June, Linda and I attended the opening of the latest show at the Gallery of BC Ceramics “From Ashes to Art” on Thursday May 4th. Luckily for you it will be up until May 27th but if perchance you can’t get in to Granville Island, take a look at some photos here.

Four artists who have been firing their work in Shadbolt Centre’s Wood kiln have assembled their best examples of this labour-intensive process: David Lloyd, Cheryl Stapleton, Dorothy Doherty and Fredi Rahn. The four work in very different ways to take advantage of the flame, length of firing and the ashes. I’ll just let you browse through my photos of pots in the show. I am adding artists’ names wherever possible.

I photographed two fine globular forms with beautiful rich colours, by Dorothy Doherty, at Fraser Valley Potters Guild show recently in Maple Ridge. So I recognized her pieces right away. There was also a juicy blue salt-like vessel which grabbed my attention.

David Lloyd was experimenting with adding chunks to his clay body when I first met him years ago and again this allowed me to know which are his. I can’t imagine throwing with that clay!

Fredi, a long-time Shadbolt Centre instructor, has worked in every type of clay and fired with electric, gas, soda and here, with wood. Her very functional ware is much enhanced by the wood firing, showing some random variation in the classic warm chestnutty colours.

And Cheryl Stapleton has been a ceramics instructor at various community centres and at Shadbolt Centre for a long while. Her delicate ‘shell’ yunomis thrown with translucent porcelain were a delight to us gallery visitors and she was happy to pose with one. Enjoy the show!