This morning Eric Metcalfe and Kate Bellringer came out to Port Moody for a mini-Raid. Kate is the Director of Burrard Arts Foundation (BAF) and has expressed interest in curating a first show of Raiders’ work. The owners of Terminal Creek Contemporary Art Gallery, in Artisan Square on Bowen Island have given her a slot in August 2019 so Kate is anxious to get our visiting artists organized.
Today Kate was pleased to choose a large platter to ‘doodle’ on and Eric completed one of his favourite lunch plates while we discussed what needed to be done. Luckily I have documented all of the ‘Raids’ so we have a record of which artists have joined us for plate-painting, and Alan has taken professional-quality photos of everything made during these social painting days.
We shared a typical Raiders’ lunch as Eric had made a generous pot of seafood chowder yesterday and Kate brought along an interesting salad made of kale from her garden.As I expected Eric had finished painting his newest Rhyton, a Ram, with designs which hearken back to his leopard spot work from twenty-plus years ago, specifically ‘the Attic Project’. I’m glad he left the horns yellow to contrast with the camouflage effect of the orange and black. It’ll look great when clear-glazed.
Today he chose colours similar to a print he’d made for an invitation some time ago, using pink, grey, yellow and black. It is a nice spontaneous piece.
Kate has painted radiating lines on her cheerful platter with polka dots on the reverse. Notice that she sported a ‘Raiders’ cap for the occasion!
Me, I simply amused myself painting a leather-hard red earthenware plate that I had on hand, while we planned the show.
We have a list of all the Raiders we can remember and in the next week or so Kate will compose an email which will be sent to all of them, inviting submissions and requesting permission and information.
The show will be opening on the afternoon of Saturday August 17th, so we hope you’ll make it a part of your Summer holiday plans to see the show that day, or some time before September 2nd. Kate is very interested in how this roughly ten-year-old tradition has evolved and hopes to show what effect it may have had on the practice of the artists. My intention has been to offer painters who normally work on a 2D surface the experience of using ceramic materials and dealing with a not-flat canvas, plus welcome and get to know Vancouver artists.
