Carolyn Ritchie Bedford
Personally and as an artist, I believe that one should continually evolve in their artwork, in subject or technique or medium. Experimentation and exploration is a key to originality and the idea of the piece is the primary objective.
My work has been primarily in acrylic; painting about situations and philosophy of the many places I lived. Being an Air Force child, moving and adapting and learning of place and people has influenced my creative endeavors. I work in the figurative but enjoy the contemporary mode as well, finding the design aspects of the work to capture the viewer. Using the public art forum for my exhibitions, I believe the theatrical staging of the artwork is part of the creativity.
Working in many mediums I have found my new passion in the tactile and physical world of clay and bronze sculpture, firing my own bronze work and sharing this with audiences. The many stages and materials involved in the pieces develop the anticipation for the firing and risks of success. Now I am striving to move into the large public site-specific art arena with this new medium. A more public art piece is seen as contemplative oasis in a bustling world, and is a new and larger stage to explore creative pieces.
Raku is a sixteenth-century firing technique associated with Zen Buddhism and the Japanese Tea Ceremony. The word ‘raku’ is often translated as 'enjoyment', 'contentment', 'pleasure' and 'happiness', with connotations of simplicity and asymmetry. While the process may seem contradictory to some of these terms, its ritualistic nature produces an unexpected balance between exhilaration and meditation.
I seek to make raku objects that respect the medium's origins. My works are individually hand-shaped, with an emphasis on simplicity and beauty. By combining sensuous shapes and elaborate glazes with unrefined edges and sooty black surfaces I try to show that beauty can be found in imperfection.
Janet Doble
Janet Doble Pottery
In the Pillow Platter series of work, I have been exploring three main aspects of my clay practice. The first is the impressionability of clay through the use of hand carved rollers, which, when rolled on the clay surface create texture and pattern. Secondly, I am exploring a sense of volume given to a flat surface by using fat rolled rims on which to lay the slabs of clay. Thirdly, I am creating settings for my majolica paintings and expanding the subject matter for these paintings. As I started working with these shapes I began to think of Japanese head rests, of ceramic pillows, of sleep and rest, of dreams and so I call the series "Pillow Platters".
Sharon Fiske
Clayworks Pottery
Through the twenty years I have been acquainted with clay as a medium for expression, functional ware has always been in the forefront. Inspiration for my work comes from a diverse range of influences, for example: nature, family life, doodles, social issues, media and sheer imagination.
The continued participation in workshop sessions and studio participation with leading accomplished artists has contributed to the extensive range of my work. From humorous and lighthearted to the sensitive, colorful and decorative, each piece exposes a part of my character.
To this day, I have found no end to the pleasures derived from my love for and commitment to the materials - clay and glaze.
Judy Gordon
Turnaround Pottery
turnaroundpotter@accesswave.ca
I took my first class in pottery in 1998 and was immediately hooked. Clay is my passion - its possibilities are endless. Being able to create beautiful finished pots from nothing but a lump of clay and a wheel still fills me with wonder.The natural world is a major influence in my work, especially anything related to the sea. Leaves and grasses make their way into my pieces; their gentleness speaks to me. I use a layered glaze technique in the carving on my vases to create subtle seascapes which I believe gives a depth to the work not easily attainable with other forms of decoration. I like my work to have a fluidity and softness which is reflected in the shapes and colours I choose. I want people to enjoy the quiet beauty of my work - to be surprised at the unexpected turn of a piece that is sensuously shaped, or to notice the bend of the sea grass in my vases and goblets - perhaps to find a seashell in an unexpected place on a pot. I would like to think of my pieces helping to create a special space in the homes of their new owners.
The thought of my work sitting, unused, collecting dust in someone’s cupboard fills me with dismay. I want my pieces to be useful. I make stoneware because I believe people should be able to have lovely, useful, dishware that will stand up to day-to-day use.
Pauline Kemp
The inspiration for my work comes from the peaceful beauty and the vibrant colours I see around me in my Nova Scotia home environment. I enjoy throwing each measure of clay, and then carving, piercing and glazing to reflect a theme - the flowers and trees in my garden, or the sailboats and rocks in the waters beyond. A studio potter & teacher for 20 years, I am primarily self-taught, but my work has benefited from attending a wide variety of workshops with distinguished North American and United Kingdom potters. I have studied at the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design and the Maude Kerns Art Centre in Eugene, Oregon and have participated in exhibitions in Nova Scotia and Oregon. As a juried artist and board member of Nova Scotia Designer Crafts Council, and a founder of the Nova Scotia Potters Guild, I have worked in many ways to foster craft education in the province. I live with my family on the shore of the beautiful Northwest Arm in Halifax, surrounded by an ever-changing garden and seascape which bring great joy and inspiration to my life.
Mary Jane Lundy
I've been a resident of East Dover, Nova Scotia since 1985. I graduated from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University in the spring of 2003 with a BFA major in Ceramics.
My ceramic studio practice has consisted of ceramic fish wall hangings, sculptured fish houses stuffed with fish and most recently birds. The clay materials I use to create my work are white and red grogged earthenware low fire clays and coloured slips and colourful glazes. During my attendance at NSCAD University I was influenced by the 15th century French ceramist, Bernard Palissy, who used living things such as frogs, lizards, fish, plant life, and shells in creating plaster castings for clay press molds. Like Palissy, who cast only species from his surrounding area, I have limited my subjects to the sea life found in the Nova Scotia waters of the Atlantic Ocean and along its shorelines. I have incorporated into my work other forms inspired by the sea, such as tide pools, grottos and whirlpools. My choice of using different sculptural forms from nature and man made objects, has allowed me to express my views on human's negligence and "the depletion of fisheries" in the rural areas of Nova Scotia.
