(604) 683-9623

Potters Guild of British Columbia

1359 Cartwright St., Granville Island
Vancouver, B.C, V6H 3R7

NEWSLETTER

APRIL 1991

ISSN 6319 812xX

From The Vancouver Sun, Saturday
Review, March 2, 1991, a reprint with
Ann's permission, of a part of her
article entitled "Cultural History as
Fragile Art".

Choosing Clay demonstrates the vitality
of ceramic art being mude in the province.

At one extreme in this exciting exhibition
there's Charmian Johnson's beautiful bat
serviceable bowl. This wheel-thrown ves-
sel proves that the understated, oriental-
inspired ceramics that typliied B.C. pot-
tery in the 608 have not gone the way of
the macrame hanger. At the other, there's
Jeannie Mah's sculptural object that’s an
unusable vase. Her paper-thin, harvl-
formed eccentric weasel fs Indicative of the
more Inventive approaches ceramists are
employing in the 1990s.

In Choosing Clay, several artists have
used ideas and forme taken from other
media—for example, Kathryn Youngs"
ceramic version of a Matlase-atybe still life
and Lea Mann's homages to Chinese
bronze tual veasels. Appropriating forms
from other cultures is a practice that
crops up tn all visual media these days.

But what makes the exhibition fun is the
fact the Choosing Clay is really a series of
provocative matings. Each of the show's

Devid Lauer

seven segments features a atngle work by
one of the senblor artists. As many as five
more works show the direction of the
emerging artist who has been selected as
a companion. Like marriages or friend-
ships in real life, these artistic dyads
function by virtue of a magical combina-
tion of like and unlike traits, a chemistry
best understead by the couple but sub-
ject nonetheless to outsiders’ specula-
tions,

Johnson's subtle, dark porcelain bowl
sits among Jane Williams’ colorful, pat-
tem-decorated dishes: Sam Kwan's
stoneware plate with ths highly contrast-
Inglead motifis placed beside Larl Robson's
austere neutral-tened contalners. When
Johnsen chose Willams and Keen chose
Robson it Was, perhaps, a case of appo-
sites allracting. Yet, as you Inok more
carefully there are commonalities, espe-
cially in atthtudes towards serviceability.

In other instances the ceramics have
compatibilittes which in human terms
might be described as “they have the
same laugh or a similar tum of phrase.”
Hence you might feel that works by Mah
and her exhibition companion Friederike
Rahn are akin in grace of line and playful-
ness of form, and that Jim Thormsbury's
sculptural zaniness and desire for mean-
ingful reference ta reflected in Gary

Merkel's space age ceramics. You might
even imagine, sometimes, that between
the eeramists there is such a fine symbio-
als that one could finish the other’s sen-
tenee, Hence tt is tempting to imagine
that the grapes in Young's compote are
related in the atacked stones of Connie
Glovers ceramic sculpture, although
that's certainly mot the case.

Finally, the reputation of B.C. pottery is
well served by the technical level of the
works on exhibit here.

The clay in David Lawson's raku bowl
looks like smoldering metal. The gener-
ous Vessel fits into a narrow base that
resembles a Mesopotamian gate, This
pol, suggesting an ancient amphora, is
pure magic, And se are Garry Graham's
slab-built torsos that dance beside It.
Thelr crater-glazed surfaces belong to
this age and no other.

The show ts a powerful Incentive for other
artists to consider choosing clay when
searching for a contemporary medium
with decp historical roots. It offers evi-
dence that people whe in earller times
might have been thought of as craftermnen
are now considered artists tn the fullest
SETLSt.

Ann Rosenberg

GUILD MEETING

Thursday, April 18, 7:30pm
at 1359 Cartwright

Special Demonstration
with
Fredi Rahn.
participant in
Choosing Clay exhibition
and
1990 Studio 5 Resident

See page 2 for further details
Library will he open early