Pieces ready to glaze,
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us samples of her own work. Eventually, we
each had a few pieces ready to have glazed and
then fired in one of the huge public gas kilns.
We bought our glazes in recycled pop bottles
and found the man with the spray gun and
turntable who used the alley as his outdoor
spray booth.

Although the studio was open all hours, we
spent many evenings attending lectures given
by visiting artists. First came three talks on
different aspects of Turkish ceramics. Then
Masakazu Kusakabe from Japan explained
his design for smokeless wood-fire kilns
and conducted a firing workshop. Jason
Walker from Bellingham showed slides of his
sculptures and local artist Hang Fei discussed
Xu Gu brush painting. Finally it was our
turn to talk about Tri-City Potters and show
examples of our work. The audience of over
50 artists responded well to the hour-long
lecture and asked questions about salt and
soda firing, throwing inside a ceramic mould
and glaze mixing. In Jingdezhen, ceramic
production is broken down into individual
tasks done by specialists. Very few artists carry
their work through the whole process.

The itinerant glazer.

With our pieces safely in the kiln, we could
relax and enjoy a day’s excursion 50 kilometers
north to the ancient ceramics site of Yaoli.
We climbed through bamboo forests to a
sacred. waterfall, inspected. villages and long
kilns dating back to the seventeenth century,

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observed a waterwheel driving hammers to
prepare kaolin for mixing with porcelain,
and visited the 60-meter-long dragon kiln at
Tianbao. We also spent an afternoon at the
Sanbao International Ceramics Institute in its
tural setting south of Jingdezhen. It seemed
like an ideal spot where a visiting artist could
develop a personal body of work.

The second week ended with visits to
Jingdezhen’s big pot and big tile factories
where we marveled at the size of the pieces
and the skill of the artists decorating them.
Our time in Jingdezhen went by too quickly.
We enjoyed it thoroughly and are thinking
of returning for a longer period with more
specific projects in mind.

Kay Bonathan works in a wide variety of
sculptural forms and materials including:
fiberglass, plywood, concrete, cold cast bronze,
antler, hydrostone, ceramics, and recycled
materials, Her work may be viewed at the Gift of
the Eagle Gallery and in the gardens of Rosewood
Country House, both in Gibsons, B.C., and also
at Artifax Design Ltd., Vancouver. For more

info, see:

For more on the Tri-City Potters, see:

TEL: 1-250-537-4906

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COLUMBIA
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Potters Guild of BC Newsletter « February 2011 6