More Mysteries Solved

I was delighted to receive an email from Keith
Lehman identifying the pot and chop in my last
article as that of his friend Jack Ploesser from
Fire & Ash Studio on the
Sunshine Coast. Thanks very
much for your help!

As I’ve written before I often
have pots I like but don’t know
the origin of. Last month Wayne
Ngan was in my shop and
helped to solve a few more of
these mysteries. There was a
lovely, large and heavy pot with
a very bright blue green and vio-
let purple glaze which was
marked on the bottom with
paint or ink and which I
assumed to be Chinese or
Japanese. After looking at that
pot and another copper toned.
squarish pot Wayne explained to
me that both of these were
made by him before he had his
chop designed. The one, the
copper toned, was not marked
and the ink mark on the other
was his name written in
Chinese. This was of course
exciting news for me and when

I told him I have collection of
B.C. ceramics at home he
showed interest in seeing
1t.

That evening Wayne visit-
ed my place and again
found an older piece of his
work. This time it was a
lidded circular vessel about
12 inches across and nearly globe shaped. This
piece has a beautiful muted apple green glaze
and the mark again is his name in Chinese
though this one is incised in the clay instead of
inked on. He very generously offered to sign the

wa

Pork fat glaze on one of Wayne Neans
pieces

2 unmarked pieces and asked for a felt pen.

I couldn't have wanted for a better visit and yet
my favorite part was still to come. As he looked
at some of his own pieces in my
collection he picked up a cylin-
drical, ancient looking pot with
legs built onto it like a stand. I
remember the gentleman I
bought it from remarking that
the little handles on the sides did
not match, being of different size
and height on the body. This
alone had endeared it to me and
now Wayne asked if he might
borrow it sometime if he were to
have a retrospective. “I can tell
you a funny story about this
pot,” he said. One morning he
went to his garden to take a piss
and he was thinking about the
salt pork he had and that it was
too salty. He decided he
would get rid of it and that
day threw it into his kiln. The
glaze on this pot, a very dark
gray green dripping down the
sides, came from that salt pork
fire.

Wayne Ngan’s current work
and some older pieces were
recently shown at the Omega
Gallery, 4290 Dunbar St. at
27th Ave. It was a beautiful

show and very worth seeing.
|, Ngan globular ves-

sel with incised YoU can visit with me at my

shop, DoDa Antiques, 422
Richards St. or email me at
jdis@telus.net Happy collect-
ing!

mark

John Lawrence

Photos: Martin Hunt

10

Potters Guild of British Columbia Newsletter

June 2005