by Carole Epp | Apr 6, 2022 | workshops
CLAY Voices 3rd Edition is a real gathering on Instagram connecting ceramic artists across Canada since 2020. Through informal live presentations, this April 8-10 some of the most talented contemporary Canadian makers will connect with other artists and with the community in general during a weekend on IG LIVE. From their personal IG accounts, up-and-coming and established potters and sculptors will be live-streaming during 55 mins. sharing their ideas and work with colleagues and friends. Using a mobile phone, tablet or pc, audience will follow each artist’s IG account, tuning in right on time for each presentation.
This edition, internationally renowned ceramic artist and Professor Walter Ostrom will participate as the Guest of Honour. Janna Hiemstra, executive Director of Craft Ontario, Jenna Stanton Executive Director of the Alberta Crafts Council and Sequoia Miller, Chief Curator of the Gardiner Museum in Toronto will participate in a special Panel Discussion moderated by Julie Hollenbach, assistant Professor of Craft History and Material Cultures at NSCAD University.
Presenters:
Andrea Vuletin, Ontario, Annika Hoefs, Ontario, Amelia N. Butcher, British Columbia, Grace W. Boyd, Nova Scotia, Gracia Isabel Gómez, Ontario, Jim Marshall, Alberta, Jordan McDonald, Pennsylvania, Joan Bruneau, Nova Scotia, Leandra Brandson, Manitoba, Matthew O’Reilly, Alberta, Paula Murray, Quebec, Rob Froese, Saskatchewan
Panel Discussion: Janna Hiemstra, Craft Ontario, Jenna Stanton, Alberta Crafts Council, Sequoia Miller, Gardiner Museum. Moderator: Julie Hollenbach, NSCAD University
Guest of Honour: Walter Ostrom, Nova Scotia
CLAY Voices 3 Is an initiative 100% free for the ceramics community. Gifts through Interac e-Transfer: [email protected] or paypal.me/clayvoices will support the production of this initiative and will be greatly appreciated.
Follow @clayvoices for details and schedule
Clay Voices organizer Gracia Isabel Gómez graduated with honours from Sheridan College Craft and Design Ceramics, Ontario. Currently, she is developing a new body of work as a year-long artist in residence at Medalta International Artists in Residence Program, Medicine Hat, AB.
Gracia Isabel started CLAY Voices in 2020 as a response to the uncertainty and isolation artists were facing when the pandemic hit. The circumstances have improved but challenges still remain and CLAY Voices has become part of her practice, hoping to contribute to the Ceramics Community.
Gracia Isabel Gómez Cantoya
[email protected]
by Carole Epp | Jun 17, 2021 | Uncategorized
Bridget Fairbank has created the Ceramic Literacy Bookclub open to all. She was inspired to make this long-time goal come true by a talk at the recent Ceramic Congress online conference.
Ceramists are rigorous passionate researchers but as always, more minds are better than one. If you need to make space in your studio practice to connect with written works, join up for a book a month at www.bpracticalpottery.com and you will automatically receive a zoom link (50 Participants Max). Four months are scheduled already and spaces are filling up.
June 30th 6pm MST
Live Form: Women, Ceramics and Community by Jenni Sorkin.
Jenni herself will be joining us on zoom!
“Ceramics had a far-reaching impact in the second half of the twentieth century, as its artists worked through the same ideas regarding abstraction and form as those for other creative mediums. Live Form shines new light on the relation of ceramics to the artistic avant-garde by looking at the central role of women in the field: potters who popularized ceramics as they worked with or taught male counterparts like John Cage, Peter Voulkos, and Ken Price.
Sorkin focuses on three Americans who promoted ceramics as an advanced artistic medium: Marguerite Wildenhain, a Bauhaus-trained potter and writer; Mary Caroline (M. C.) Richards, who renounced formalism at Black Mountain College to pursue new performative methods; and Susan Peterson, best known for her live throwing demonstrations on public television. Together, these women pioneered a hands-on teaching style and led educational and therapeutic activities for war veterans, students, the elderly, and many others. Far from being an isolated field, ceramics offered a sense of community and social engagement, which, Sorkin argues, crucially set the stage for later participatory forms of art and feminist collectivism.”
