by Carole Epp | Feb 23, 2011 | Uncategorized
As a kid growing up on an apple orchard in Southwestern Ontario, mom’s homemade play dough was my favorite thing to play with. I loved the stuff. My poor mother sacrificed her dining room table for years so that I had somewhere to create. I was always a pretty creative kid and enjoyed art classes in school.
Until high school, that is. In high school we were given the opportunity to take either art or music. I chose music. Not because I didn’t want to take art, but rather, because I was horrible at drawing and couldn’t paint to save my life. For some reason, I had always just assumed that art class in high school was all about painting and drawing, and so I avoided it like the plague. I suffered all through high school taking music classes and focusing on science, all the while wishing I could take pottery classes. Once graduation rolled around, I was off to university to persue sciences but pottery was always a lingering thought. I didn’t last long in sciences. I was horribly unhappy and knew that something had to change. I made the switch to social sciences for all of one semester but there was still something missing. I decided that if I was going to be
happy, I needed to go to school for something I always wanted to do. Pottery.
Much to the horror of my parents, I dropped out, moved back home and put together a portfolio to apply to art school. Within 6 months I was on my way to Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver where I completed a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts, Visual Arts Degree in 2002.
I have never looked back. I have been a full time potter since 2005 and am currently working in functional porcelain. I have absolutely no regrets about the path I have chosen – though really, it feels more like the path chose me.
www.ragingbowlpottery.com
www.ragingbowl.etsy.com
www.ragingbowl.blogspot.com
by Carole Epp | Feb 22, 2011 | Uncategorized
Clayworks Studio-Link and the Edmonton Potters Guild invite you to learn a variety of printing techniques to create new surfaces on your finished work.
Cathy will demonstrate water-based printing techniques, from basic transfers with rubber stamps, and introduce participants to screen printing with slips and underglazes. She will demonstrate printing onto tissue-paper as well as more direct methods of printing onto clay. She will also teach you how to make decals using laser printers and photocopiers. Her range of techniques can be readily used by both beginner and advanced ceramic artists, in any type of kiln.
When: Friday March 25, 6-9 & Saturday March 26, 9-4
Where: 10125-81 Avenue (Studio-link)
Cost: $95
(payment made at either the EPG or at Studio-link by March 11)
Cathy Terepocki graduated from Alberta College of Art and Design in 2004 with a BFA in ceramics. Since then she has been selling and exhibiting her work at galleries and shops across Canada. Her pieces have been featured in major exhibitions such as Canada’s Unity and Diversity Exhibition at the Cheongju International Craft Biennale and at the Vancouver Museum as part of the 2010 Cultural Olympiad.
Contact: Alethea ([email protected]) or Elly (413-0118)
by Carole Epp | Feb 19, 2011 | Uncategorized
Installation: White Athabaska III, Red, Red III, Red IV Athabaska 120 W x 75 H inches
Shifted & Drift Ceramic, Terra Sigillata, Oil Paint 74 H x 58 W inches, 25 H x 52 W x 91 L inches
Red Athabaska IV Ceramic, Acrylic 36 W x 73 H inches
@font-face { font-family: “Arial”; }@font-face { font-family: “Goudy Old Style”; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: “Times New Roman”; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); }div.Section1 { page: Section1; Xanthe Isbister was born in 1980 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts Honors degree from the University of Manitoba in 2004 and her Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2008. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Lila Acheson Wallace Readers Digest Scholarship, from the University of Manitoba, a Hixson-Lied Graduate Fellowship and the Eisentrager Howard Scholarship from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Most recently she was awarded a Special Opportunities grant from the Manitoba Arts Council, and is currently a yearlong artist in residence at the Medalta International Artists in Residence in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada. Since 2002 she has exhibited nationally and internationally, most recently at the National Conference on Education for the Ceramic Arts in Phoenix, AZ. Her large ceramic sculptures and installations explore the psychological significance and impact the natural environment has on human identity.
Installation: Burnt Ceramic and Glazes 144 H x 240 W x 180 L inches
www.xantheisbister.com.
by Carole Epp | Feb 17, 2011 | call for entry, emerging artist, job posting, monday morning eye candy, movie day, residency opportunity, show us your influences, technical tuesday
APPLICATION DEADLINE: MARCH 1, 2011
Now in its 50th year, the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition [TOAE] is a juried showcase featuring contemporary fine art and craft that takes place annually on Nathan Phillips Square, every July.
As the largest outdoor art exhibition in Canada, TOAE offers a fresh-air alternative to conventional art shows and galleries. Hundreds of artists participate and an estimated 100,000 visitors attend the exhibition every year. Side by side, established artists, undiscovered talents and innovative students sell their work directly to the public and make lasting connections with art dealers and collectors.
In 2010, the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition’s award program presented over $30,000 in cash awards and prizes to participating artists.
The Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition is a charitable, non-profit organization supported by a group of volunteers active in the art and corporate communities. The exhibition is financed through registration fees, and by government, corporate and individual sponsors, enabling the TOAE to charge one of the lowest registration fees in North America. No percentage of the artists’ sales is taken by the organizers. Apply online at the TOAE website at or call 416.408.2754 for more information. For further information, please contact: Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition
264 – 401 Richmond Street West
Toronto, ON
M5V 3A8
416.408.2754
toae [at] torontooutdoorart [dot] org
by Carole Epp | Feb 16, 2011 | Uncategorized
*** Special Note: Shannon Merritt is the Featured Artist at the Gallery of BC Ceramics from February 15th to March 15th make sure you stop by to see her work in person!
(gallery information here: http://www.bcpotters.com/Gallery/index.html )
Artist Biography
Shannon Merritt grew up in southern Ontario, tidy and shy. She received a B.A. in Native Studies from Trent University and moved to Yellowknife, NT where she spent winter nights tickling the aurora borealis, and summer days portaging her canoe through the forests of biting flies.
Shannon is a graduate of the Kootenay School of Arts in Nelson, BC where she lives, waking each day to the view of Elephant Mountain. She considers herself a writer disguised as a potter.
Artist Statement
I’m a potter and I’ve a fondness for words. I spent the better part of two days taking apart a typewriter so that I could press the keys into the flesh of the clay, recording my thoughts and observations onto pots. I’ve collected a number of things that are used as stamps. These miscellaneous cast-offs are more valuable than trimming tools and include antique letterpress blocks, pieces of retired machinery, and a caribou tooth from my adventures in the North. Together, the words and symbols become a story of my rhythm of making. Lessons, kindnesses, tattletales and laughs are highlighted using coloured slip beneath a clear glaze.
I am making modern day folk pots to create an intimacy in the way we consume the foods of our time. These hand built or wheel thrown and altered pots speak of precious functionality: bowls that are meant to be sipped from, and mugs with inverted handles, so that the user can cradle the cup, warming the hands. The proof of alteration has been left to remind the user of the individual attention the pot received.
These techniques come from a millennium of making, and applying them to contemporary functional porcelain pots is an exciting way of story-telling. It’s incredibly personal this shared journaling. And what I’m finding is that the pots I write stir something in the people who use them. It’s almost as if we’ve witnessed something together, like we share a great secret.
The words are a reaching out; a minute’s worth of conversation between us.
