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.
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