In my most recent work my subjects are birds. The sea is still present but now it's what inhabits above and along its shorelines. My sculptured bird forms are created larger than their normal size. I wanted to give them a presence to make you see them and heighten your awareness that they are out in our wilderness and they need to be respected.
Yvonne Lynch
Lyncharm Pottery
Ocean images have always played a part in my creative imagination - one of those being the ripples in the sand left by the waves. I’ve also been playing with some shapes that are used in quilting. With help from some low fired glazes, I am working to transfer some of these designs onto clay.
Alexandra McCurdy
Alexandra McCurdy Ceramics
The Black Box is a term used for something that is mysterious, especially as to function. Its externally visible behaviour is considered, and not its implementation or "inner workings". In these two Black Boxes I have deliberately left the "inner workings" to the viewer’s imagination, embellishing the external instead in an ambiguous way.
Mindy Moore
Wabi-sabi was first introduced into Japanese society in the 16th century by Sen Rikyu, who was also the father of the Way of Tea. Sen Rikyu saw beauty in the irregular, in the assymetrical, the old and weathered, the less-than-perfect. I was inspired by this early in my studies of ceramic art, and I was drawn to and influenced by the work of clay artists including Bernard Leach, Shoji Hamada, Peter Voulkos, Betty Woodman, Byron Temple (who had worked at the Leach pottery in England), Bennett Bean and James Makins.
With wabi-sabi as continued inspiration, I produce pot after pot on the wheel, or hand build from slabs. My intention has always been to unveil the textures that clay holds, to discover the shapes that clay can be moulded into, and to reveal the beauty that spontaneity brings out in wet clay. Using the vessel form as the foundation for each piece, line and shape are brought to life within the fluidity of the clay. And while I may have a particular theme or object in mind to create, it is that spontaneity that allows wabi to emerge.
Louise Pentz
Pentz Pottery
My love for clay is based on the historical connection it gives me with every other man, woman and child who for the past five thousand years has scooped it from the earth, shaped it with their hands, hardened it in their fires and sustained life itself by storing and eating their food from these vessels. What a vital connection! I celebrate this continuum of creating clay vessels each time I dig through the ashes of my kiln, anxious to see what the flames have given me. It is enthralling to be a part of this unbroken line. The rich exterior of the smoke fired vessel is not glaze. It is the clay itself that has been burnished, coloured, fired and polished to reveal the magical works left by the smoke and flames during this ancient, alchemic process.
Cycladic Women
Medusa -Details
Food For Thought
Mussel Madness Platter
Pauline Kemp
Leafy Bole
BlueBox
Blue Bowl
& Jar
Mindy Moore
Louise Pentz
Louise Pentz
Sally Ravindra
Sally Ravindra 2
Mieke Martin-Soontiens
Century House Pottery
I have committed myself to clay forever. The fascination to make something from the most common material in the world by the action of fire. It is always exciting. I believe that is why you never find a former potter or ex-potter. There is no such thing..
ARTIST STATEMENTS
Click on Images to Enlarge
ARTIST
Sweet Robin, 9in wdth X 13in ht
Davy's Fish Shack
base 6in wdth X 12in ht
_2.JPG)
Elspeth Mackenzie
Elbie Pots
Elspeth graduated from Acadia University in 1974 with a Bachelor of Arts Degree, and in the year 1977, she began her Bachelor of Education Degree. Short one course from her degree, she moved to Houston where she received a Texas Teaching Certificate in the 1990's. Elspeth began working with clay in 1992 but took pottery on as a serious hobby in 2000. Workshops with successful United States and Canadian potters, attending school at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, continuing education, and teaching pottery, all keep pottery interesting for Elspeth. In 2002, Elspeth established a home studio under the name of "Elbie Pots". One of her specialties is "raku", originating as a Japanese firing technique, which has progressed in North American."Raku is exciting to produce. It is dangerous. It is elemental. The interplay of earth, water, fire, smoke, wind and chance a raku artist's dance", says Ruth Apter. The Kings County Museum showcased among other artists Elspeth as part of the "Pottery Past and Present" exhibit in 2003. That same year Elspeth hosted at the museum a childrens workshop, "Clay Whistles". Previously in 2002 in Texas, Elspeth hosted an adult workshop, "Building a Raku Kiln". Elspeth says that her pottery is constantly evolving. Not one piece will be the same as she continues to change. Inspiration comes from everyday experiences that influence the functionality of the clay.
Joan Bruneau
My intent as a studio potter is to inspire presentation and to enrich the quality of daily experience, through a collaborative dialogue between the user and my pots. Moments taken out of the day to prepare and present an inspired meal or to arrange a bouquet of flowers, affirms our connection to identity while celebrating the beauty in our domestic lives, in a culture otherwise bombarded with information and big - box consumerism.
The pottery forms are influenced by a range of sources, from Chinese and European historical pottery forms to botanical structures and architectural ornament. The forms are wheel-thrown and reconstructed using “Cut and Paste” technique. Gestural throwing lines, dynamic volumes and structural seams are marks of this making processes. The surfaces are treated with brushed white slip, underglazes and polychrome food-safe glazes. Pieces from 2006 are inspired by Renaissance Italian maiolica , resulting from a 2005 residency at La Meridiana International Ceramics Center in Tuscany.
Karen Robinson
Robinson Clay Studio
karen.robinson@ns.sympatico.ca
I work in a cone 6 buff stoneware with white or clear glaze and paint the clay or glaze surface with colourful stains or slips before the final firing. Visitors may come to my studio by appointment, or find my pots either at Bogside Gallery in Halifax's Hydrostone shopping area or at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia's Gallery Shop.
Landscape Bowl
Raku Horse Hair Bowl Purses
Pottery
Studio
Click Image to Enlarge
