To Teach, To Learn, To Share
Melanie Daniels loves handmade items and after touching clay was hooked. Clay has certainly been the most challenging and exciting medium that she has worked with. The idea of starting with a piece of clay and ending with a teapot, bowl, or other piece of pottery is very appealing.
Pottery lends itself beautifully to someone who wants to try new things.
Jetta Schega has been a member of KPG for a few years now and entered her first Christmas sale with us in 2017. This was one of the sculptural pieces she had available for sale that year.
Thanks Lillian and George for a great day! A group of our members got together for a Raku Firing at Lillian’s place. A few first time people new to the art of Raku, but everyone had a great day and there are some lovely pots to show off now.
Natalie Thornhill is one of our new instructors. She has been teaching the Flex classes this summer, but I’m sure we will be seeing more of her in the fall.
In 2013 Natalie completed formal training through the Ceramics Certificate program at Haliburton School of Arts. Today, when Natalie is not working on her art, you may find her digging as an archaeologist and teaching at Fleming and Centennial Colleges in Ontario.
We welcome her to the guild. To read more about her background, you can visit our Instructor page.
Take a look at one of her lovely teapots (right).
We had an open house on June 20th to celebrate our new equipment which was made possible by a Trillium Grant. There were free throwing sessions. Thanks to all who came out!
While on a road trip to New York City recently, member Mary Sullivan made a detour to Bailey Pottery Equipment in the lovely town (or city) of Kingston, New York. What a beautiful place. They have a small showroom where you can look around and see some of the thousands of items in their catalogue, and their offices are filled with original ceramic works by famous (I’m sure) artists from all over.
It was worth the visit!
Our member Rosemary Jenkins, was featured on a recent segment of Daytime on Rogers TV in Durham. Check out her interview! Click on the image below.
Two of our own members, Janet McDougall and Lucia McHardy are involved in an upcoming show at the Kawartha Arts Network from May 7 – 30th, with the opening on Saturday May 9, from 1 – 3pm.
Lucia has new works in stoneware: large decorative bowls, and table & floor vases and Janet has a variety of thrown & hand built work.
Sandi has all sizes of basketry and wall pieces made from hand gathered local materials. Carol has paintings and stone animal sculptures.
For a Poster of the show, with more details, click here.
Our member, Dan Hill will be hosting two – 2-day Soda Firing Workshops. Workshop dates are July 4th & 5th and August. 29th & 30th.
Workshop participants will bring 8-10 pieces of bisque ware made from a ^6 clay body to Hill Pottery Studio where, with my input, they will decorate and glaze their pieces using my slips and glazes. The decorated works will then be strategically loaded into 2 gas fired kilns. One of the kilns is a 7 cu. ft. converted electric and the other is a 30 cu. ft. downdraft.
During the second day of the workshop we will fire off the 2 kilns and I will discuss and demonstrate the techniques and aesthetics involved in the production of Soda Fired Pottery. The movement of flame and soda within the kiln will impart itself on the clay and glazed surfaces with subtleties of colour and texture that will breath life into your ceramic work.
For more information, please contact Dan Hill. Here is the Firing Itinerary for the workshop, and the Workshop Information.
I took my first pottery class (as an adult) about a year ago. Like many before me, I fell in love with clay. With a bit of encouragement from friends, I joined the Kawartha Potters Guild in January. Among the benefits of membership; which include discounts on classes and being part of a supportive community of craftspeople, several workshops are offered to members only. Recently guild member Margrit Beesley offered such a workshop, and I had the opportunity to participate in building a hand built mug.
As a new potter, I was a little nervous about signing up for a member’s only workshop which I assumed was guaranteed to be filled with potters much more experienced than myself. I showed up on the morning of class with all my enthusiasm and most of the required tools. Of the six of us in class, experience levels ranged from the veritable newbie (myself) to experienced hand builders, to primarily wheel potters with multi-decades of experience.
Margrit’s experience with hand building developed after a hand injury made wheel throwing too physically trying. She encouraged us to make hand built pottery that didn’t try to replicate wheel thrown pottery, but celebrated its hand built attributes.
Among the resources referenced, Sandi Pierantozzi’s DVD “What If?” was highly recommended, as was her CircleMatic template set. Margarit demonstrated a hand built cylinder mug, showing us many tricks-of-her-trade for making slabs, using texture, creating and altering cylinders and adding handles.
We participants then created our own mugs to practice Margrit’s methods. It was fun to peek at each other’s work and pull inspiration from others. Margrit encouraged us to think about negative space by looking at the shape of the area between the handle and the pot. She brought up design concepts of repetition and proportion, and encouraged us to be mindful of these in our hand building.
In addition to being a great learning experience, this workshop solidified for me that membership in the Kawartha Potters Guild has privileges. I got to spend a creative day with fellow clay-lovers and I learned so many new tricks. I learned about both technical and creative aspects of hand building. I was directed to some vetted and useful resources for further exploration. But most of all, I was left hungry for my next opportunity to participate in a KPG workshop.
Jennifer LaBelle-Brown
