To Teach, To Learn, To Share

Peterborough Examiner Article

by

We got a mention in the Monday October edition of Joanne Culley’s Otonabee column.  And George got his picture in the paper too!  To see the article, click here, but the text is below.

Potters guild Establishes Permanent Space

George Stewart is our first potter in residence

The Kawartha Potters Guild is in the process of settling into the main floor of the building at 993 Talwood Drive, formerly the Kingswood Recreation Centre.

” After 17 years of not having a permanent home, we are leasing this facility so that we have a place where we can teach pottery, display work in a retail gallery and offer studio space for rent to potters who do not have their own studios,” says Lillian Forester, program chair.

Potter George Stewart, formerly of Park Street Pottery, has joined the guild in their new home and is their first “potter in residence,” she says.

The guild has approximately 30 members and is welcoming new members at a cost of $45 per year.  The group meets on the second Monday of each month, except for July and August.  members are encouraged to attend the monthly meetings, can attend all workshops, participate in the Christmas sale, sell in the gallery space, enjoy access to studio space, clay and glazes, attend the pit-fire or Raku day during the summer, as well as teach classes.  The next monthly meeting is tonight, October 1, because of Thanksgiving.  Classes are being offered in early October.

“We are offering a Family Clay Day on Saturday October 20 where participants will make their own pottery pumpkin tea light, just in time for Halloween,” says Forester.  “We will be having a grand opening later this month, and would like to acknowledge the contribution that the Grade 10 construction students from Kenner Collegiate have made in helping us prepare our new space.  What those kids did for us was absolutely amazing!”

For more information, please call 705-742-4979, email or visit www.kawarthapottersguild.com

First meeting at 993 Talwood Drive

by
The gallery space is starting to come together

We had our first meeting at our first permanent home last night.  It was great fun.  The place is coming together and the gallery is starting to look pretty good.  We only have a small selection of pots from a few potters at the moment, but soon we will have a full complement.  Take a look at the space so far!

We had a wonderful talk and slideshow from Yael Novak, and we got to see her collections and “families” of pots and platters.  She brought her lovely and helpful husband, who helped us put away the chairs!

Pumpkin Tea Light

We now have our classes all listed and we are offering the option of paying with Paypal now.  That should be useful for people who live further out to get signed up.  Darlene Malcolm-Moran brought in a sample of the Pumpkin Tea Lights that we will be making for our October 20th  Family Clay Time class.  It is so cute!  You’ll want to make your own in time for Halloween.  You can sign up one of the other classes that are being offered as well, also on the classes page.

We were mentioned in the Peterborough Examiner yesterday as well, and we will include a copy of that article when we can get our hands on it. (they were sold out at the local shop last night)

We are looking forward to getting the place fully organized in the coming month and look out for a Open House sometime in November.  We’ll certainly send you an invite!

Gearing up for October 1st

by

We have our first meeting at 993 Talwood Drive on October 1st, and we are seeing progress being made on the interior.  We had a painting session and now the walls are going up and recently Carolyn Cisco was sewing material to cover them.  It is so exciting to see the mess we started out with, slowly but gradually becoming a studio and gallery and a space for meetings.  A big thank you to Kenner’s grade ten construction class (and their teacher Mr. Chislett) for the quick and professional building of our dividers.

So much work is being done by so many people.  It is heartening to see everyone pulling together for this.

We will have our phone connected by the end of today (Tuesday, September 25th) and the number is 705-742-4979.  This was the number that George Stewart used for his Park Street Pottery shop.  Please leave a message if you don’t get an answer, there should be someone there most days, and every day once we are up and running.

Classes are being advertised and we are accepting email registrations already, and hopefully will have online registrations in the near future.  You can call and find out who is in and drop off a cheque or pay cash for any course you wish to take.

Enjoy the photos of the process.

Family Clay Time

by

We are offering “Family Clay Time” at the Kawartha Potters’ Guild

build a pumpkin tea light in time for halloweenHave fun hand building a POTTERY PUMPKIN TEA LIGHT in time for HALLOWEEN!

SATURDAY OCTOBER 20th from 2:00-4:00 p.m.

Ages 6 and up

COST: $15 per person, or $50 for a group of four.

Includes clay, glazes and firings

Please e-mail us at:

993 TALWOOD DRIVE
at the KINGSWOOD CENTER

Sneak Peek – of our new premises

by

Hello all, we are in the midst of getting the new place cleaned, painted and set up for opening.  We have had volunteers in every day moving things to their rightful places.  It’s hard work, but it will be so worth it.

We include some photos of our first glimpse through the window (we didn’t have the keys at this point).  The place is huge!  It wasn’t long before we filled the space though.

Enjoy the photos.

new start – new fresh website

by

Welcome to our new – look website.  The old one served its purpose, but the guild now has an exciting new venture and our website needed a coat of paint to go along with it.  We will be offering more services in the near future for the public and our members, with lessons, studio space and a gallery that is opened all year round and you will be able to read all about it here.

