REVIEW OF JEAN MARIE WEAKLAND SHOW FIBRE AND CLAY
HELD AT HANDCRAFT HOUSE LAST FALL

: Jean Marie Weakland's pots are grabby. The hand
‘efinds them lustful, calling to be stroked, rubbed, picked

up.

A low, muted boulder with raincup of purest white
glaze against ungraséa poay held a quiet, introspective
Zen quality.

"Small round form" #4.00 - #18 read the price list.
A palm full of feeling of which Wendy exclaimed, "only
four dollars for that, gee I want to walk around holding
onto it". Urgent sculptural pieces pushed themselves up
off slabs and hunks of wood like growths expanding up off
the forest floor. Those rubbed with Blackbird and
splashed with salt water before the reduction firing
came through stronger to me than the groups given a
later low-fire glaze’, Some stood singly, others placed
in pairs or twos; and several grouped as a fired unit
with two strong vertical parts joined by a compressed
cushion shape or shapes between. In one instance jute
fibres were also introdiced into this pressured space
between the verticals to give even greater sense of
interior or inner form compression.

"Compote" the word used to describe a series of half
a dozen or more structures seemed too refined, too deli-
cate for these pushing, closely fitted structures topped
with undulating bowl tops. Sometimes the harshly glazed
interiors of these top bowls seemed at odds with the
strength of the rest of the unplazed bases.

The teapots and goblets were ‘fun' things to us;
ranks of reeling shapes which said that utility could
be amusing. Though I felt somewhat uneasy in my mind
at the fun of balancing some of the teapots when full.

The raku pieces, some rubbed before firing, to a
sensuous, low, smoky sheen were subtle, seeking and felt

as primitively right as some Indian pots.