of BRITISH
COLUMBIA
a

Call for Entries

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

July 29 through
August 1, 2011

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

Darrel Hancock Pottery

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

Make 2071 your year
to promote your work to an
educated & discerning clientele.

Booth fee reductions
available for students!

Applications for the 2071 Festival
will be online soon; participants
will be juried at the end of February.

www.filbergfestival.com

For more information
phone 250-334-9242 or email:
info@filbergfestival.com

Hungarian Vision,
Continued from Page 6

the Bacs-Kiskun County and the Kecskemét
Town Council, Probstner was able to realize
his dream of establishing a recognized and
sponsored international ceramics residency.
This residency would rebuild a Hungarian
vision, provide a place where Eastern Bloc
artists could work in freedom and would
also allow these artists to work alongside
invited international guest artists. After
the dissolution of the USSR in 1989, great
changes in freedom were also accompanied
by great changes in the economic situation.
Fortunately the county and city councils
continued to generously sponsor the studio
and provide complete funds for all of the
artists up until 1998. As world economies
have declined, however (and especially since
the recent recession), monetary support
has become greatly reduced. Every year
Probstner has had to work harder to locate
other sponsorships and is always seeking
interested connections. The ICS has been
a member of the International Academy of
Ceramics for over 30 years and is involved in
a European Union sponsored research project
called Project KNOWHOW that connects
the Reykjavik School of Visual Art, Icelandic
Academy of Art, Estonian Academy of Art,

Howl, approx. 23" tall, by Debra Sloan. The
terra sigalattas kept their colours in the
wood-fired salt kiln and this piece has a rich
surface result.

Potters Guild of BC Newsletter : December 2010

Top: Central courtyard, two wood-fired Fred
Olsen Kilns. Above: One of the old wood
piles in the old courtyard.

Glasgow School of Art and Cumbria Institute
of Art and Design (www.knowhow.is). The
ICS has opened the door to international
students and has connections with universities
worldwide, as well as Hungarian students
from the University of Western Hungary,
NYME in Sopron, where Probstner founded
the Department of the Silicate Arts in 2001,
and the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and
Design in Budapest. At the ICS, students
are exposed to all manner of ceramics
practices, in contrast to the design-oriented
programs that are offered at many of these
schools. In Probstner’s words, the elements
of the institute are “openness, versatility
and comprehensiveness...in the educational
style of the renaissance, where master and
apprentice live together”. He believes that the
ICS could be a model for artist education in
the future. Probstner has remained true to his
original intention of creating a facility where
expression and expertise are sustained through
experimentation and international exchange.
He has been consistent in protecting artistic
expression at the ICS, keeping it politically
disengaged, a challenging position to uphold
in a politicized country like Hungary. The
International Ceramics Studio is now the
oldest year-long operating residency in
Hungary.

When the ICS was founded, only traditional
earthenware materials or open clay and
glazes were available in Hungary. The large

Continued on Page 8, Stoneware

7