ELINA SORAINEN and BRITA FLANDER The sisters of silica arts, clay and glass, came together with Finish ceramist Elina Sorainen and glass artist Brita Flander in the recent show at the Canadian Craft Museum. The exhibition consisted of Elina’s wood-fired horse sculptures and functional ware, and Brita’s almost liquid glass sculptures. Elina’s work is wood-fired in a three- chamber nobongama. The only surface embellishment to her pots is nerikori in the clay body itself, The pieces in the show ranged from wine goblets and platters to sculptural horse torsos set upon oblong cylindrical bases. The one unifying cle- ment in her work was the range of firing results using the same clay body in the same firing process. One of the horses was cinder black while anether was iridescent ochre. The grouping of goblets showed a pilette of ash encrusted variations from green to blue to black. These pots were visually rich and heavy. They had unques- tionable earth and fire origins, and were a striking contrast to Brita Flander’s plas. Elina Sorainen Tarn 1996 horse sculpture, nerikami stoneware, natural ash glaze; beight: 50,0 cm. at the CANADIAN CRAFT MUSEUM they glowed from within. Initially the work of the two artists appeared so far apart that they didn’t seem to suit being shown to- gether, But looking at the exhibition as a whole, it was a terrific contrast of above and below; glass, light and sky versusclay, darkness and earth. The work of both women though, was constrained by the physical limitations of the upper gallery of the Craft Museum. Elina’ s horses needed to be walked around but were contained in showcases; and her goblets begged to be picked up. There's the essential difference - glass asks you to slay back, not to touch, but the clay beck- ons you close. Rachelle Chinnery Photo: Tuomo-Jubani Vuorenmaa . Exhibition dates: January 7-28 This show really gave us a sense of the polar opposite yet complimentary nature of clay and glass, Set across from Elina’s dark carthware was the luminescent al- most plisma-like glass sculptures. The pieces were lit and being glass, of course, LOOKING FORWARD WITH THE PAST continied from page f These gods of the dead not only connect thematically with the reliquaries but have also been the focus for finally getting down toexpenmenting witha long planned whole new scumbled surface palette using slips and oxides. Meanwhile, the Burnaby Millennium Mural project has moved on with touch-up epoxy repairs, sorting and numbenng for position, and photo documentation of each face, A minor blip occurred when three unfined sections were found inthe Ceperley Gallery vault. These were couricred to Sumas to catch a firing, which was unfor- tunately cancelled because of the high price of natural gas. Now the Sumas operation is on hold indefinitely; so] am making a monster garden pot from the left over Sumas clay in order to fill the rest of my kiln for a special firing. I'm hoping the sculpture poles will be installed before the middle of March so | can take photographs to Kushiro, Burnaby 's sister city in Hokkaido, on our trip to Japan at the end of March. This time in Japan we wall be working with Yasuo Terada in his Seto studio. He, Celia and 1 will create works for an exhibition in May. This will be a link with the past both with the traditions of Japan and the fact thatthe kiln we will be using is arebuilt traditional 13 chamber O-gama. Who knows what my work will look like by this time next year! Keith Rice-Jones Wildrice Studio Left: Keith Rice-Jones Bob's Last Flight 2000 oxide porcelain paper clay, gold lusire, acrylic painted sticks he 30.5, w: 40.6, d: $3.2 em Right: Kelth Rice-Jones Ribbons of Life oxided stoneware, bright geld and white gold lustre h: 27.3, w: 33.0, &: 7.6m Phot Credit: Ernest Neumann Potters Guild of British Columbia February 204)1