So, the other four of you Raiders, your work is here. We’re thinking of coming in to Vancouver again on Saturday to attend the opening at Equinox. Raider Philippe Raphanel is one of four artists featured there this month in a show of drawings. Perhaps we can meet up there – Mina, Marlene and Kate. I’ll try to get down to Circle Craft too, although delivering work on a Saturday isn’t ideal.

I had made an extra long platter for Philippe and he applied lots of colours, some wax, and then covered all with grey. I think he’ll like the way the under-colours appear through, especially the blue streaks. His other two off-square lunch plates use the same method – colours, wax in circles and then white over. Neat!

Marlene Madison painted a platter that day. It is a stormy ocean with various shades of blue. Two little round dishes were also hers.

Meticulous Kate Metten painted two large round plates with her characteristic geometric shapes, and also completed two little triangular dishes.

Mina Totino finished two biggish round plates, using the sky blue underglaze as background for swirly shapes. Then there’s a bold orange lunch plate and two tiny dishes.

Several of my guests left half completed pieces in my cupboard so I imagine I’ll be invited to host another Raid before long. These gatherings have been happening for about ten years now and there are plans afoot to show some of the plates to the public. Actually I was made aware that Raider Pierre has gone on to use round  ‘plates’ in his current show (that blog soon…) and I spotted a plate painted by Renée at Shadbolt Centre the other day. I’m glad that Fine Art world people are delving into the world of functional ceramics, bringing their own ways of applying images, colours and ideas to our sometimes structured expectations for how a plate ‘should’ be ‘decorated’. But it is clear from Instagram that clay artists are comfortable with doing this nowadays anyway. Certainly working alongside people who paint has encouraged me to remember that my first loves, before clay, were drawing and painting.

First, here are Elizabeth’s squarish plates. It was interesting to see how these artists reacted to the odd-shaped plate but the general opinion seemed to be positive. There is no right way up.

One of her plates is multi-layered colours and dark and a group of three (I’m only showing one) are blue dotted.

Her extra ‘fun’ plate is a great gathering of colours.

This was Mina’s first trip out to paint plates in Port Moody, but she jumped right in with the colours! One of her squarish ones will be a lighter contrast to the others in the set.

Her extra ones are a snail on an oval plate and a little bowl.