CONVERSATIONS

Bob Kingsmill calls himself a lucky man and by all indications
he is. Relaxed, good natured and at peace with himself and his
work, his life as a potter seems ideal.

Bob works in a smallish studio on Granville Island. He puts in
forty to fifty hours a week producing everything from teacups to
large handbuilt murals which he fires in his electric kiln. The
six hundred square feet of studio is used economically with extra
Space provided by high shelving on the walls, but for mural
production he would like two or three times more space. A mural

is about to be created at the back of the studio where Bob has just
finished rolling out a slab of clay on the floor, fifty two inched
square and three-quarters of an inch thick. He works slowly and
easily, undaunted by the continual flow of conversation between us.

His current success seems far removed from his first studio experience
in the Okangan where he started as a professional in 1967. Bob
remembers when he began that Walter Dexter showed him how to make
handles for his work. But he was able to make a living as the
economy was kinder, society more affluent and a new awareness of
the craft of pottery was growing. He still maintains that his
complete lack of formal training has served him well by allowing
him to learn from his own mistakes and develop his own style.

Art schools, he believes, can give potters the opportunity to

learn basic techniques more quickly but hamper students by teaching
a specific style which will have to be “unlearned” before
individual creativity can be expressed. Now Bob's technique is
strong and his style unquestionably unique which makes a good case
in favour of self-teaching. And, as he puts it "I'm still doing

it after fifteen years where many art school graduates have

long since disappeared”.

Where does he get his inspiration? "From everywhere". One of the
stamps he uses was adopted from a bird motif he saw on a classical
Greek vase. His favourite muralist is Jordi Bonet a French
Canadian artist whose style is subtely echoed in Bob's work. He
prefers a soft fluid line which lends itself well to the style of
his murals. Even in his smaller functional pieces one sees a
devotion to smooth rounded shapes and sensuous forms. Yet all of
his work expresses a powerful solidity.

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