TE
Call for Entries

The annual Filberg Festival
takes place in the Comox
Valley on Vancouver Island.

July 31-August 3
2009

This event attracts SERIOUS
shoppers (some wholesale and
gallery buyers too) looking
for quality, handmade
Canadian art and craft.

Filberg Heritage Lodge & Park
61 Filberg Road, Comox, BC

Booth fee reductions
available for students!

Make 2009 your year
to promote your work to an
educated and discerning
clientele.

Deadline for delivery of Jury
entries is February 22.
See our website for details.

www.filbergfestival.com

For information phone
250-334-9242

Email: infoefilbergfestival.com

FingerPlay: Ft. St. John By Heather Hannaford

Fort St. John residents recognize that they
live in a vibrant, but “last minute” city. This
leads to exciting, and often unexpected,
happenings. After months of seeking a suitable
space to show the varied and interesting
FingerPlay exhibit, Ecole Central Elementary
School came to the North Peace Potters’
Guild’s rescue. This proved to be a golden
opportunity for the guild, as well as for the
students and teachers at the school.

From the guild’s perspective, the situation
provided the show with a secure exhibition
place, one that didn’t require supervision
and a place the community could visit. The
show was installed in a series of locked glass-
fronted showcases in the entrance hallway at
the school. Some concern was expressed, born
out to some extent, that, being in a school
environment, the show might have become
less accessible to adults. It is regrettable that
adults are often reluctant to enter the doors
of our schools. We hope that placing the
show in a school has helped break down this
reluctance,

The opening evening reception, largely
attended by adults, was jointly hosted
by the guild and the school. Included in
the evening event was a panel discussion.
Panelists (teachers, an educational assistant,
an artist/parent with family clay connections
and clay artist/potters) discussed pieces that
spoke particularly to them. This began an
evening’s discussion around the show and the
pieces displayed. North Peace Potters’ Guild
members contributed to a silent auction anda
series of door prizes. Proceeds from the silent
auction are going to be used to pay the fees for
a student from the school to attend class at the
guild studio. Guild members also provided a
veritable feast of snacks.

Suzon Tremblay is the specialist art teacher
at Ecole Central School. With virtually no
experience with clay, she organized a wonder-
ful collection of experiences, exposing all of
the children in the school to the exhibition
as part of their curriculum. Using different
media, the students worked in a number of
ways with the ideas generated by the show.
All students learned about clay and the
techniques that the artists used to construct
the work. They learned that clay work may
result in utilitarian, sculptural and decorative
Pieces.

Most of the students visited the school’s

clay studio. This was particularly amusing

Suzon Tremblay,
art specialist
teacher at

the school,
thoroughly
enjoying talking
about the finger
puppet family.
The FingerPlay
exhibit ran

Nov. 7-28 in Fort
St. John.

at times since some of the smaller children
had never been in this “older” part of the
school. Imaginations ran wild. Students were
introduced to the equipment necessary to
make clay work: the kiln, the canvas-covered
working tables, tools including found tools,
and of course the clay, which in this studio
is faithfully recycled. Some intermediate
students were already aware of the studio
and some of its possibilities, having had the
opportunity to work in clay with the help of
a Visiting artist.

Responding to the FingerPlay exhibic,
students were involved in a number of
projects. Grades 6 and 7 studied the history of
Greek civilization and ancient Greek pottery:
vases, urns and amphora. Drawings, some
of them really excellent, were made on the
computer using old Greek patterns. Another
class created “pottery” with salt dough, and
began to realize that achieving the desired
result in any available media provides its own
challenges.

Grade 5 students made drawings of potential
clay works, described the technique needed
to make the work, and were challenged to
address the use or meaning of the work.

Even younger students used watercolour
to create very imaginative images of teapots.
One class made drawings using the scraffito
method used so often in pottery surface
decoration.

A different kind of exhibition space, a
new audience, potential clay addicts? Adults
and children alike, Fingerplay is still on the
tongues of many.

For more on Ecole Central Elementary, see:
www.central.prn.be.ca

COLUMBIA

Potters Guild of BC Newsletter - February 2009

10