Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “porcelain”
Par goes to work… I was one of the many fools that thought the whole Trump election was just a bad joke. We knew it was bad. It turned into 18 holes a day with a bunch of salesmen. More lies than holes. My worry is it could happen again… There is almost nothing that a potter in a tiny village in …
I have been working for over a year on a project called “The Find”. The job is now done and is parked on my website home page. Free. Enjoy. Share. As you read this, Maureen and I are recalling that some of the work in “The Find” was being packed 50 years ago to this day. We bought our rural Ontario home in the …
Maureen’s family had this in their home over 70 years ago. We keep up the tradition of hanging it each Christmas season. I looked for it in a storage room at the studio in mid-December. Found it, amid five other boxes. Had to peek. I found my very first Iris vase, and a couple of other Iris vases as well. …
I had a high summer. 17 years ago, I shingled the south side of Paddy Doyle’s Hotel and added to the windowsills and trim. They got a couple coats of paint, and I moved back into the studio to work on exhibitions. 17 years later, the windows needed a lot of love. They are just over 180 years old. This …
Happy Valentine’s Day, A beautiful thing develops in a working artist’s daily life. It is the ability to know when to stop working. Stop. Done. Leave. As you know, My Work, My Way— the book, is on my website. It was done. I left. In it, I quote American baker Claudia Fleming. “You can always do it better. And until you’ve …
People have been asking me if I am retired. Nope. Never. This is what my friend Shelagh Rogers had to say about my retirement… So retire. No. Making Art yes, and writing yes. Playing pool yes. For the past two and a half years, I have been working on a book. It is a history of 50 years as a …
I made a series of Rose House vases for next weekend’s Lonsdale Studio Exhibition. To say I had fun is an understatement. What I had planned and what happened are two paths. We live in interesting times.
If you can, save us a little time for a visit here in Lonsdale. Our very last Lonsdale Studio Exhibition is on September 30th and October 1st. I will be in touch closer to those dates, so this is a heads up. I have been working…you might like to see the latest and last.
What a lucky boy I am! Many years ago, Maureen and I were at Larry Davidson’s Lost Horizons nursery near Acton. As we got close to running out of space in our little car, Larry walked over with as many jardinières as he could carry. “Take these off my hands”, he said. He had just retired from being a very …
Maureen and I would like to thank all of you that came out to our Lonsdale Studio Exhibition. It was like old home week! Lovely to see all of you in such fine health. There were certainly some raised eyebrows. Why would anyone want to put a flower in a shoe…and why shoes? When I was a kid, our mother …
The Koffler Arts Center in Toronto had a 20 year retrospective of my work in 1990, called 20/20 Hind Sight. It was curated by Gloria Hickey. Works came from many collectors, and some came from our house. For some reason when my part of the show came back, I put it in storage. I did the same thing earlier with …
I love the phrase Juvenile Senior. A friend told me that is what he is, because he hired people to put a new roof on his house, even though he could maybe have done it himself. A few years ago he would have for sure. Now is now. I mention Juvenile Senior, because I just read my own history written …
This is an invitation to you. I am having an exhibition of porcelain at the David Kaye Gallery in Toronto. The exhibition is called Table Talk. I have always cared about what kind of porcelain people put on their tables, over their tables and on the walls near the table. The show is about what happens to my celadon glaze …
I started to work on bas relief or low relief carving before I knew what it was called. A neighbour in Lethbridge taught me the basics of leather carving when I was in Jr. High School. I earned my way through high school and some of art school making ladies purses and wallets. Sixty years later I am still trying …
Lonsdale is almost perfect. We have mosquitoes, black flies, and the odd deer fly – other than that, it is perfect. This little imperfection is why I built a summer room with windows and screens. I found the table in a tombstone yard, and built the oven a year later in 2004. Maureen and I almost live in this little …
Spring in Lonsdale has been lovely. We had a great group of guests for the Spring Exhibition in May, and my thanks go out to all of you for your support and interest in the new works. It was great to talk with friends, and get caught up after a cold winter. Since then, nature has shown its power. The …
I love it when the stars align. I have some good friends that love good food. They made very good pork sausages with kimchi, which they fermented themselves, and added into the meat mix. Generous people that they are, they shared some with us. Tasty! These friends have most everything they need to survive, including good sausages, so how to …
In these videos, my technique of sprigging is shown here for the first time. Before watching, let me share what I have learned about sprigging. Chinese potters have used a technique for hundreds of years, but my own European background made me look there for the secrets of sprigging technique. You have to be careful when looking at “factory” ceramics …
I’ve placed two more videos on the site that add to a series of technical videos intended for both students and those interested in learning how I make and decorate bowls. In the video of me trimming a thrown bowl, I mention that if you do not like to trim pots, you should avoid throwing with porcelain. I used to …
Why would someone who has been making pots for nearly 50 years still be making bowls? They are so basic, so simple, and so… well, useful. If you take those three reasons and add that they are truly fun to make, you have my answer. If you were to assume that the first three reasons are easy, you would be …