Luckily it was a sunny cold day for Susan Delatour Lepoidevin and her partner Rod to drive the 3 1/2 hours to the Coast from Princeton. November can so often be dreadfully wet here and therefore snowy on Highway 3. I’m also pleased that they stopped at Greenbarn to stock up on clay, visited friends, and managed to fit in a trip to Granville Island and MEC to justify the drive here for Susan to speak to TriCity Potters.

She stayed at our house after her talk so it was great to get to know each other better. I gather she enjoyed seeing our collection of pots etc. There was a good turn-out of interested TCP members for the monthly meeting. We conducted a brief AGM and discussed last-minute planning for our weekend Pottery Sale before grabbing coffee and goodies to relax and enjoy Susan’s ‘slide’ show.

My photos of some of the slides are poor but give an idea of the themes of her talk. We heard her story of a career as a clay artist and how it has taken her from New York to Oregon, California and then to Banff. She is inspired by buildings, whether they’re ancient stone Crofter’s cottages or boldly painted houses in Southern France. She always carries a sketch book and makes simplified water-colour and pen and ink drawings which later inform her clay sculptures. These then, do not pretend to be direct copies of buildings she’s seen but are charming little tales in themselves. They bring thoughts of the colours, shapes and events of a place. Some of them may be painted blue for sky, or are peopled with characters from the house’s story.

Susan usually pit-fires the pieces and uses this process to create shadows of these residents or of trees.

There are vessels representing unknown worlds with figures balanced on the rim. Like an abstract painting these invite the viewer to imagine the story behind the form.

Susan has a job manning the Princeton Weather station and this keeps her in a quiet location for twelve-hour stretches, allowing time to sketch, think and walk between her weather observation obligations. But it keeps her from her studio. It is the problem faced by many artists who need to earn a living beyond selling their artwork. Living in a small town also means that all her work has to be shipped to shows and galleries. I shall feel less resentful of my drive in to Vancouver with pots next time!

We were able to pick up and admire a good selection of Susan’s work, some houses, some vessels and some salt and pepper shaker house forms. These latter had been fired in a group salt firing with other members of ‘Fired-Up’, the Metchosin-based group who have a much anticipated sale every Spring. Susan is a founding member of this group and will be participating in three events to celebrate 30 years together in 2014.

Gallery of BC Ceramics, Granville Island   March 6-30, 2014

Metchosin Hall, Victoria  May 29-31, 2014

Jonathan Bancroft-Snell Gallery, London, Ontario  Aug 6-30, 2014

Susan has given a number of workshops, first inspiring participants with ideas of colourful houses, amazing Coastal rock forms and bold colours of buildings she has seen and then encouraging them to construct their own imaginary house. She shows her methods of painting the leather-hard work with underglazes and glazes and then discusses possible firing techniques, including her signature pit-firing.

We hope to have Susan back in the Spring to present a workshop for TriCity Potters and others who can travel here. As soon as we have a date and location lined up we’ll post it on our website.

For more complete information on Susan and to see better photos of her work check her website.

 http://susandelatour.com