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POTTERS
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COLUMBIA
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ARCH-BC - Archival Records of Ceramic History in B.C.

Capturing the Story of B.C. Ceramics by Debra Sloan

Before schools and ceramic

departments, in B.C. it used to be difficult

internet,

to locate ceramic information. So at early
PGBC meetings, from the 50s to the 80s,
the board would organize speakers and
discussions around process and current issues.
Volunteers would bring in boxes of books
from the PGBC library, meeting minutes,
copies of newsletters, and tea and cookies.
Then the meetings would be reported in the
newsletters, sharing the information province
wide, thus contributing tremendously to the
early development of ceramics all around B.C.

By the 1980s the knowledge base around
ceramics had changed, and the meetings
became harder to fill. Then at long last, when
the PGBC found its home on Granville
Island, the paperwork for the organization
that had moved from place to place following
a route of changing personnel, was gradually
delivered to the upstairs offices. Propelled by
the coming 2005 - 50% PGBC anniversary
events, Debra Sloan began to ‘organize’ the
archival materials, with the help of Jinny
Whitehead, then president of the PGBC.
Jinny dedicated a space for the archives, and
then they set about locating all of the PGBC
newsletters. They found volunteers to place
photographs and slides in archival storage,
to locate exhibition catalogues and digitize
some of our historic slides, Debra delivered
copies of PGBC publications to the Vancouver
Art Gallery Library, and to the Rare Books
and Fine Collections at the Irving K Barber
Learning Centre at UBC.

To proceed with organizing and preserving,
a dedicated computer and scanner were
needed. Linda Lewis, who had_ recently
moved to Vancouver, discovered a grant
offered by the Irving K. Barber Centre for
Learning at UBC, The BC History Digitization
Program. (Note: Guilds wanting to preserve
their own archival materials — contact: www.
ikebarberlearningcentre.ubc.ca/programs/
bedigitinfo).

Our second grant application, creating a
researchable website of the PGBC newsletters
from 1965 onwards, was successful. By
May 2012 our ‘office’ was situated in a
corner upstairs at the guild. The newsletters
from 1965 to 2004 had been collated and
scanned, Linda researched archival methods
and started work on a website nicknaming

the project ARCH for Archival Records of

Ceramic History. She organized the system

and began work on creating derivative files
putting the newsletters into readable pdf
files. Debra and Jinny met weekly for many
months to fill in the metadata and keywords
on each and every newsletter, looking for
names and events of interest. [We are still
working on the data base!] They often became
sidetracked, discovering surprising facts about
the membership and events. Did you know:
* Robert
workshop from Belgium through the

Wegsteen shipped his entire
Panama Canal in 1957, including clay and

kilns.

* In 1966 and in 67 Santo Mignosa’s class
from the Kootenay School of Art won the
Silver Medal at the International Ceramic
Exhibition of Faenza, Italy, in the Art
School category.

*In the 70s and 80s Marie-Claire von
Hausmann ran two ceramic galleries.

* There are over 21 ceramic guilds and
associations in B.C. alone.

The before...

..and after ARCH-BC nook in the

guild office—now with a computer!
(L-R) Debra Sloan, Linda Lewis and
Jinny Whitehead.

Now you can read these newsletters, in
researchable format, on the www.arch-be.org
site.
volunteers have

2005, other

contributed to the project: Georgina Hughes,

Since

Rezwan Vaghari, Al Sather, John Lawrence of
Do Da Arts, Wonder, a Korean student, Terry
Yip, Krisztina Laszlo from the MOA, Gillian
McMillan and Phyllis Schwartz.

If you are wondering who would want to
access our archives, we can report that these
materials were utilized for the following
publications:

* 2005 - Carol Mayer and Darrin Marten -
TransFormations, Ceramics

¢ 2005 - Al Sather and Debra Sloan - Source
Book

* 2007 - Carol Mayer - Transitions of a Still
Life, Ceramic Work by Tam Irving

Continued on Page 13

Potters Guild of BC Newsletter : October 2013

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