Gallery of BC Ceramics
Rachelle Chinnery
Flores

March 6-31 Opening Thusday March 6 6:00 - 8:00PM

Rachelle Chinnery Flores Series 202.
curved porcelain on cast bronze, 19.0 x

20.0 x 13.0 cm. Photo: Emu Goto

Working in clay is a refuge for me. My
work isn't about process, design or deco-
ration. | use clay as a medium of expres-
sion because it best suits the haptic nature
of life: experience and understanding
through physical contact.

I grew up in a suburb of Montreal, Que-
bec. My very earliest memories of the
natural world are of collecting tadpoles
from ponds behind our house, of explor-
ing the bit of wooded area not yet claimed
for development, and of tobogganing on
the hillside of Mount Royal. These early
encounters with growing things sparked
an interest in all things natural. But my
first encounter with real wilderness was
when I came to British Columbia in 1978,
That move was a paradigm shift. The vast-
ness of the mountains and ocean propelled
my awareness away from the micro and
inte the macro.

BC Arts Council Gives
Generously to Local Artist in
the Flores Exhibition

I thank the BC Arts Council for its gener-
ous financial sapport of Flores. In March
2001, | received a Production Grant for
bronze casting. As a result of having re-
ceived this grant, | was able to bearn the
Casting process and plan te continue work-
ing in this combined medium of clay and
bronze. Rachelle Chinnery

March 2003

This is a place where the city lives at the
periphery of the way the world has always
been. Here there are still vast tracts of
wilderness without traces of ourencroach-
ment. The Pacific Ocean inspires me to
think differently, not simply about the
environment, and notin nowveau spiritual-
ism. Kayaking on the west coast of Wan-
couver Island has ex posed an internal land-
scape that prows and expands with cach
trip. And it is only accessible to me when
L am isolated in the wild for extended
periods of time.

This series is about that realm. My
carving is the physical translation of
nature as | experience it. It is the
repetitive chb and flow, the silence,
and clarity of being that permeates
the senses while in the wilderness.
Vessels in this series suggest white
flowers or the undulating movement
of an ocean; they are from and of
nature.

Before my initial kayaking tnp in
1996, 1 had worked exclusively on
functional pottery. It was after my
first tripto Flores Island in Clayoquot
Sound that I began to work
sculpturally. Having paddled through
enormous Pacific swells, and meet-
ing gray whales along the way, the
scale and nature of my work changed.
1 began handbuilding large sculp-
tural vessels and started carving wave
pattems into bowds.

BRITISH
S COLUMBIA
~ ARTS COUNCIL

Potters Guild of British Columbia Newsletter

Because clay is malleable, itenables me to
express in form what I] remember having
felt in the wilderness. The process of coil-
ing allows a sense of growth and gentle
progression. When I retum after being in
the wilderness, | can recreate the sense of
space and of peace in the slow and delib-
erate act of handbuilding. Through work-
ing with clay I gain access to memory
through my own hands.

Rachelle Chinnery

Rachelle Chinnery Flores Series 2002,
carved poreclain om cast bromac, 19.0% 2000 2 13.0 cm
Photo: Emu Goto

Lewis Krzyczkowski
Hazardous Attraction
April 3 - 28
Opening Thursday April 3 6:00-8:00PM

Known for his fantastic effects with crys-
talline glazes, Lewis Kreyezkowski mxwunts
an entire show featuring this fascinating
glazing technique. Crystalline glazes are
produced through specific glaze formula-
lion and carefully controlled firing proce-
dures, Like a dust particle acting as the
sced for a snowflake, portions of the glaze
separate in an orderly manner, which then
form crystals on the surface of the pots,