COLUMBIA

PGBC Book Launch

By Melany Hallam

Seeking the Nuance: Glaze experiments of the 60s and 70s
from the Ceramics Studio at UBC

By Glenn Lewis

Edited by Phyllis Schwartz; historical research by Debra Sloan
Published by the Potters Guild of BC; March 2010

$20 + GST

‘Its difficult to express with words the qualities of good glazes but,
similar to humans, they are also touching, unique and intimate.”
—Glenn Lewis

“British Columbia is one of the few places in the world where a
ceramic culture did not exist until the 20th Century,” writes Debra
Sloan in her introduction to Seeking the Nuance, by Glenn Lewis.
‘This book offers up a vital piece of B.C.’s ceramic history through its
selection of 30 glaze and clay body recipes used in the 60s and 70s
at the University of British Columbia Education Faculty's Ceramics
Studio. Earlier, Olea Davis's extensive programs at the UBC Ceramics
Hut brought a hugely influential range of traditions to the province,
including those of Asia, the Bauhaus School, and the Arts and Crafts
and Modernist Art movements.

“We had a great community of potters here in the 60s and 70s,” says
Phyllis Schwartz, the book’s editor. “There was a lot of drop-out and
alternative culture thinking. ..it was pretty rugged out here but at the
same time pretty sophisticated.”

The potters working at UBC at the time that the recipes were

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Becking the Nuance

collected were also heavily influenced by the vision of Bernard Leach
who, in turn, was greatly affected by the Japanese Mingei (folk craft)
movement. Young B.C. potters such as Glenn Lewis (the book's
author,) John Reeve, Mick Henry, and Ian Steele all apprenticed at
Leach’s pottery in St. Ives, England, at various times throughout the
60s and 70s. Charmian Johnson archived and studied the pottery at
the Leach Studio in the later 70s. They all brought these traditions
back home. In this way, Seeking the Nuance sets B.C.’s ceramics culture

in a world context.

Continued on Page 9, B.C.'s Dedicated Ceramists

+s

CERAMICS EXCURSIONS)

Morocco

Lombok/Bali

Crete

Burma
Turkey

Potters Guild of BC Newsletter - February 2010