July 25th 6pm MST
The White Road by Edmund de Waal
“Extraordinary new non-fiction, a gripping blend of history and memoir, by the author of the award-winning and bestselling international sensation, The Hare with Amber Eyes’.
In The White Road, bestselling author and artist Edmund de Waal gives us an intimate narrative history of his lifelong obsession with porcelain, or “white gold.” A potter who has been working with porcelain for more than forty years, de Waal describes how he set out on five journeys to places where porcelain was dreamed about, refined, collected and coveted – and that would help him understand the clay’s mysterious allure. From his studio in London, he starts by travelling to three “white hills” – sites in China, Germany and England that are key to porcelain’s creation. But his search eventually takes him around the globe and reveals more than a history of cups and figurines; rather, he is forced to confront some of the darkest moments of twentieth-century history.
Part memoir, part history, part detective story, The White Road chronicles a global obsession with alchemy, art, wealth, craft and purity. In a sweeping yet intimate style that recalls The Hare with Amber Eyes, de Waal gives us a singular understanding of “the spectrum of porcelain” and the mapping of desire.”
August 30th 7:15 MST
Vote on your choice by July 1.
Sign up for an August read and rate your top three choices for what to read in the sign up form comments or email me your choice.
1) Fewer, Better Things by Glenn Adamson
2) How to See: Looking Talking, and Thinking about Art by David Sell
3) New Wave Clay by Tom Morris
4) Betty Woodman: Theatre of the Domestic By (artist) Betty Woodman
5) Paul Mathieu Art of the Future
Published Online Here: http://www.paulmathieu.ca/theartofthefuture/The%20Art%20of%20the%20Future.pdf
September 30th 7:15 MST
Good Earth: The Pots of Walter Ostrom
Naomi Clement, author of an article on Walter Ostrom in Sept’s Ceramic Review Magazine will be joining us!
“Walter Ostrom has been described as an “innovative traditionalist,” a disruptive force shaking up ceramic conventions while simultaneously enriching them. Hired to teach studio and Asian art history at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1969, Ostrom was one of many American artists who moved north to Canada in the fallout from the Vietnam War.
Ostrom’s work, from his embrace of conceptual art in the 1970s to his current exploration of the vast history, hybridization, and social foundation of ceramics, marks him as a major force in the development of contemporary ceramics. As Ray Cronin writes, Ostrom’s works “declare themselves to be art and craft at once, tradition and innovation merged, beauty and function reconciled, thought and action combined. What more could one ask from any work of art?”
Accompanying a major retrospective exhibition at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia opening in May 2020, Good Earth features essays by leading scholars and curators along with full-colour reproductions of over fifty examples of Ostrom’s works.”
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Please email Bridget at [email protected] with any comments or questions.
Remember to sign up via www.bpracticalpottery.com to get a zoom link!
by Carole Epp | Oct 21, 2020 | movie day
Good Earth: The Pots & Passion of Walter Ostrom
Thursday, 8 October 2020 to Sunday, 14 March 2021
Co-curated by Dr. Sandra Alfoldy, Shannon Parker, and Dr. Julie Hollenbach
Energy. Enthusiasm. Knowledge. Honesty. Inspired. Ardor for material. These are the terms that describe Walter Ostrom and his relationship with clay. They can also be summed up in one word: Passion.
Passion is a simple word and yet the immense complexity of it as a concept is at the core of Ostrom and from it flows the worldwide mosaic of his relationships, his incredible devotion as an educator, his drive for knowledge, and his love for creativity in all aspects of his life, but particularly for pottery.
