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PHRRRAARAEAAARAEAAROAEAED D4

% volunteering at all Guild activities. Our Guild

regularly participates in several events throughout
the year. We have a booth at the Arts Council's
Christmas Craft Fair in November, which is our
major fund raiser for the Guild. As well as pottery

sales, we raffle off a gourmet gift basket featuring

pottery and other indulgences. We sponsor an
Art and Craft Fair in the Arts Centre during April
that features demonstrations by the resident
groups, as well as sales of pottery and other art
work. We provide a Clay Play activity area at the
Mackenzie's Children Festival in June. We offer 2

& - 3 children’s workshop during the summer months
as part of the Arts Council's Children's Art & Craft
Workshop series.

RRARRAAAAARAREEAAAREES

At the Start

| took my first pottery lessons in Vancouver in
1971, At the time | was 19, looking like a hippie
and taking various other classes through what |
think was called the Vancouver Free University.
| had always enjoyed “making things” and so
thed my hand at tie-dye, weaving and quilting.
The quilting was with an elderly Scientologist
couple who were looking for recruits. | did
manage to make a rather nice quilt.

The pottery classes were in a home somewhere
around 7Oth, close to the University. The
woman who taught us had about six estrin
wheels in her basement and we learnt to centre
with one hand. She made the neatest little slab
“weed holders’, with a thrown neck and raw
oxide decoration, | remember hitch-hiking to
class from North Vancouver through what |
thought was a mild snow storm (nothing like
Ontario), It took longer than usual but | was still
surprised to find the class cancelled with only me
in attendance. At the end of the course she said
| had potential and to sign up for the next
session.

| never did go back, but a year later in Victoria |
signed up for a course through Camousen
College. Classes were in a storefront pottery on
Fort Street and | eventually ended up teaching
there myself. Standards obviously weren't too
high!

We always seem to be busy going fram one
project to the next. This past October, just two
weeks before the Christmas Craft Fair, our glaze 3
kiln had @ prolonged breakdown, After getting
through that stressful time (an understatement),
it became apparent that we needed to purchase
a larger kiln with a computerized kiln sitter. With
this new kiln, our next Christmas Craft Fair booth
will have some awesome pottery! Drop by for a
visit!

Marlene Pakrastins

President
Mackenzie Potters Guild

Decidedly, this was to be my lifes work. | set
Up a Studio in my basement and struggled
away at it until returning to Ontario in 1975.
My walk-up apartment on Bathurst Street in
Toronto was just blocks from George Brown
College. As | had no studio yet | signed up for
their three week session (ironically, l've since
returned to Toronto to teach my own three
week course at the same campus).

Kayo Young, Judy Lowry and Jim Hong Louie
were the instructors. Judy strongly
encouraged me to further my training at
Sheridan Collage School of Crafts and
Design in Mississauga. It was good advice,
While at Sheridan | set up a studio behind our
flat in an abandoned coach house renting the
top floor space to various artists types in the
“Annex” neighbourhood. | graduated in 1978
and have been working making pots ever
since.

Laurel Rolland