title : dreamtime
medium : wheel-turned porcelain, cone10, stains & clear glaze
dimensions : approximately 13″ high

Time to let another cat out of the bag … made of clay. This hearkens back to an earlier artistic incarnation, the era of New Bedlam Works. After graduation from the Nova Scotia College of Art & Design in May of 1995 I set up shop in a very wee village in the south-western region of the province. This pot was one among the next to last batch, 1999. I had approached the break-even watermark, fiscally speaking, so perversely, a batch or two later, I threw in the towel, made like a phoenix from the ashes and became a painter for awhile.

It made less sense at the time, albeit some sense to me at least, and now it makes all the sense in the world. I was painting all over the pots I’d laboured so painfully to learn to throw. What I mean is that ceramics was my major in university but I was more a sculptor than a potter and did not apply myself too studiously to the tradition of strictly potting. Neither did I pay much attention to my required study of chemistry and the science of firing. NSCAD provided ceramics students with a meaty opportunity to learn the atomic/molecular magic at work in the kiln but I was often elsewhere with my head in the clouds or the student union office. I should have failed Intro II but rather charmed my instructor into letting me pass on under the wire. I paid for it post-graduation, I can tell you…

There I was by grace/luck/grand desigh with a brand new kiln in a big room, a wheel with so much mojo it could levitate and many pounds of the sweetest cream-cheesey porcelain ever refined by man and I could hardly spin a decent pot to save my life. But I had to try because I’d swindled the government out of a start-up grant on the false premise that I knew what the heck I was doing and was prepared to make a commercial-cottage-potter go of it.

When my first batch emerged from the much dissipated heat of over 2000 degrees celsius it looked like it had contracted a hideous skin disease and I had no idea why or how, having used recipes that were working just fine at the college in Halifax less than a year earlier.

Over the next three years I did my best to make up for lost opportunities to properly study my chosen craft in school and cracked open the textbooks to unravel ancient mysteries. We have been making with clay for a very long time and even today most of the people in the world who make this magic do it the old way. I determined to crack the code with my shiny western easy-bake-oven method and eventually I saw progress.

The first thing that went out the window was the lie that I would be a production potter. One of a kind became my only song.

By the time this pot was born I was getting in the swing of it and enjoying more success than failure. Potting is for people who don’t think gambling in a casino is risky enough. You will break a lot of eggs before a truly edible omelet ever survives the fire. If you want to learn the meaning of perserverance – give it a try.

Since that long ago pot fell into my hands, after three years of nothing but paint on paper, I returned to my passion for form and began again. No wheel this time – just 150 pounds of stoneware, a fork, a plank of wood, two hands and a heartbeat.

I pinched and slabbed tea-pots, jars, spoons, bottles, bowls and cups for two years piling up so many green pots I lost count. I didn’t even have a kiln during that time – just faith that one would turn up and I’d find somewhere to plug it in. So it did.

They were all fired last summer/fall. I still have so much to show you …

I will end this introduction to the fired side of my nature with one more mentionable about this piece. It no longer exists. It fell quite unceremoniously and by tragic accident, smashed into wee bits. If you want to learn to give up the habit of attachment – ceramics is a good road to take …