Ray & Bev Niebergall – Gillian McMillan — Rara Avis https://www.gillianmcmillan.com Tue, 01 Nov 2022 19:35:30 +0000 en-US hourly 1 SCAC: Jack Ploesser & the Niebergalls https://www.gillianmcmillan.com/blog/2022/11/01/scac-jack-ploesser-the-niebergalls/ https://www.gillianmcmillan.com/blog/2022/11/01/scac-jack-ploesser-the-niebergalls/#comments Tue, 01 Nov 2022 19:28:28 +0000 https://www.gillianmcmillan.com/?p=13893

Our Sunshine Coast Art Crawl continued with a short drive down into the village of Roberts Creek. There we parked beside Gumboot Restaurant and took a stroll down to the ocean. I wanted Linda to see the community Mandala. Local people re-paint it every year. 

After a very good lunch, sitting outside at the Gumboot Restaurant (the Gumboot café had no sandwiches!) we resumed our Crawl.

Linda, Sue & Owen admire the Mandala

Just nearby we found Jack Ploesser’s ‘Fire & Ash’ Pottery studio. Jack and his wife had used most of their home to display his wildly colourful, reduction-fired cone 10 pots.

Elaine and Mike, who we’d met earlier that morning, arrived as we did. They and Jack had lots to talk about. We four TriCity Potters spent quite a bit of time admiring some fabulous pots, and found ourselves unable to leave without a jolly mug or two. 

Jack Ploesser & Mike Allegretti
Ploesser pots
Linda, Owen & Jack

https://sunshinecoastartscouncil.com/jack-ploesser/

J Ploesser pots
Ploesser kiln

Our next stop was the nearby studio of the Niebergall family. Bev and Ray established their extensive pottery ‘Mustard Seed Creations‘ some years ago and now their son, Timothy is showing his ceramics with them. His ‘Spirited Ceramics‘ focusses on functional but beautiful ceramics such as sinks and tiles.

https://coastculture.com/member-profile/mustard-seed-clay-creations-spirited-ceramics/

Ray Niebergall
Bev Niebergall

Like Jack Ploesser does, the Niebergalls fire all their work in a gas-fired kiln, Reduction cone 10, so there are lots of similar copper reds. Ray and Bev both throw functional ware, mugs being a popular item they’d set on tables outside for the Crawl. We admired a variety of other pieces in their gallery area. These friendly folk were happy to have us look all around their work spaces, including a yurt which is set up for teaching. Below is their kiln on tracks.. so much easier for loading, and two of Ray’s carved show pieces.

Ray Niebergall jars

The afternoon was creeping on  so we climbed back in to Linda’s Honda and headed up to Sechelt. Our last stop was at Laurie Rolland’s Davis Bay studio. That’ll be the final blog on our Sunshine Coast Art Crawl.

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