Potters Place Gallery Monthly Feature Artist

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Saturday, July 14th, 2018
10:00 AM to 5:00 PM

Alan Burgess

Alan began working with clay at the tender age of 13 in Manchester England. Later inspired by the teaching faculty at the Camberwell School of Art in London, he set out on a long journey of exploration with clay. The work he has produced over the last six decades has been an exploration of stoneware and porcelain clays, making functional, non-functional and sculptural work. Alan enjoys the surfaces and colours produced in wood-fired kilns, especially when using Shino glazes with their rich colour and carbon trapping qualities. He also produces work exploring soda firing with its textured surfaces. This work is often richly decorated with sgraffito drawings based on ancient designs. His work has been exhibited across Canada, the USA and Europe. He is a long-time member of ”Fired Up!”, a British Columbia-based group of highly talented ceramic artists who have an annual show and regularly exhibit together. For 30 years Alan taught at North Island College, and was the department chair for 11 years, establishing the new Diploma program in Fine Art and Design at the Courtenay Campus.

Judy Weeden

Pottery is a second career for Judy after a time spend doing biological research and teaching. That background shows up as motifs on her pots, but not solely. Life and the search for beauty in form and décor inspire her work – functional, decorative and sculptural. In the 45 years of having lived the “potter’s life” she has built up a considerable repertoire of work, varied in style and execution mainly based on the vessel format. Still there are many new challenges and ideas ahead that call her to the studio daily. A critical turning point in her career was the recognition that she was not inspired by the process of glazing, or of testing glazes. Hence her use of slips and slip carving and her signature use of terra sigillata, an ultrarefined clay slip, used by the ancient Greeks and Romans in lieu of glaze. It can give a soft sheen when applied to bone-dry wares, or a high gloss if polished or burnished while still damp. More recently Judy has used smoke firing as a decorative feature of her sculptural work with no glazing at all. The colour of these pieces comes from carbon penetration into the clay body.