Walter Ostrom is one of Canada’s foremost ceramic artists. He revolutionized clay from ethical brown earthenware to colourful, bright maiolica and inspired generations of ceramists who follow him to this day. This exhibition investigates Ostrom’s earliest work in stoneware and porcelain, his conceptual projects at NSCAD University, the many ways his love of gardening—and particularly rhododendrons—influenced his work, the huge impact China and its ceramic traditions and ceramists had on his life and practice, and his lifetime commitment to the exploration and reinvigoration of the ancient ceramic tradition of tin-glaze.
Good Earth examines Ostrom’s practice of altering form, surface treatments, and the rich elements of social commentary, geographic references, art history, and political statements he imbues in his work. An inspired instructor for over 40 years, Ostrom’s influence on a selection of his many celebrated students is also reflected in this exhibition.
Ostrom is celebrated internationally with galleries dedicated to the collection and presentation of his work in Canada, the United States, Europe and China. This bilingual touring exhibition is the first major retrospective to chronicle Ostrom’s career and impact on the field of global ceramics.
www.artgalleryofnovascotia.ca/exhibitions/walterostromgoodearth
by Carole Epp | Feb 5, 2020 | workshops
This two-week workshop will focus on the multiple ways to enhance thrown and hand built ceramic forms through colour and pattern. The workshop is open to advanced students. Applicants must submit a resume of experience and six (6) images of their work. Applications must be received by April 17, 2020, and notice of acceptance will be issued by April 24, 2020.
Demonstrations will focus on monoprint, paper resist, and toner-resist transfer methods. In addition to these wet processes, glaze application strategies will be addressed. Other surface techniques will be introduced as time allows. Demonstrations on altering the thrown form will serve as building blocks for innovative pots that are truly one of a kind. Emphasis will be on pouring pots and lidded forms.
Alongside daily demonstrations, the course will include informative and inspiring presentations by NSCAD University Professor Emeritus, Walter Ostrom, CM, looking at pots from cultures and contexts from the past to the present. Development of individual studio work will be punctuated by energetic conversations that integrate growing technical skill and a love of the history of ceramic objects.
Date & Time:
Jun 29 – Jul 10, 2020
9am – 4pm
Fee:
$895
Level:
Advanced
Please register online and send applications items to [email protected], subject line: Pattern and Print Application.
About Walter Ostrom and Martina Lantin:
Walter Ostrom, CM, Professor Emeritus, Ceramics, NSCAD
In 1997, he was awarded an Honorary Professorship at the Jingdezhen Ceramics Institute in Jingdezhen, Jianxi Province, People’s Republic of China. On February 5, 2007 he was invested into the Order of Canada in recognition of his teaching and creativity in ceramics. In November 2008 he was given the Portia White Award in recognition of his leading contribution to the arts in Nova Scotia. In 2014 he was appointed a Regis Master at the Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis, MN. Ostrom was appointed a ’Life Fellow’ in ceramics by NSCAD University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, at it’s spring 2017 convocation. An outstanding educator, he is committed to Craft practice and theory.
Walter is regarded internationally and in Canada as a technical and academic expert in low-fire maiolica, an ancient ceramic technique that he has personally tailored through innovations and decorative methods to reflect the geography of the places where he has lived, whether in Nova Scotia or the Far East. His body of work has developed across many aspects of ceramics in the span of a nearly 50-year career, from experiments in high conceptualism in the 1970s to a contemporary focus on the exploration of the vast history, hybridization and social foundation of ceramics.
He has extensively exhibited and lectured internationally. His work has appeared in numerous books and periodicals. His work has been collected by many public collections, including the Museum of Civilization, Ottawa; the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia; Halifax, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. We are fortunate to have Walter teaching for his forth Summer at our School.
Congratulations are in order for Walter on two fronts: he has been selected as a recipient of the 2020 NCECA ‘Excellence in Teaching Award’, which will be presented to him at NCECA’s 54th annual conference on Friday, March 27, 2020; and, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia is mounting a retrospective exhibition entitled “Good Earth: The Pots and Passion of Walter Ostrom” to be officially opened on April 24, 2020, including a companion catalogue and film.
