LIVES LIVED: Stan Clarke (1914 -2010) By Carol E. Mayer

'T feel the real challenge in pottery is using
your time, skill, experience, intuition, sense of
design, love of clay, nature and your fellow man,
to create in clay something that has life and
excitement in it and that shows a little of the fun
and joy you had while making it."

—Stan Clarke, 1972

On February 12, 2010 Stan Clarke pass-
ed on. He was 96 years old. Stan was a man
whose amazingly creative and generous life
was closely aligned with the history and
growth of the ceramic arts in this province.

Stan began his creative life as a painter. He
switched to pottery in 1948 when his wife
Jean came home with a kiln after taking a
course at the Art Institute of Chicago. They
set up a studio producing mostly functional
items that Stan made and Jean decorated. Stan
was an early student of David Lambert and
Reg Dixon and honed his skills by attending
numerous lectures and seminars, and by
visiting schools and potteries. He was also
fortunate enough to be awarded a week-long
study session with Bernard Leach in England.
Using Leach's A Potter's Book, Stan would go
into the countryside with fellow potters and

dig up clay that they would sieve and process

Stan Clarke

into workable clay bodies. His knowledge
grew to the extent that people sought him out
with their problems right up until the end of
his life.

As with most potters during those early

days, Stan could not make a living at his
craft so he had to work as a full-time flight
dispatcher with Trans Canada Airlines (now
Air Canada). He worked there for 35 years
(1937-1972). However, the part-time nature
of his potting did not stem his passion for
his craft, his experimentations with clay
and glazes and his commitment to the clay
community.

In 1953 Stan and Jean started a pottery
supply business called “Reagh Studios"
to provide modeling and_pottery-making
materials to schools in Vancouver, B.C. By
1955, Stan, along with potters Reg Davis,
Hilda Ross and Avery Huyghe, founded the
British Columbian Potters’ Guild (now, the
Potters Guild of BC), Stan went on to become
the second president of the guild. In 1967 he
and Jean sold their business and moved to a
farm in Surrey where Jean switched to making
sculpture and Stan switched to making
stoneware pottery. During this time Stan also
established the pottery division at the UBC
Department of Education.

Continued on Page 8, Stan Clarke

his family.

community, Stan began

Greenbarn Potters

Love from. all us at Greenbaxrn,

Dear Potters, Artists and friends,

Stan Clacke has passed. away at the age of 96.
We would like to send our condolences and, best wishes to

Having in a large part founded and fosteved our cevamics

his avt caveer with a love of painting and.
in 1948 he and his wife dean began their passion for clay. Stan
established the pottery department at UBC and, formed.

Stan gave so much of his time to all of us as a business owner,
teacher, potter, technician, and mentov.

We hawe bean fortunate and, blessed. to have you be paxt of our
lives.

deff, Casey, Dan, Cheistine and Craig

@ Stoneware wine decanter by Stan Clarke,

COLUMBIA Potters Guild of BC Newsletter « March 2010 7