is {oo focused on trying to reduce British Columbian experi-
ence to an alien form. In Malraux's terms, British

Columbia potters are not “artists who create forms” but are
primarily “artisan(s) who reproduce forms.” (p.310)

Home makes the point that in 1944, all but three of the pot-
ters surveyed in her article were trained in courses either at
the Vancouver School of Art, now Emily Carr Institute of
Art and Design, or in courses mun by the Victoria Board of
Education. Today,, there are far more opportunities for
the recreational potter 10 gain training experience, primarily
in courses run by the vanous community colleges or local
recreational authorities. However, professionally oriented
courses are still the venue of a very limited number of in-
Stitutions. Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design is clearly
the leader in offering professional programs in ceramics
while others, Vancouver Community College, Capilano
College and Malaspina College have developed similar
programs. These institutions have clearly left their mark on
the potters working in British Columbia today,

The academic orientation of the programs offered by these
instiutions appears to have militated against the develop-
ment of 2 viable pottery manufacturing process in British
Columbia. (This may also be due to a lack of native mate-
rials Suitable to large scale manufacture, but there is evi-
dence that this is not altogether true.) The graduates of
these programs are onented toward individual, narcissistic
expression of the artist rather than the process of manufac-
turing. This appears to be derivative of the British Studio
potter movement advanced by Bernard Leach. Leach's
admiration ofAsian ceramics may also account for at least
some of the emphasis one finds in these forms of pottery
available in from B.C. potters. The very framework re-
quired for the inclusion of ceramics programs in academic
institutions constricts the boundaries of pottery develop-
ment in B.C. by laying down limits of acceptable expres-
sion derived from the historical materials that must be in-
cluded in a course aimed at training professional artists.

The somewhat pedantic argument over whether ceramic
creations are art or craft will likely continue as long as the
community is unable to find its own means of expression in
the form of a style. The achievement of a style that breaks
with tradition and expresses a unique reality may well be
the point of closure thal defines art.

MADE IN CLAY NOTES

Flanning for Made In Clay continues to proceed ,
Arrangements have been made for the tent, tables for the
consignment area and many other picky details. VVe still
need your bisque ware for the Raku demonstration on the
weekend of April 5. Also, Rosemary Amon needs the
balance of workshift sheets to be turned in and Keith
Rice-Jones advises that the information sheets for the
info table have been very slow in coming in, Time is
getting short for those who have not completed these
tasks.

Keith Rice-Jones advises that he will be handling this
year's billeting requirements for Elsa Schamis. If you
need a place to stay during MIC, contact Keith at 522.
8803 in Bumaby,

All those who have entered the Flower Pot Contest please
consider bringing your pots to the Gallery of B. C,
Ceramics for the month of May. To try to provide you with
some return for your effort we will set up a display of the
pats you were planning to submit to the contest. Limit is
four pots per entrant. The Gallery will restrict commission,
for these submissions only to 30%. The Gallery manager
will be responsible for determining the selection of pots for
display.

THE “DO IT THE HARD WAY”
SYNDROME -sTan CLARKE-

Lately there has been a good deel of talk, mostly by col-
lege teachers, about getting back to the old fundamen-
tals...dig your own clay, mine your own feldspar, refine
your own zinc and well your own water if you want to make
an honest pot, But this seems to apply only to the pottery
craft. | have yet to hear anywhere that the weavers must
raise their own sheep, shear them for their wool, cut their
own wood to make their own looms before they can weave
an honest blanket. Or the batik maker raise his own bees
and milk them (or whatever they do) to put on a piece of
linen woven by hand from flax grown himself. Must the
Jeweler mine his own gold and diamonds to make a better
pendant or would Heifetz play a better tune on his fiddle if
he built it himself?? Not bloody likely.

This clay - digging -feldsper - mining bit is great fun; that !
will admit, and it's a great way to keep students busy; dig-
ging, drying, weighing, screening, mixing etc., and it does
help teach the geology of clay and feldspar, but for the
producing potter or someone who is trying to make his
pottery pay, it's just a mighty time waster, and time is the
one thing the potter is nearly always short of.

Iwas severely criticized In the last issue of “Western Pot-
ter” by Fred Owen (of Douglas College) for “turning off
potters from finding and using their own clay. | was later
again severely criticized (well not really severely) by Don
Hutchinson (Langara College) at a Potters Guild meeting
for discouraging potters fram digging and mixing their own
clay (Something to do with Aunt Martha's peaches which
escaped mé) but as a potter of some twenty-two years,
who has been thru the mill, | still say; if you want to have
a little fun experimenting with the clays from our back yard
and the rocks on the cliff ... feel free, but if you are plan-
ning on producing any amount of pottery, forget it.

What | actually said to the Nanaimo Seminar was that,
with the exception of an area in the Cariboo country and in
the Sumas mountain area, there is no GOOD clay in this
region of British Columbia, and | still say so- In 1956 |
was in the ceramic supply business. Faireys were mot yet
packaging clay and Plainsman were not in business, so, to