Vancouver, B.C. VGH 3RT (604) 683-9623 Potters Guild of British Columbia 1349 Cartwright St., Granville Island NEWSLETTER MAY 1990 ISSN 6319 812X AWARDS Elsa Schamis attended the Langara Campus VCC awards presentations in early April on behalf of the Guild. For a number of years, the Potters’ Guild of B.C. has presented the David Lambert Award to first year students and the Olea Davis Award to second year students In the ceramics programmes at a number of the Community Colleges in the Province. Elsa made presentation of the Lambert Award to Marguerite Laliberté and the Olea Davis Award to Simon Ho at the Langara event. Elsa has also provided us with a blographic sketch of Olea Davis, including Olea’s important role in the early development of the Potters’ Guild of B.C. A similar article on David Lambert will be printed al a later date. Any of you with similar archival material or just plain interesting stories of the development of ceramics in British Columbia are urged to send them to the Guild for archival and/or publishing use. OLEA DAVIS: a prormle Olea Davis was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1899, of Canadian parents who later returned to lve in a Northern Ontario mining town. Olea graduated from McGill University as a physical education major. Her later training at Ontario College of Art in Toronto, and the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Montreal, was directed towards sculpture and pottery. About 1927, she moved with her husband to British Columbia. During the construction of the Hotel Vancouver, Olea was commissioned to design lighting fixtures and ornamental screens. She designed and promoted the dogwood flower as the official emblem of the Province of British Columbia, which was accepted by the Legislature in 1952. Olea’s work appeared in all the important ceramic exhibitions: abroad in Brussels, Ostend, Florence and Berlin, at home In all the Biennial Ceramic Exhibi- tions in Toronte and Montreal, and in America in the Syracuse Biennial. With a grant from the Leon and Thea Koemer Foundation, she collaborated with Stan Clarke, Reg Dixon, and Hilda Ross in extensive re- search on British Columbia clays. This resulted inthe first commercially prepared mixture. Olea was a promoter of crafts, particularly pottery. She worked with the Community Arts Courecil to set up the first craft outlet in Vancouver, taught pottery at the Ceramic Hut at Acadia Camp at UBC during the late sixties, and whenever she saw any signs of talent, she was endlessly encouraging and helpful. In 1954, Olea and a group of potters founded the Potters’ Guild of B.C, which held the first offical meeting in February 1955, with Olea as its first presi- dent. In January IS77 she was made an honorary member of the International Academy of Ceramics in Zurich, Switzerland, After a lengthy illness, she died on April 6th, 1977. Congratulations to Linda Bain-Woods for being se- lected as one of the exhibitors in the FUSION: Ontario Clay and Glass Association's 15th Anniversary Exhibition entitled “Fireworks 1990". The exhihi- tion of SO juried works will on display at the Arts Court Gallery in Ottawa from May 29 to June 17, and will travel thereafter throughout the province of Ontario for two years. Likewise to Kinichi Shigeno! His soup tureen was awarded the “Most User Friendly” in the Campbell Soup Tureen Competition at the Gardiner Ceramic Museum in Toronto. As well, Kinichi’s ceramic mural tiles have been chosen for the fifth Annual Monarch Tile National Ceramic Competition in Texas. Laura Wee Lay Lag has been a busy person lately! Beside giving numerous workshops, including one to our Guild in April (her material on marketing will be reprinted ina later issue), Laura hasrecently accepted the position as Head of the Fine Arts Department at Coquitlam College. Congratulations! What's In A Name? Look for three members’ Tesponses on pages 4 & 5! And it's not too late to respond yoursell,