Side Street Studio Blog | The best locally crafted gifts that B.C. can offer

Jo Duffhues-Artist Statement

I have wanted to work in clay for pretty much as long as I can remember. I thought it all started when I was a little girl in Australia where we’d moved when I was a 5-year-old. I loved playing in the red clay under the hot North-Queensland sun. I could pour water onto this glorious stuff and mold it any way I chose. Within a short time the sun would have hardened it, and well, not much of a girly kid, I would ride little make-belief cars over roads I made. My mother tells me as a toddler I liked nothing better than plasticine. Just feeling something in your hands that lets you create… it’s a way of life for me. In high school I begged to be given a chance to try the potter’s wheel.

Our art teacher didn’t particularly like the girls and would only allow students who managed an “A” in an art project a chance. I went home and created a beautiful silk-screened crib quilt, an extra project, just to get that chance. The woman gave me the clay and left the classroom without a single word of instruction or guidance. My clay went flying through the classroom off the wheel, and my one chance died there and then. But my desire stuck.

In my early twenties I found a private instructor, Gerry Balint. She put me through a very tough course and my first project was a tea set… the teapot had a very bizarre curly spout. The mugs and the cream and sugar pots were terrific. I was hooked. So hooked, in fact, that Vic bought me a potter’s wheel as a wedding gift when we married in 1979. It wasn’t long before he was trying it out, and yes, I was his first instructor.

Together we make a great deal of functional stoneware. It’s great to think that people use our pottery every day. They use it for special occasions, celebrations, and simply to enhance their lives. However, I still love the way clay can be sculpted, going places the wheel and slab work alone won’t. Sometimes this leads me to create hand-sculpted raku fish, special one-of-a-kind pieces hits me hard; at other times it results in truly whimsical hand-built tea sets, or special vases and treasure boxes. The customers who delight in these pieces reach a part of me that soars with delight… they get me, they get my work.

My inspiration comes at me from the funniest places… watching a cake competition where wall-paper had to be used for inspiration had me racing to the store for that textured stuff. And yes, I used slip much as a baker might trail piped icing patterns on a cake. A trip to a museum with my granddaughter led to a series of treasure boxes, though it took a while before I realized this trip had inspired their creation.

I’ve been able to attend many pottery workshops and courses over the years, first studying at Sir Sanford Fleming College in Peterborough, and later when I was able to minor in fine art at the University of Waterloo. I was fortunate enough to become a full-time student after my marriage to Vic. All my teachers have helped to inspire and to some degree help shape my work, chief among them: Mick Casson, Gerry Williams, and Lana Wilson. But learning is a technical experience, what I do with the clay may have been helped by these teachers, but the work comes from within me and me alone.

These days I spend part of my time teaching at a local Native High School. Vic and I have actually introduced many of the students to clay through a coop education program. Seeing the kids respond to clay continues to keep me inspired. I am glad that my hands enjoy the work and like Lucie Rie, I hope to continue to do this until I’m completely creaking with old-age.

Vic Duffhues-Artist Statement

As a potter, I feel deeply connected to our planet and its rich human history. Clay vessels always contribute not only to culture, but spiritual rituals, and even simple sustenance. Working in my studio allows me to strive to fulfill my own goals and life purpose in a way that not only fulfills my creative needs, but is spiritual for me as well.

My wife was my first instructor, and I’m delighted that we’ve been able to continue to work in our studio for the past 3 decades. But I also spent 10 of those first years honing my skills as a production potter. I know my wheel-work is exceptionally well made, and I still love making functional stoneware pottery. It requires repetition and consistency, but offers a rhythm that truly centers me. I take great pride in, for instance, making what are considered to be the most beautiful of mugs, knowing that they are the prized possession of many customers as well as collected by many other potters. People often tell me how important their own mug is to them… and don’t they kiss the rims daily?

While I am considered a production potter, I’m proud to say that I don’t make factory ware, and I absolutely refuse to uses molds or presses. It’s true that a ram press can result in total consistency, but it leaves me cold because it lacks individuality. It’s rather like artificial insemination, it works, but it takes all the fun out of it.

I know that my work reaches far back into the past and will live on well into the future. But unlike ancient potters, I have modern technical advantages, like the pug mill I use to make sure my clay is well-blended, and the computer technology that helps me to ensure that my functional stoneware is complete food-safe. Our glazes are the result of many years of testing and development, and they too are the result of a creative joy. But it’s so great to know that I can use computer analysis to ensure their safety.

As much as I love making stoneware, like my wife, I do love to create special one-of-a-kind pieces. Funeral urns, ginger jars, vases, lamps, even special series, such as the Myanmar Vases I made after seeing a documentary and some amazing photographs… each of these can transport me to a place beyond simply being centered. There’s a euphoria that comes from making pieces that transcend the purely functional. And I sure do enjoy playing with raku firings as well. Hunter Thompson once said something to the effect that working with your hands makes you a laborer, adding your head makes you a technician, adding your heart makes you an artisan, but adding your soul to that mix makes you an artist. After three decades of working with clay, I can truly affirm his theory.

I’ve had the pleasure of learning from some great potters, but for me the real joy in the development of my career in clay stems from the fact that I am now the Master Potter, offering courses and workshops and inspiring others the way that Tom Coleman, Mick Casson, and so many others have inspired me. It has been many years since my first formal training began at Sir Sanford Fleming–almost 3 decades have passed. With a little luck, I have a few more of those decades ahead.

