Tam Irving led the second ‘conversation’ at the Museum of Anthropology with Glenn Lewis and Debra Sloan. With carefully planned questions he encouraged the two artists to reveal the thinking behind their work, Glenn’s from 1969 and Debra’s from her very recent year spent as ceramic artist-in-residence amongst the Koerner Ceramic Collection.

Tam pointed out that both artists have strong connections to the Leach Pottery in St. Ives. Glenn was an apprentice to Bernard Leach back in the day, honing his wheel-throwing skills before returning to Vancouver and becoming involved with ‘Intermedia’. He recently returned to St. Ives, along with fellow apprentice Warren MacKenzie, for a historic workshop.

Debra has given three workshops at the same studio, and although she can and does throw functional ware she is primarily a sculptor and while at St. Ives she chose to use Bernard Leach’s whimsical roof finials as inspiration. Several roofs in the much-loved seaside town now sport new ceramic finials. Debra has responded with more details on her St. Ives residency and workshops, on Koerner’s intentions and with more thoughts on David Lambert’s work from the last century. To read her letter go to the next blog.

The assigned word for this pair was CENSORSHIP so Tam gave some dictionery definitions and explanations of same before asking the straightforward question, ‘should galleries be free of any form of censorship?’ That was easy.. both said ‘yes’! But then Glenn went on to explain what had happened with the large mural that is his one piece in the current show. It is composed of one foot square tiles superimposed with a salt or pepper shakers. Some are broken. All are white. He made eight on each day and on two days he kept a journal instead of adding the shakers. This somewhat tongue-in-cheek artwork was considered too risqué by the Canadian embassy folk so they decided to send it all the way back to Ottawa from Osaka, where it was intended to be part of Canada’s Pavilion for the Osaka World Fair in 1969. It sat in storage for years and now is owned by the Vancouver Art Gallery. Do you think the shakers are too phallus-like? for Japan?

Debra, having worked with Walter Koerner’s life-time collection of Anabaptist pottery from his home country of Czechoslovakia, feels that he had a connection to their struggles and escape. Not Anabaptist but Jewish, he escaped Europe and made his home in Vancouver. As part of his huge financial funding of the Museum he insisted that the folk pottery from his homeland be housed all together in the Koerner Gallery. Debra has used her signature press-moulded babies as a canvas for applying decals and painted images that reflect the tin-glazed ware in the collection. She thinks of them as cautionary containers. The Museum has now instituted an ongoing residency for ceramic artists to work with the collection for some months. Sharon Reay has the position now.

Although the show ‘Playing With Fire: Ceramics of the Extraordinary’ is intended to celebrate the unusual rather than the predictability of functional ware, I think that some work or artists were chosen as a way of bringing to light the History of Ceramics here in BC. Tam told me to be honest so I shall note here that I think that the mid-Century work of David Lambert should not be considered extraordinary, except as politically incorrect ware from the past, and certainly should not be housed in the Multiversity Gallery. I can see that this is probably a temporary display but it doesn’t fit into this show and I think that Indigenous and other visitors to the collection will be dismayed. I’ll add the curator’s explanation here. Am I being a censor?

My next blog will look at Paul Mathieu’s conversation with his students Ying Yueh Chuang and Alwyn O’Brien.