by Carole Epp | Apr 4, 2017 | Uncategorized
Jonathon Bancroft-Snell Gallery-Galerie
April 2017 – Thank you!
By Jonathon Bancroft-Snell
“It’s hard to believe that it has been seventeen years since the gallery opened on April 6th, 2000. There was little inventory and a huge space yet I decided I was going to specialize in Canadian art. Boy, was I an innocent abroad. An interesting thing about naivete is it can propel you in a way that only those willing to accept an empirical approach can understand. Looking back if I had known what I was getting myself into I may have chosen a retail job at Sears. Instead I opted for the rollercoaster ride of my life.
The Jonathon Bancroft-Snell Gallery has evolved into Canada’s leading national gallery focusing on ceramic art. The exhibition that most defines the gallery is Matter of Clay held every five years in August. The initial Matter of Clay exhibition, held in 2001, was the first major national exhibition held in decades. Planning the exhibition is where my naivete really came into play. I looked at pictures and sent letters to artists whose work appealed to me. I was fortunate to have Ontario artist Shirley Clifford act as my guide, Soon I had acceptances from across the country from icons such as Ann Mortimer, Walter Dexter, Goyer-Bonneau, Karen Dahl, Reed Weir, and Peter Powning to name a few. The exhibition was a huge success. During an introspective post-analysis I was struck by how Canada’s biggest ceramics stars had agreed to participate. I was a nobody and totally unknown yet I’d had success in attracting major artists to participate. I made a choice. The gallery was going to focus on promoting ceramic art in Canada.
Over the years there have been solo shows, group shows, themed shows and retrospectives. The difficulty with identifying highlights is akin to choosing a favourite child. Each year has been an incredible gift with every show feeling like a kiln opening. The crates would arrive and opening them provoked a chorus of oohs and aahs and the occasional expletive when a piece arrived broken. Over all it was always a magical experience that would play out over and over when people arrived at the opening. It is rewarding to see ceramic artists treated like rock stars by collectors appreciative of their work.
Seventeen years to look back on in a long time. There are however two shows that really stick out in my mind. The first was Walter Dexter’s solo show in August 2007. The show featured his Torso vases, a body of work begun in 1996, arguably his most significant body of work. It was a culmination of a long and illustrious career. I can still hear him saying to me in January of 2007, “I guess we’d better do this while I’m still alive to enjoy it.” He enjoyed it! The show was magic and attendance opening night was a who’s who of ceramic glitterati.
The second show was ‘Upstarts’ in 2010 featuring work by the frontrunners in the clay arts movement in Canada. These were the artists, still living, born before 1940. The artists who went on to teach, influence, and inspire subsequent generations of ceramicists. There were twenty-four artists in the show. A bittersweet, yet illuminating, memory of the exhibition was Roman Bartkiw’s acceptance. He was thrilled to be asked and included in an exhibition that as he put it ‘includes so many of my friends’. Sadly, Roman passed away the same day of a heart attack, a poignant reminder of the reality that these were Canada’s senior artists. Since 2010 John Chalke, Walter Dexter, Dean Mullavey, Maurice Savoie and Tom Smith have also passed away. Many of the others have retired from making.
I have been so privileged to have had the opportunity to meet so many extraordinary artists. Their legacy is incredible. I have also been fortunate that since 2004 Brian Cooke, my gallery manager, has exhibited the same passion for Canadian ceramics as me. In January 2018 at the Tom Thomson Gallery in Owen Sound he will be curating “Anatomy of a Collector’ featuring selections from nine ceramic collections.
Owning a ceramic gallery is, in some ways, like being a maker. You never know what new surprises await when you open the door. To everyone who has created and supported the gallery I just want to say; “Thanks!” ~ Jonathon
jonathons.ca
by Carole Epp | Mar 28, 2017 | Uncategorized
Writer and researcher Mary Ann Steggles is reaching out for assistance in collecting names of Ceramic Artists for a project.The project is as outlined below. Please assist if you can.
“The impact of Vietnam Era Resistors, Dodgers, COs, and social and political activists on Canadian ceramics: Can you help?
