Visiting artists – Gillian McMillan

Before and after the crazy few days of NCECA I made some simple oval slab plates again. Last Thursday 4 artists came out to Port Moody to spend the day painting said plates. It was really a lot of fun. Eric Metcalfe had again initiated the visit, bringing along previous guests, his ex-student Eli Bornowsky and Allyson Clay (Sally). The new guest was retired ECUAD vp and artist Monique Fouquet. Monique endeared herself to us all by baking and bringing along a marvellous quiche and some delish brownies!

I simply put out a dozen or so jars of underglazes with sample tiles of each and left them to draw on the bone-dry plates and paint and chat to their hearts’ content. Meanwhile I quietly worked on inserting spouts into the seven jugbird bodies I’d thrown earlier in the week.

Here are photos of the artists at work and I will be sure to post photos of the finished plates when they come out of the glaze kiln, hopefully next week when I plan to have had a firing to add to my low stock for ArtWalk. Just for the record, here are some details on the artists.

Dr. Monique Fouquet has retired from her position as a vice president at ECU and is now back to art-making.

Allyson Clay is a professor in the Fine Arts Department at SFU and is a practising artist, and Eli Bornowsky is an artist and writer, has three times been short listed for the Royal Bank painting award and has recently been accepted into the prestigious BARD Grad School programme in Upper New York state.

Eric himself has been a painter, performance artist and sometime drawing instructor at ECUAD, was the 2006 recipient of the Audain Lifetime Achievement in the Arts award and the Governor General’s award in 2008. He and I have been working on pots and plates together for 17 years now, most notably, the Attic Project 1996-98.

Gillian McMillan

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