Keith Lehman and Carole Henshall are an item, have shared a studio and a home, are both potters and are in fact, married. They’ve worked together for Craft Fairs, as a team when it’s their turn to staff the Kingsmill Pottery shop and side by side in their shared studio space behind the Gallery of BC Ceramics, on Granville Island. But this is the first time they’ve planned a show in which every piece is a collaboration. We’ve seen Keith’s extraordinary wheel thrown intergalactic but functional creations, and watched as Carole enjoys combining re-purposed woollen garments as jackets for her cuddle cups. What would they make together that was not Keith’s or Carole’s but represented both of their whimsical minds? 
‘Two for Joy!” is a show filled with completely functional pieces, and for this occasion, Keith tells me, all thrown by him. Because Carole has usually been the one who experiments with resist materials she took on the job of applying tape resist designs to every piece. They’ve posted little videos and teaser photos of the work as it progressed, on Facebook. We saw how Keith applies a layer of black slip over the resist and then watched as the tape is carefully removed to reveal a mad variety of owls, hedgehogs, moons, branches and the very occasional space ship. All the work is then bisqued and glazed with either a good serviceable white or a fine orange shino and fired to cone 6 in reduction. Both glazes allow the black to show through. The limited colour range gives the whole show a coherence, and ‘Poplar Studio’ (Carole and Keith) have even had a smart rubber stamp made specially for this show. Every piece is marked ‘Two for Joy” so I assume the stamp will not be used again! 
When I arrived at the Gallery at 5pm on Wednesday, people were already admiring the work, and later, after I’d made a quick pottery delivery trip over to Circle Craft, I found that the opening party was in full swing! My photos give a general look at the work and some of the people enjoying it. The show will be up until March 1st. Go and see their well-made and carefully decorated work and have a little smile. You may decide that ‘Two for Joy!” is a good theme for a Valentine’s Day gift.
