continued from page f

people of Cozensa, “a Museum would be
built to house the traditional pottery of
Cozensa and further that Wee Lay Lag’s
vessels made during the workshop would
sitina place of honour.” Wee Lay Lag will
be returming to Italy to attend the museum
opening. Atthe same time, she will launch
the Italian translation of the second print-
ing of the Legends of Vancouver by E.
Pauline Johnson that Wee Lay Lag illus-
trated forthe Quarry Press Children’s Clas-
sic series in 1991.

During 1995 Wee Lay Lag was invited to
visit Australia to conduct master class
workshops for the Queensland Council of
the Arts in Brishane as part of an Interna-
tional Cultural Project. During the six week
stay, she visited Queensland, New South
Wales and Victoria and conducted twelve
workshops, gave public lectures and slide
presentations, and had three one person
exhibits in Brisbane, Cairns and Mel-
bourne. Recently she was invited to return
for a major exhibit and to give workshops.

Laura Wee Lay Lag is a person
who endeavors to create objects

of clay that captures the “essence
of nature unfolding”.

During 2000 Wee Lay Lag was one of
twenty Canadian ceramic artists to be se-
lected by the Gardiner Museum of Ce-
Tumic Ars in Toronto, to represent Canada
at the 2000 World Exposition in Hanover,
Germany. This exhibition titled Earth
Works later showed at the Museum in
2001. Wee Lay Lag was invited to and
participated in the Symposium that was
organized in conjunction with this exhibit.

Wee Lay Lag's one-of-a-kind
original works of art are shown
and collected worldwide.

Wee Lay Lag continues to teach work-
shops in her method of handbuilt, bur-
nished and sawdust fired pottery, locally,
provincially, nationally and internation-
ally, She has also coordinated several edu-
cational programs in arts and her lJan-
guage. The first program she coordinated
was for the Department of Indian Affairs
and Northern Development and two First
Nation groups. That was in 1972.

10

Laura Wee Way Lag

In 1981, Wee Lay Lag
was among the first in-
structors selected for the
Emily Car College of Ant
and Design Outreach
Program, and remained
on the instructors’ roster
until the program's com-
plction in 1991. She con-
tinues as & sessional in-
structor at BCLAD. Dur-
ing 1995-97 Wee Lay Lag
coordinated a two year
art program for
Coquitlam College, and
a two year University
Transfer Program in the
Visual Arts. Coquitlam
College is a private inter-
national college.

Wee Lay Lag is presently
the Audio Project Coor-
dinator for Sto:lo
Shxweli. The project is called Our Elders’
Voices. She was recommended for the
coordinators position by Simon Fraser
University linguistic instructor, Strang
Burton. This project records the Up-River
Halg’emeylem immersion course curricula
lo stereo CD by three of the fluent
Halq’emeylem speaking Coast Salish
Elders, bence the name Our Elders’ Voices,

Wee Lay Lag comments, “that to know
your language is to know your culture.”
When she began learning her father’s lan-
guage, it felt as if “Il was waking the
ancestors within.... Iam using muscles
to make sound that had not been made for
two generations in father’s family", My
mother is Oweckeno and when | was a
teenager ! began an interest in the study of
our languages, To date I have studied
Kwakwala, Okanagan/Colville Salish,
Hul'gumi’num' and Haly*emeylem. Cur-
rently Wee Lay Lag is an immersion stu-
dent in the Up-River Halg'emeylem lan-
guage, the language of her father.

For the last two years, Wee Lay Lag has
limited her ceramic involvemvent to focus
on her language studies. She seems to have
impeccable timing when it comes to new
und innovative educational programs. If
she is not creating them, she is involved in
the making of them, both as a coordinator
and a student.

Potters Guild of British Columbia Newsletter

Laure Wee Lay Lag Olle #529 DOOD b: 27.9 x w: 394
Clay is Plainsman 490, ochre body. Since it is no longer made
with yellow ochre, the body is pinkish. Photo: Ken Mayer

Although the Sto:lo Nation Halq’ emelyem
language program is ten years old, it was
not until December 2001 that with the
assistance of Simon Fraser University it
was accepted by the BC College of Teach-
ers as a language receiving a Development
Standard Term Certificate for
Halq’emeylem Language and Culture. This
is a first in British Columbian history. Wee
Lay Lag’s philosophy is that “it takes
many hands and many minds te accom-
plish any task”,

In order to concentrate on this, she has
limited other commitments this year to the
upcoming Diversity in Clay Symposium
at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts, and an
exhibit at the Portfolio Gallery, in Van-
couver opening October, Wee Lay Lag is
also featured in Robin Hopper’ s new book,
Artand Perspective No. 42, published in
2000. Wee Lay Lag is presently being
considered as one of twoto four subjects to
be profiled in an upcoming film special on
Canadian Women Potters.

Text submifted by Sharon Reay with rext, in-
formation and images supplied by the artist.

March 2002