At last we have had a gorgeous, if cool sunny day. Al and I took an hour-long walk down to the nearby Trans-Canada Trail and were pleased to see Schoolhouse Creek salmon stream restoration under the recently opened Skytrain Line.

Then I decided to use the non-rainy day to take plates out to the kiln shed rather than make a mad dash up to the Coquitlam Craft Fair. I hope all my pottery friends had a successful weekend there, and elsewhere. The days of my packing pots to those events are over! My kiln is now started, rising slowly to make sure all the plates painted yesterday are completely dry before I crank the heat up later this evening.

Three raiders, Mina, Cindy and Marlene, were out here two weeks ago so their plates were loaded first. Six more artists came yesterday; Renee and Monique, Eric invited newcomers Garry and Cathy, and Marlene joined us in time for lunch. All but one of the finished plates are now cooking. I am expecting a final small group soon so fear not, all the work will be fired by Christmas time. I didn’t get any new pieces of my own made – it’s taken all my ‘free’ time to make enough plates. The Raiders are asking for the new, larger ones and although they look great they do take up more shelf space. Some want the bottoms glazed too so I need to get some more stilts (anybody have some I can buy to save myself a Greenbarn trip?) and that’ll mean more space taken up between shelves.

Garry Neill Kennedy and Cathy Busby recently moved to Vancouver from their home in Nova Scotia to teach at UBC. Garry was the founder and director of NSCAD. This link will take you to an interview with Garry on his book The Last Art College, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design 1968-1978. 

http://nscad.ca/en/home/abouttheuniversity/news/qawithgarryneillkennedy.aspx

I was pleased to be able to tell Garry that NSCAD’s ceramics master, Walter Ostrom was out here at ECIAD in the summer of 1993, to give what was my third summer ceramics course. We worked with luscious red earthenware and maiolica glaze techniques mainly, BUT Walter introduced us to the use of coloured slips on earthenware, and 23 years later, that’s what I still do! (Except for occasional salt-firing).

Eric refers to Garry as a conceptualist, and certainly his minimal work yesterday would bear that out. Cathy is a political artist and her two large platters have a message. You’ll be interested to see their finished pieces in a week or so. The others produced their usual carefully thought-out and executed work.

And as usual we had a vast lunch, this time including home-made soup and quiche, baked leeks and potatoes, fine fresh loaf of bread, cold cuts and cheeses. I do enjoy these sociable working days in my studio and am fascinated by what the artists choose to paint on my plates and platters.