A thank you and credit to Meagan Chaney Gumpert, a potter in Ocala, Florida, for the image of the test tiles.  I went trawling the web for images of test tiles and saw the ones on the page (link previous) and emailed her to ask if I could use it.  She very generously said yes, and even said that if we ever needed a guest presenter, she’d be happy to oblige!  We couldn’t afford her travel, but if she means it, you never know. (I’m sure I would be happy to do a house swap!)

Co-incidentally, a week after we corresponded, I saw another image that I liked in Pinterest, and it lead me back to her blog and a post about crawling glazes on low fire clay.  Now that is a small world.  So thank you Megan Chaney Gumpert, and you never know, an invitation may be coming soon.  She will have a new website later this month at www.meaganchaneygumpert.com.  She has lots of information about firing etc on her blog, so it will be worth checking out her new site when it is ready.  I’m sure it will be as informative.

In the meantime, check out yet another of her sites at www.meaganchaney.com where you will see some of her amazing wall sculptures. Simply beautiful.

Gallery on the Lake

by

Thanks to all of you for participating in the recent exhibition at The Gallery on the Lake.  I think the exhibition can be considered a success.  We generated some publicity with newspapers and the Gallery put in a full page ad in Peterborough This Week.  The exposure certainly benefited the potters themselves, the guild and the Gallery.

Thanks to Lee-Ann for all her help in setting up the show on such short notice.  And thanks to those of you who helped pack up on Friday.

Congratulations to Mary, whose “Sleeping Cat” was the first piece sold.  Also congratulations to Lee-Ann whose 3 owls were purchased  by a prominent member of the community. (If anyone has images of the show on the day, they would be appreciated.)  Carolyn, Dan and Helen sold very well.  And Brenda, Anne and myself sold other work that we have in the Gallery.

Lillian

Below are photographs taken of the set up at the Gallery.

Pit Fire & Tail Gate Party

by

The guild’s first-ever pit-fire and tailgate party. What an amazing experience. Eight guild members and a guest met at Dan Ferguson’s farm on a Friday evening to try our hand at doing a pit-fire. Dan directed us to the back of the farm to the “valley”. We had to drive through fields to get there. He then took us step-by-step as to how he prepares and completes the pit. He gently placed all of our work in the pit, slowly covered the work and then ignited the whole thing. It smoked for a while and then burned brightly. After the initial burst of flames, he then covered the pit with sheet metal to burn over night. We then opened up the tailgates of two of the vans and enjoyed a sumptuous dinner. One van had the main course and the other had desert and, of course, wine. Great potluck dinner as usual.

We then returned at noon the following day. The coals had completely cooled down so that we were able to retrieve the pieces without getting burned. And what a surprise. We all got the most gorgeous colours. First piece out was Dan’s bologna pot – he got lots of reds from whatever is in bologna. Thanks to Dan for giving us the wonderful opportunity to try something different. Another learning experience for guild members.

YWCA Empty Bowls 2012

by

What a great day we had at the YWCA’s Empty Bowls Event on Friday, June 15th. Total funds generated were $2,663 (twice as much as last year). The place was packed with guests. We ran out of food, ran out of wrapping paper, ran out of plastic bags for the bowls. All in all a great day.

The guests were overwhelmed with the vast selection of bowls. So we made it easy for them – they could simply purchase a second or third bowl but excluding lunch. And they did buy! And the Silent Auction was a success as well.

I have a big a VERY LARGE THANK YOU to Karen, Jackie and Lee-Ann who worked tirelessly. We were literally run off our feet trying to keep up with wrapping and packing up the people’s choices. Many had never purchased pottery before and were delighted, while others collected pottery and were very selective in their choice.

Lee-Ann did an excellent job of setting up the display tables so that they didn’t look static and made it easy for people to mingle. Thanks also to Penny Kemp from the YWCA, Joelle and their many volunteers who picked up all the food, set up all the salads, breads and sweets and helped serve the guests.

And the biggest THANK YOU has to go to all of you in the Guild who supported this event by your generous donations of bowls. It wouldn’t have happened without your contribution.

Lillian Forester

Chris Snedden

by

It was a great day, with Chris showing us a few techniques first for decoration using images from a newspaper, outlining it with slip and then painting accents, and applying it to clay.

We also learned a technique in which we put underglaze onto stamps and then stamped those onto paper and applied other colours over that. When reversed, you had the details from the stamp in the foreground and the highlighting colours in the background.

Then Chris finally showed us the technique of silkscreen onto clay (or paper, for use later). We had previously sent Chris images for him to burn onto our screens and he first did a demonstration of how we would apply different emulsion in future. Then one by one we all printed a couple of copies of the images on our screens.

It was really interesting to see what types of images everyone had, and we came away with some fun ideas, and a screen and a squeegee!

Kawartha Potters' Guild