Pottery demonstration at NCECA | 4 citian Mevinon

Walter Keeler and Tip Toland work side-by-side on stage, with video
of their demonstrations, plus slides of their work and influences in
the background..

Teapot handle ready to
be attached.

Walter shows off his
finished teapot.

We've just returned from four exciting days in Seattle attending

NCECA, the biggest ceramics conference on the continent. My
Medalta friend Brenda Sullivan flew out from Port Hope, Ont. to
drive down with us. We heard that some 400 Canadians joined the
roughly 6,000 ceramic artists attending and certainly lots of B.C. and
Alberta folks drove or flew down. It was such fun to keep running
into TriCity Potters, Potters Guild of B.C. members and the Medalta
crew. As usual, there was a vast room set aside for promoting college
and university courses, community centres, ceramic suppliers offering
glazes, tools, wheels, kilns, and what-have-you, and there were tours to
consider and piles of paper: posters, brochures, invitations galore.

In the ballrooms, one could listen to discussions, watch slide shows
and watch demonstrators. I found myself unable to move from
watching British potter Walter Keeler throwing and assembling his
unique teapots and jugs. In 1990, a year before I decided to go to
Emily Carr University, I so enjoyed attending a workshop he gave
there on a hot August weekend. At that time he was already making
his recognizable metal-like jugs and teapots but he also made several
of the large oval vessels with outrageous loopy handles. The assembled
work dried so quickly!

Later, in 2005, my husband and J arranged for our little tour group of
potters to drive up the Wye Valley to his studio. He was so welcoming
and talked to us while sitting at his kick wheel as if we were a group of
his students. While we admired some of his work and the collection
of old pots, cans and found objects that inspire him he was watching
his kiln, waiting for the moment to start salting. If only we could have
been there three days later to see the results of the firing!

On this week's occasion he shared the stage with marvellous Tip
Toland. As I don’t do sculpture of figures, 1 hadn't expected to enjoy
her side of the stage, but she entranced us with her petite energy and
unfailing confidence in creating an enormous head. Sharing three
hours side-by-side gives each presenter time to work while the other
person speaks, and the audience can see both types of work ne

towards completion, helped by enormous screens behind the two.

Some of Walter's pots, photographed at Pottery Northwest, Seattle.

Potters Guild of BC Newsletter - May 2012 6