Tucker first became interested in pollination when he was
researching orchids. An avid grower, he came across
Darwin's famous supposition that the Madagascar night-
blooming orchid, Angraecum sesquipedale, with its 11.5-

inch nectar pouch must be pollinated by a Hawkmoth with
a 12-inch proboscis. Forty years later Darwin's theory was
proved. The idea of the symbiotic relationship between the
environment and native pollinators began to germinate,
and ‘Tucker started to research the subject of pollination
with a particular interest in bees. With the intended gallery
space as the BAC’s courtyard garden, he began to explore
the phenomenon of human intervention in nature.

A serendipitous meeting led him to Lora Morandin with
the Department of Biological Sciences at Simon Fraser
University (SFU) in Burnaby, B.C... Morandin arranged for
Tucker to visit the apiary at SFU where he observed the
bees in action. Donning all the protective clothing he
experienced a day in the life of the hive. He was shown the
university's bee hives and got to watch baby bees hatching,
as well as the introduction of new queen bees to the hive.
At the end of the day he was given frozen bees to study.

Morandin notes that while there are “still a lot of native

bees around, their populations maybe in great danger from
honey bee competition, but mostly from habitat conver-
sion and pesticides. The big problem is that in North
America we've focused almost all of our attention on trying
to promote
honey bees,
largely at the
expense of
native bees.
We make sure
that honey bee
colonies are
moved out of
fields before
harmful pesticides are sprayed, but do nothing for native
bees. We've virtually ignored how our land conversion for
urban and agricultural development will impact wild bees.”

This is something to seriously chew over considering that
“researchers with the Forgotten Pollinators Campaign,
based in Tucson, Arizona, estimate that one in every three
bites of food is made possible by a pollinator,” (from web
article “Pollination Services: No Food Without Them,”
www.rand.org).

Clive Tucker has a website at
http://www.clivetuckerceramics.ca

Christine Conroy
Christine Conroy is a Vancouver freelance writer.

Photos courtesy Clive Tucker

Ruth Chambers Lecture for NWCF

We are pleased to announce
the third lecture in the
North-West Ceramics
Foundation speaker series.
Our speaker will be Ruth
Chambers from the
University of Regina and the
lecture will take place at the
auditorium of ECIAD on
October 7 at 7:30 PM. Her
topic will be her forthcom-
ing anthology of contempo-

rary Canadian ceramics.

Ruth Chambers graduated from the Ontario College of Art
and. Design (AOCA 83) and the University of Regina (MFA
92). She has taught at the University of Regina since 1992
and is currently associate professor in the Department of

Visual Arts and associate dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts.
Her work incorporates a range of media, usually in an instal-
lation format, and often including ceramics. Recent work
addresses ways we attempt to visualize and understand what is
inside ourselves, both medically and. metaphysically, and
explores various medical, cultural and metaphysical endeavors
that have aimed to transcend and reconcile concepts of the
material and immaterial and the internal and the external.
She is also a member of the interdisciplinary artistic collective
Petri’s Quadrille which investigates relationships between art
and science. She has given numerous papers, participated in
symposia, and chaired academic panels addressing such topics
as contemporary ceramics and craft, art and science, and col-
laborative art practice, and is currently co-editing an antholo-
gy on contemporary Canadian ceramics.

Ron Vallis

June 2005

Potters Guild of British Columbia Newsletter