Martina Lantin, Associate Professor, Ceramics, Alberta University of the Arts (formerly “ACAD”)
Born in Montreal, Canada, Martina Lantin received her Bachelor of Art (1996), from Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana, and her Master of Fine Arts (2009) from NSCAD University. She has completed residencies in the United States and China and taught workshops throughout North America. Martina is an Associate Professor at AUArts in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Lantin’s work has been recognized in numerous juried and invitational exhibitions internationally. Committed to the joys of working in earthenware, Martina explores the history and boundaries of functional ceramics through objects and mixed media installation.
Find out more on the Lunenburg School of The Arts Website
by Carole Epp | Mar 2, 2017 | Uncategorized
Date & Time:
Jul 10 – 21, 2017
10:00am – 4:00pm
Fee:
$750 + $100 materials
Instructor:
Walter Ostrom, CM and Jordan McDonald
In this intensive two-week workshop, students will be pushed to
advance their technical and conceptual understanding of pottery. The
course will revolve around projects designed to explore alternative
strategies and approaches. Slide lectures and discussions will present
unconventional perspectives and insights from ceramics history
encompassing contemporary practice. Demonstrations will include bizarre
throwing and hand-building techniques, slips and glazes. This course is
an opportunity for one-on-one interaction relative to your work and
personal development. To provide some respite from the drudging and
toiling in the studio, there will be short field trips in the area to
view ceramic studios and collections. High octane glaze testing and
surface exploration are also a part of this course. Prior clay
experience is required.
Materials:
Students should bring the following:
- Your ceramic tool kit
- Apron & towel
- Notebook
About Walter Ostrom, CM and Jordan McDonald:
Walter Ostrom, CM
Emeritus Professor Ceramics NSCAD
Walter Ostrom, C.M. was recently appointed Professor Emeritus of
Ceramics at NSCAD University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. In1997, he
was awarded an Honorary Professorship at the Jingdezhen Ceramics
Institute in Jingdezhen, Jianxi Province, People’s Republic of China. An
outstanding educator, he is committed to Craft practice and theory.
Walter is regarded internationally and in Canada as a technical and
academic expert in low-fire maiolica, an ancient ceramic technique that
he has personally tailored through innovations and decorative methods to
reflect the geography of the places where he has lived, whether Nova
Scotia or the Far East. His body of work has developed across many
aspects of ceramics in the span of a nearly 50-year career, from
experiments in high conceptualism in the 1970s to a contemporary focus
on the exploration of the vast history, hybridization and social
foundation of ceramics.
He has extensively exhibited and lectured internationally. His work
has appeared in numerous books and periodicals. His work has been
collected by many public collections, including the Museum of
Civilization, Ottawa, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax, the
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
On February 5th, 2007, he was invested into the Order of Canada. In
November 2008 he was given the Portia White Award in recognition of his
leading contribution to the arts in Nova Scotia. In 2014 he was
appointed a Regis Master at the Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis, MN.
Jordan McDonald
Jordan McDonald is currently a Resident Artist at The Clay Studio in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Jordan grew up in the suburbs of Toronto
where he first studied ceramics at Sheridan College in Oakville,
Ontario. He received his BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and
Design in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 2009. He then attended the New York
State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in Alfred, New York,
where he received his MFA in 2011.
Among other awards and recognition, in 2014 Jordan was nominated for
the RBC Emerging Artist Award, and received the Recommendation Prize at
the Taiwan Ceramic Biennial in 2016. His work can be found in noteworthy
private and public collections, including the Gardiner Museum in
Toronto and the Yingge Ceramics Museum in Taipei, Taiwan.
Jordan is currently an Adjunct Professor at the Maryland Institute
College of Art (MICA). He has also taught ceramics at the Tyler School
of Art, Temple University in Philadelphia and the Nova Scotia College of
Art and Design in Halifax.
http://www.jordanmcdonaldceramics.com
www.lunenburgarts.org/programs/ceramics-alternative-strategies/
