A few weeks ago Vancouver ceramic artist David Robinson was the presenter for our April TriCity Potters’ meeting.
David is a wildly popular teacher of children’s clay classes at Place des Arts, in Coquitlam and he says that working with children is a real pleasure. Adults, not so much.
He gave us a charming presentation on his life so far, from a hippie childhood in then-remote Powell River, a first-in-his-family degree from Emily Carr U to his current shared studio in Vancouver’s Chinatown. He has a passion for raku firing and other somewhat dangerous and sometimes experimental processes in the clay world.
Following a lifelong love of rural life he tells of finding wasp nests in a Princeton barn and, with the thought that they are paper-like, dipped them in porcelain slip and fired them. Voila, intricate, one-of-a-kind sculptures. He now coats them in gold lustre and has sold them as pendants. After discovering that these are prone to smashing while being worn he now makes them in precious metals!
We saw slides of David’s work. He isn’t a functional potter but is full of enthusiasm for all things clay. We saw slides of the time-consuming process of making moulds for slip-casting antlers and skulls for his assembled sculptures.
David asked us to spread the word that he has a portable raku-firing set-up and is delighted to bring raku-firing opportunities to any group who would like to hire him for a fun day.
Thanks David for an enjoyable evening.
