A Pot of a Different Colour There is a black and evil idea pervading our society that should be tossed in the air. (humped, throttled and garroted. lig a comceapl thal disarms and renders vulnerable the wisest of women, The most capable of men are left disoriented. profoundly perplexed and without meaning in their lives. Pottars have been victimized and degraded because of it. ‘It was manifested again just yasterday as an acquaintance picked up one of my pots. brought it towards me and said. ‘| like this piace, but it is the wrong colour’. Unfortunately | had just been reflecting on the insidious sick idea that averything of significance in one's immediate anvirons had to be colour coordinated and nad deeded, inwardly, to do some considerable verbal damage to the next sol whe wanted a lidded container for hes glass eyeball in a colour ta match his badsheets or the covered used condemn jar ha bought in Mexico last winter! Being an ex-anglican choir bay prevented me verbally exploding at har “wrong colour’ comment, but | did go on a bet about observing the object and having things around one that ane loved -colour matching be damned. Although she was taken aback -espemally when | spoke to the irrefutable darnage done psychically by interior designers who had to colour coordinate averyifung - | was surprised when her husband, ctharvwise completely silent. stood back and began slowly applauding and mumbling something like “Huzzah, Huzzah, etc.” Perhaps it was a speech impediment, but | would rather think he was agreeing with me. We. as crafters, need no langer be abused. We can tell people who like pots to buy everyone's work, buy it often and get all manner of colour and shape around them! gant lat others, ewan if they claim superior elan and good taste, tall you everything must be the colour of a Santa Fe adobe outhouse. Ask pecola to celebrate pats; to follow their own preferences; to be eclectic (if they ask what eclectic is, tell them itis the Polish god of alactricity}; anything to disarm and loosen tham up -anything to open their eyes to the skilled potters we have in our midst. In recent months a friand has been coming to my okanagan studio to help ma unload my kiln. He's perfect. Not because he's a nice guy, but because he's colour blind. Everything is a shade of gray. Ha wouldn't know your taupe from your chartreuse. So the concept of calour coordination is beautifully foreign ta him. The rest of us can still embrace and love the colours around us, but live a life free of the evil idea! Bob Kingsmill pase 7 e Gallery of BC Ceramics Lal = 1996 Exhibit Schedule openings: Debra Sloan March 13 - April 7 March 13 Joanna Borlase Apnl 9- May 5 April 11 K.&C. Aice-Jones May 7 - June 2 May 9 Fountaiis & Waterfalls Pat Taddy June 4 - June 30 Juna 6 A Matter of Scale, and Other Things Simon Ho July 2 - July 28 July 4 Nature and Culture E. Brewer-White July 30 « Sept 1 Aug 1 Shameful Behaviour Karen Opas Sept 3 - Sept 29 Sept 5 Gillian McMillan Oct 1 - Nov 3 Oct 3 Rosemary Amon, Nov 5 - Dec 1 Nov 7 Jay MacLennan, Celia Rice-Jonas Dishes for an Autumn Feast Xmas Show Dec 3 - Dec 31 Dec § Next month 's articles will feature a beginners guide to the Intemet and how ta find the clay stuff Whe wants to write it? Leave me a message at 669-5645. Also, a visit by an occupational therapist into the studio and his suggestions for staying healthy.