My name is Mary Ann Steggles and I arrived in Canada on June 4, 1969, as a social and political activist from Oklahoma due to the Vietnam Conflict. I have been awarded a small Canada Council Jean A Chalmers grant to research the impact of the Vietnam era resistors, dodgers, COs, and/or social and political activists on Canadian ceramics. I need help in locating individuals who set up studios and who might have taught or exhibited – women or men – if they still reside in Canada or not. Many have died but they will still be of interest. If you know of someone, please have them contact me: [email protected]
This research will be presented in its early stages at a conference in Dublin in late April 2017 celebrating Canada’s 150th anniversary and her ‘lost’ history. Eventually, all will form a book and an exhibition of the work of these marvelous individuals. Please see below for a summary of the project.
It has now been more than five decades since the United States escalated its war in Vietnam. From the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 to the fall of Saigon in 1975, between 40,000 and 100,000 Americans came to Canada as an act of resistance. These men and women, mostly white, urban, middle class and educated, whose average age was twenty-five, were leaving a country that was engulfed in political and social unrest with no promise to be able to return. They settled across Canada from British Columbia’s Vancouver and Gulf Islands to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. The Resisters, as many called them, consciously embraced new life styles, ways of earning a living, while, at the same time, being environmentally and politically pro-active. These countercultural youth recycled decades before it became mainstream. The mantra was always to cause as little damage to the environment as possible. They planted organic gardens and began food coops and day care centers. Some managed to live entirely off the proceeds of their food production while others found that they needed part time work to survive. A number learned how to make ceramics, if they had not had previous training, while others turned to glass blowing, textiles, or wood and leather working. The purpose was to create not only something useful and beautiful but also to acquire a source of income, which was not controlled by a large corporation. Indeed, it is now more than four decades since the first of the youth migrated to Canada. Most of them are now in their 70s and 80s. In the Foreword to Hell NO, We Won’t GO. Vietnam Draft Resisters in Canada, Pierre Berton states: “It is to the credit of this country that we accepted the American draft resisters in spite of pressure from the United States and in spite of efforts by some of our own authorities to send them back. That they have enriched our culture goes without saying” (Haig-Brown, 1996, p. ix-x).”
Please contact Mary Ann Steggles at [email protected]
by Carole Epp | Mar 22, 2017 | call for entry, Uncategorized
 |
| Juror Kathy King |
Clay Art Center's 2018 national juried exhibition
Application opens March 1
Deadline September 22, 2017
Description
The 2018 gallery year will feature
4 Degrees of Separation, a series of four exhibitions featuring artists whose works examine the intricacies of maneuvering life, lifestyles and living within a global society with its political and social ramifications. The first exhibition is titled
Me, Myself and I and will be followed by
THEM, US and
ALL. CAC is committed to exhibiting emerging, mid-career, and established artists, as it seeks to become a platform for the field to express potent ideas and relevant topics of our time.
Me, Myself and I will be the premiere exhibition of Clay Art Center’s year-long focus. This open juried show invites artists to submit vessel based work that explore issues surrounding identity. Artists are asked to think about such passionate issues such as who we are and how do we see ourselves within the context of society, family, relationships, and most importantly within our own skin? What role does culture, lineage, inheritance, and other characteristics of personality and sub-personalities play in how we see ourselves and define who we are?
This
exhibit seeks submissions from artists who use their functional and vessel-based ceramic art to explore concepts around self, experiences, and the triumphs and challenges faced either in the daily tasks of living or one’s place in society. This national call for entries will be juried by
Kathy King, a renowned artist and educator whose own work reflects the very core theme of the show. As guest juror, she has invited kindred artists
Mark Burns, Cheyenne Rudolph, Beth Lo, and Matt Nolen who also use their art to reflect identity and self-awareness.
Find out more here:
www.clayartcenter.org/call-for-entry/
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by Carole Epp | Mar 20, 2017 | Uncategorized
Medalta +
Make and Do
are hosting a Canadian pub night at NCECA Portland! Thursday, March
23rd, 9pm till late at Rogue distillery and public house in the
Historic Pearl District. We can't wait to see you there! .. & to all
of our Medalta alumni and international pals... well you're welcome to be honorary Canadians for the night too!
?
Click this link to find a handy map to get you to all of the exhibition
openings and the pub! Clickable locations with all of the exhibition
info and location hours. For all you Canadians with no data available
we'll have analogue printed maps at the Medalta booth.
