S

So there I was with five wheels, two kilns, lots of table space and shelves, a
couple of tons of clay in the car repair pit, and a very nice group of pecple
to work with. Not bad. The only thing, of course, i858 that when you teach you
don't get much of your own work done. I solved this by staying after class or
going during weekends to work by myself. I have no idea how I always seemed
to get the place into a worse mess than fifteen kids did - I wonder if this
ever happens to others.

My favourite thing, I guess, is throwing. I'm not very good at it. Maybe I
enjoy doing things that I find difficult. My next favourite thing must be
Slip casting. Iam a bit better at that. This, incidentally, may have
something to do with the fact that pottery never became my profession but
architecture did, When I feel I want to do something special, I go for
mnerikomi. But whatever technique I may be using, I am always looking for the
simplicity of form. What an adventure.

My pottery is very much like the title of an exhibition we held last year in
the Septaria Gallery in Helsinki: FPlamned and Coincidental. Since I never
had any academic pottery training I have never really had to fear doing things
wrong. So, at times the works turn out the way I intended, and many times
they don't. Either way they can still please me. When I was asked to submit
a few lines to the exhibition brochure I said that it had never ceased to
astonish me how pieces of earth could turn into such a variety of special
works. It still hasn't.

So, ome of the first things I did when I got to Canada was to find the Gallery
of B.C. Ceramics on Granville Island and join the Guild. My next aim is to
qet to work.

(Laura Arpiainen is a new Guild member looking for studio space. ]
If you would like to write about your situation in this column, please contact

Keith at 522-8803 or send your article to Jan Krueger at the Guild Ph.669-
5645.

LETTERS
Dear Jan:

I enjoyed "meeting" you on the phone today and am rushing this article on the
Tozan Cultural Society Kiln to you so that members of the society and the
Potters Guild can be kept up to date.

Our last meeting on 22 Sept. saw the reports on the finished Crane Brick
Caper. The society now has 33,000 bricks palletized and stored at Malaspina
University/College in Nanaimo. We would like to take this opportunity to
thank all the potters who came and helped with the removal of the brick. It
was wonderful to meet all of the potters and put faces to names and work.
There are So many of you to thank that we den"t know where to start...Cathi
Jefferson (a great gal with a jack hammer), Linda Doherty, Keith and Celia
Rice-Jones (they had a great shower for dusty and tired pecple), Vincent
Massey, Laura Stool from Salt Spring, Diane DeLcllo, Jackson Hirots, Lynn and
Bok Johnson. There were 50 many I cannot list them all at one time,