(A Newsletter

June 2001

Yolume 37 Number 6

GUILD

BRITISH

COLUMBIA
sa

For the last ten years, | have worked in my
studio full-time. Frequently | scratch my
head and feel very blocky that I'm having so
much fun at doing what I do.

I graduated from the Nova Scotia College
of Ant & Design and wanted to get FAR
away from anyone else's opinion about
how clay and art should be handled. I
needed breathing room and time to watch
my style unfold.

My style developed mainly as a creative
and clever way to hide my mistakes. The
more I goofed, the more creative | had to
be at inventing a distraction from the mis-

ALISON FEARGRIEVE

Animating the Inanimate

take. | discowered quickly that clay forms
were like newborns, just wailing to de-
velop a personality

Animating inanimate objects makes me
feel a bit like God. He (or she) must have
taughed to kill him (or her) self with some
of the stuff he (or she) came up with, Take
the creatures under the ocean, for exam-
ple. Was He nod just playing with form and
movement? Such peculiar ways of mov-
ing and such diverse forms to support the
movement! God was having a blast! Itoo
dhane in this titillation. We'll go fora beer
sometime and Ul get some tips.

Being a control freak, I decided to give
personalities to my pieces. 1 was also curi-
ous how far I could go in this little tangent.
It’s. big and rather addictive tangent now

I made single pieces at first but they be-
came too dynamic on tharown, It became
apparcnl thal they were More Convincing
as personalities ifithey could relate to other
individuals, same with ws really, So T be-
gan to work in sets, perverting everyday
traditionally acceptable things like teapot,
cream and sugar, all and pepper, and
lately teapot, cups, siucers, Iray, jar sets,

cee Feurgrieve page

Alison Feargrieve Hiss (teapot, cream and sugar set) 1999, white canhenware. hb: 90.8 em (20 inches)