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.
Creating functional pieces that are a pleasure to hold, look at, and use is Priya’s primary goal. Each of her pieces is hand made; she creates her own designs for brushwork and sgraffito surface decoration.
In 2016, she participated in FUSION’s Creative Directions programme to explore and experiment with new techniques and patterns – a work in progress!
Faye Jacobs, a member of the Spinners & Weaver’s Guild, taught the kids in camp how to make paper yesterday afternoon. It looks like it was a huge success!
On June 12, 2017 a stoneware teapot was brought into the Kawartha Potters’ Guild hoping one of our members could fix the cane handle. The owner, John Sloan was not aware that Darlene Malcolm-Moran, the potter who made it in 1980, is a guild instructor. Darlene replaced the cane handle pleased that a customer would continue to use the teapot 37 years after it was created.
The KPG Gallery has a wide variety of finely crafted Pottery, Fabrics, Woodturning, and Gourds for sale. Classes for every age group and skill levels are offered at the Guild. And who knows, something you buy here or make yourself may still be in use in another 37 years!
The Vimy Ridge Commemoration took place Sunday April 9th at the Cenotaph in Confederation Park. This was a significant point in the history of Canada. Over 600 local people died in WWI, with a population of under 10,000, that is a significant loss. As a guild we created a ceramic trillium for each of these people, the sale of which will support veterans directly and provide funds to repair to the Cenotaph.
The Kawartha Potters Guild was honoured to take part in this event and we were thrilled with the many people that showed up to honour our veterans. Every one of the trilliums was sold.
This is one of the Trilliums that the guild made actually at Vimy, taken by a local nurse who does medical reenactment. She flew over a few days ago to include it in the ceremony.
Presentation done to site manager of Vimy– Johanne Gagne .
Our military historian Ken MacLeod from our tour group , Special Travel International in Vancouver, played the bagpipes .
Heathyr was talking to Chex news about our Family Day classes that she teaches. Heathyr is also the teacher that teaches all of the workshops like Girls’ Night out, Date Night. They are a lot of fun, and you end up with a piece of pottery when it is fired and glazed.
The Empty Bowls event on Friday, February 24th was, without doubt, the most successful Empty Bowls collaboration between the YWCA, the Kawartha Potters’ Guild, and the Woodturners Guild. 260 tickets were sold for the main event, and another 80+ for the Bowls To Go event. There were so many requests for tickets that the YWCA cut off the tickets for food and a bowl and, instead, sold tickets at a lesser price for food only. Our local M.P. and Minister for the Status of Women, Maryam Monsef attended the event as did Peterborough Mayor Daryl Bennett and his wife, Jewel. The preliminary results show that the event raised $16,620.00. There were still some outstanding moneys to be collected, and the final results will be available at the wrap-up meeting when Nicole returns from a well-deserved vacation.
So many thanks are in order (and hopefully I haven’t missed anyone). To the volunteer Team Extraordinaire : Diane Hancock, Wendy Spencer, Jane Turner, and my sister Bodi – you were phenomenal, In very short order you came up with a system that enabled us to get people through the line seamlessly (other than those who had a very difficult time choosing just the right bowl). Our favourite comment of the day was the woman who exclaimed that choosing a bowl was as difficult as choosing nail polish! Thank you also to Suzanne Woods and Priya Harding (and our amazing techie Kristina) for the group event where we tried slip trailing on bisqued bowls. And finally, thank you to all our members who responded to my not too subtle requests and generously donated bowls for the event. The final array was pretty impressive, and a total of 195 pottery bowls and 100 wooden bowls were donated (for those of you doing the math the YWCA had some bowls left from previous events which supplemented the number required).
The KPG is working hard to complete the 600 trilliums in time for the April 9th ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of Vimy Ridge. Many volunteers have been working in teams to complete this monumental task. If you would like to read the full story and see images, please visit our past blog post here.