movie day: Grace Han

by | Mar 24, 2021 | movie day

Winnipeg-based ceramics artist Grace Han is searching for her true identity inside her clay creations.

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Winnipeg-based ceramics artist Grace Han is searching for her true identity inside her clay creations. But what is her true, “real” self? For Han it’s ineffable, but she catches glimpses in her work. “I don’t think I’d be able to explain who the real Grace Han is, but when I do my ceramic *work* I don’t have to think about who I am. The body works and then something invisible turns into the energy and then the work captures that person at that moment.” “I discovered myself in my work.” When Han moved from South Korea to Winnipeg, she felt she became very quiet. “I wanted to hide,” she *tells* us. “I felt like I lost myself in a way. I just want to be myself, I want to find the Grace Han, the real Grace Han.” While she studied ceramics in Korea, she never felt she wanted to be an artist, but in Winnipeg she decided to dive in again. For Han, the materials of ceramics allow her to capture and present the different aspects of herself. With clay she shows the strong part of herself. “Clay can be very bold so with these big pieces I wanted to show the heaviness of the material and the boldness of myself.” On the other side of the ceramic spectrum is delicate porcelain which she uses to show the “meticulous and very detailed part of Grace.” Han’s latest project is a video performance captured in this episode of Art Is My Country that captures her evolution as a new Canadian artist. In the performance, she dresses in a traditional Korean dress and uses a traditional wheel to form her ceramic piece. “This dress it’s a metaphor for the expectations or responsibilities that I had to carry that I brought from Korea because this dress gives me lots of restrictions while I’m working.” As she works she removes pieces of the dress, symbolizing her own life’s cultural shift. “At the moment of creation I slowly take layers off so I can be free. I just want to be free from everything, expectations, pressure, just be myself.” Between these two countries, Han is coming to know her new self that is some of both and also neither. “These days whenever I go back to Korea I don’t feel I fit there anymore. I am becoming myself, not Korean Grace, not Canadian Grace I’m just becoming myself and now the frustration is gone.” At the end of her video performance, after she has built a beautiful new jar, she pushes it off the wheel, smashing it on the floor. “I can destroy the jar. My main goal was the process. The jar did its job today.”

www.gracehanclay.com

Thrown @ Touchstones Nelson

by | Mar 18, 2021 | exhibition

“The show, which runs March 13 to May 29, is a group exhibition featuring a diverse cross-section of artists from across the country, all of which offer a distinct and exemplary approach to ceramics. Featured in the show are Samantha Dickie, an abstract assemblage artist from Victoria, BC; John Kuroc, an artist from Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, specializing in hand-built forms; Shary Boyle, an artist of many mediums who explores the fantastical potential of the human form; Jody Greenman-Barber, whose delicate works find inspiration from dance and movement; Sergio Raffo, a Kaslo resident of Cuban origin who works in both human and architectural forms; Robin Dupont, a specialist in atmospheric firing techniques and a skilled kiln-builder; and Rory Macdonald, an artist and professor at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, whose work blurs the line between installation and intervention.

“These types of medium-centric group exhibitions create an opportunity for a rare form of dialogue amongst the participating artists, even in times when active mentorship and collaboration are not possible, as the respective works speak so strongly of perspective and means and method,” says Touchstones Nelson Curator Arin Fay. THROWN, Fay explains, is the second iteration of an ongoing series of medium-centric exhibitions which was inspired by Lost Thread, a well-received group textile show mounted in 2018 which highlighted six textile artists from across the nation, but with a very specific focus on regional Kootenay artists, and with “the same eye to diversity of expression and methodology,” she adds. “This formula of curating exhibitions gives us the opportunity to include ‘our’ artists in wide-ranging cultural and creative conversations, within a Canadian context.”

This project is being supported through a Canada Council grant and has partnered with Selkirk College and Medalta in Medicine Hat. This exhibition project will support a tour to Medalta in the Summer of 2021, a publication, and online programming.”

Find out more about the art and artists and view the exhibition online HERE.

make and do call for entry for The Ceramic Congress

by | Mar 16, 2021 | call for entry

DEADLINE IS MAY1st, 2021

We at Make and Do will be partnering with the Ceramic School (https://ceramic.school) for the upcoming Ceramic Congress May 27-31, 2021. During the congress, we will be showcasing all the amazing ceramic works being made in our great country. We would like to highlight the work of Canadian ceramic artists from each province.

This is where you come in. Do you have a short video that you would like to share with the world? The video could be of your latest works, or a time-lapse of making a teapot, or even a guided tour of your studio! All we ask is that it’s 5 minutes or less and clay-related.

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Bonjour chère communauté céramique,

Le regroupement Make and Do s’associe avec The Ceramic School (https://ceramic.school) pour l’événement Ceramic Congress qui aura lieu du 27 au 31 mai 2021. Pendant toute la durée de la conférence, nous diffuserons l’extraordinaire travail des céramistes canadiens de chaque province et territoires.

Avez-vous une courte video à partager qui représente votre travail et vos valeurs? Nous désirons présenter votre travail actuel ou la démonstration d’une technique en intervalles de temps accélérées ou une visite d’atelier. Les vidéos ne doivent pas excéder 5 min et être sauvegardées en format mpeg. ou mov.

Submit your content HERE!