JIM ETZKORN

Potter, Jim Etzkorn, has received numerous accolades and awards, taught and presented to groups around the world, and designed the dinner service for the G8 Summit in 2003, but his day-to-day motivation comes from the hope that his work will find a place in the regular lives and hearts of families for generations.

Etzkorn, who lives and works in Prince George, BC, said it is the chance that his work might become a treasured family heirloom that most inspires him to continue what he started 30 years ago.

“Like the exercises you might do leading up to a big race, the day-to-day stuff sustains me,” he said. “The contact with humanity is my affirmation. It’s not technological, it’s very personal, and it keeps me grounded.”

It was a connection with the pots of Asian history that inspired a style that he describes as “functional and decorative, utilizing traditional and contemporary forms, techniques and ideas”. Hypothesizing that he “might have been Asian in another life”, Etzkorn said he has always been drawn to the big, swelling shapes of Oriental antiquities and the primal spirit that seems to emit from them.

He draws further inspiration from other artists, nature, and the Asian concept of wabi-sabi– a Japanese world view or aesthetic centered on embracing transitions over results. For Etzkorn, the transitions involved in making a piece of pottery-each piece is handled 15 or 16 times-can be as satisfying as the piece itself.

“The process is long and there are no immediate rewards,” Etzkorn said. “But when I’m working, I am totally in the present-it’s like time stands still. That something beautiful can start as a lump of mud, is still amazing to me.”

Jim Etzkorn’s work can be found at Side Street Studio in Victoria. For more information visit http://www.sidestreetstudio.com/

QUASIMODO UNIQUE POTTERY

UNIQUE FAT MUG - PERFECT FOR COFFEE

Over the past twenty years Dave and Marlyn have been perfecting their own glazes and glazing techniques including the use of local Fraser river clays from British Columbia. We hand throw our pots using high temp stoneware. The basic form is designed to be practical, the function dictating the form, but with the addition of stylish handles, knobs, or elaborate design work and glazing each piece becomes distinctive.

MAGNIFICENT HAND MADE TEA POT

Quasimodo’s  glazes and glazing techniques have evolved by trial and error over a period of twenty years. There are various steps involved in our glazing process.

. Each year we dig up about 500 pounds of clay from rivers in the Fraser Valley. This must be dried completely over several days, then crushed into small pieces. We then rehydrate it with enough water to turn it into thick creamy liquid or ‘slip’. To help the slip adhere properly to the pots and to insure it melts smoothly in the firing, we add other glaze materials. We then apply the clay slip to the exterior of bisqued pots either by dipping or hand painting.

BEAUTIFUL UNIQUE WINE JUG

. The design work is drawn over the layer of clay slip using large syringes filled with wax resist. The fine tip of the needle allows a controlled application of the wax resist creating the fine lines of the pattern or the outlines of the decorative images or scenery. These will now be filled in with a variety of colored glazes and then waxed out.

. We now dip the pots into the first over glaze which will fire to a blue/green color. To preserve this color in specific areas we once again use wax resist.

The last glaze, which produces a muted plum color, we must apply in two stages, first to the exterior of the pots and then to the interior.

Much like decorating Easter eggs, the wax design work and waxed over colored areas ‘resist’ the various layers of over glazes preserving the patterns and colors.

FABULOUS UNIQUE CASSEROLE DISH

The entire glazing process often takes us several days. Application of the decoration and the different layers of glazes is very labour intensive and time consuming as the pots must be allowed to dry completely after every stage of the process.

The pots are fired in an electric kiln and each firing must be monitored to climb at a specific rate until the kiln reaches 2240F (cone 6). It is then held at this temperature for about ten to fifteen minutes to allow the glazes to fully develop.

HANDMADE BRIE BOWL

During the firing the wax burns away to reveal the designs or colored images and the river clay slip glaze blends with the over glazes to create a further palate of colors.

Using these techniques we produce a full line of functional ‘oven-to-table ware’ and a line of decorative wall pieces and accent pieces.

All our work is oven and microwave proof, dishwasher safe, and lead free. You can find lots more of the superbly creative, beautiful  and excellent value pottery at Side Street Studio.

Ed Oldfield  lives and works in Powell River, up on the BC Coast. He wrote: “I consider myself to be an artist who is currently working with clay. I got really serious about clay 10 years ago although it’s been more than 35 years since my first pottery class”.

“I have been exploring the RAKUprocess in a serious way for the last 8 years. Some people say that I’m a potter and while I do make raku pots, that is not all I do. My time is divided between making pots, creating raku/driftwood sculptures of marine life, and creating new designs for my work”.

“The pots that I like to make contrast different textures from nature with the smooth surface of clay. I currently make three Limited Edition Series of pots”:

Cherry Bark Series; (Created 2003, limited to30 per year)
Pussy Willow Series; (Created 2005, limited to 30 per year)
Pacific Barnacle Series; (Created 2008, limited to 20 per year)

“I enjoy coming up with new designs for my pots so I am constantly working at developing new combinations of materials. I like to create pieces that are original and unique. It usually takes two years from the initial product design until pieces from a series end up on a galley shelf”.

My sculptures incorporate raku fired clay pieces mounted onto driftwood or rock. My usual subjects are salmon, rockfish and sea stars although I am constantly searching for new subject matter.

You can see more of Ed’s superb Raku work at Side Street Studio