiln’ dinner, auction and award presentation every three years. This much anticipated event obviously can’t be safely planned for this year, but the Foundation’s board has dreamed up an event to take its place, scheduled for September 30th 2021. Instead of inviting guests to purchase a dinner ticket we shall host a smaller reception (hosted by Sheryl) in the Mayer studio at 1000 Parker street. Collectors who cannot travel to this venue will be able to study an auction catalogue of ceramics, books and more and place their bids ahead of time, with final bids happening that evening. A public Zoom will allow you to see and bid on the donated artworks, observe short videos on community ceramic studios receiving NWCF support this year, and watch a presentation by this year’s winner of NWCF Mayer Wosk Award of Excellence.

As mentioned in my previous blog, the non-profit North-West Ceramic Foundation is primarily concerned with education in Ceramic Arts, offering free public lectures, scholarships to emerging Ceramics students and the above-mentioned awards for mid-career artists to have the freedom to take their work further.

Please click this link to the Foundation’s relevant web page to read a better description of NWCF initiatives.

https://www.nwcf.ca/that-pottery-thing/

In my next blog I’d like to show the work of Nicole Ponsart, one of the NWCF recent graduate award winners who is just completing her time as a Ceramics Artist-in-Residence at Medalta.

Yesterday, Monday June28th was the hottest day here, ever. Our thermometer reached 42C! Just as I remember from a June in Austin, Texas, it was impossible to go outside in the daytime. We closed curtains and windows on the sunny side of the house and retreated to the basement. With a fan my studio was liveable and we even ate cold supper at my pottery work table! The temp only dropped to 25C in the night .. fans kept us sane but barely sleeping. The air quality is decreasing, the lawn is turning brown, my garden is sad and we are worried about forest fires. Thanks for the concerned email sister Mary. We’ll be OK but can hardly wait for cooler days.  It is almost two weeks since our second Covid vaccination, social restrictions are being lifted and we are beginning to enjoy get-togethers with family and friends.

Here is a photo of most of the TriCity Potters who came to a June gathering in my garden last week. We were SO pleased to chat in person once more.