A Visit With Jean Fahrni

I recently had the pleasure of a visit with Jean Fahrni, a long time
BC potter and a founding member of the Guild. (She has served
3 terms as the Guild's President.)

Pottery and ceramic arts have come a tremendous distance in the
last 50 years. Jean says of the pottery being
made at that time; "They were making ash-
trays.” She smiled at the memory and recalled
that she didn't exactly fit in.

I asked Jean how she got her start as a potter.
A professor at UBC rented her gardener's
cabin and was setting up the first pottery
Summer School, but he was having trouble
getting people to sign up. Jean, wanting to
cheer him up, said that she would go. The idea
then went out of her mind. But months later,
the professor reminded her of her commit-
ment and told her to be ready to go in two
weeks!

And so, in the summer of 1955, she started
studying under Tom Hardy of Portland,
Oregon at the UBC Summer School in the
Pottery Hut. On her first day she was at a bit
of a loss she says. So she made "gingerbread
men” - that is simple forms carved from a slab
of clay. I've seen these pieces - simple plaques
composed with smooth modernist forms.
Not ashtrays.

Years of study followed under masters like
Wayne Ngan and John Reeve and Tam
Irving. These potters were exploring an
aesthetic inspired by Shoji Hamada in
Japan and his friend Bernard Leach of
England. This aesthetic is very apparent
in Jean's own work. Early in her career
Jean found that she was sometimes
teased, since she was the wife of a promi-
nent surgeon, that "she would be a pretty
good potter if she wasn't a kept woman.”
Turns out she was a pretty good potter
anyway - her work is widely collected and
several of her pieces may be found at the
Museum of Civilization in Ottawa. She
has also been elected to be among only 52
Canadians who are Honorary Membes of
the Canadian Craft Federation. In the
early 1960's Jean went to Thailand. This

was the beginning an extended interest in the culture and pottery

of Southeast Asia. Jean's husband had been invited to set up an
orthopedics clinic in Bangkok. Since Jean was trained as a nurse,

14 Potters Guild of British Columbia Newsletter

“Gingerbread Men”

and since nurses were needed, there was also a role for her. During
her residence there she was particularly struck by the sophistica-
tion of the local pottery: A visit to the Sankimpang Kilns in
Cheng Mei, Thailand confirmed her impression. Whereas in BC
pottery was new and unsophisticated (think
ashtray) - in Asia pottery was ancient and very
sophisticated. She started purchasing modest-
ly priced pieces that she thought were excel-
lent. This was the beginning of a major collec-
tion of Asian ceramics that now resides at the
Vancouver Museum. Since parting with that
collection she has accumulated a second and
scholars from all over the world continue to
visit.

When she was collecting she found that peo-
ple responded very positively to her love of
their work and their culture. This enabled her
to gather an important collection without
having the financial resources of a major
museum. One anecdote: She tells a story of a
time she was rushing to catch a plane in
Thailand, but saw a beautiful white and blue
glazed plate with a rabbit motif out of the cor-
ner of her eye and had to stop. She explained
to the vendor that she was in a rush and did-
n't have the time to dicker. The vendor smiled
and said that he recognized her from years
before when she and her husband had
come to Thailand to set up an orthope-
dics program. "You are a person who
came to help my country!” he exclaimed,
and then gave her the piece at half price.
Years later, Don Hutchinson made a plate
for her that also had a rabbit motif titled:
‘Jean Teaches her Children about the
Universe.

As you might expect Jean has a collection
of BC pottery that rivals her collection of
Asian ceramics. I saw beautiful work by
Wayne Ngan, Tam Irving, Gordon
Hutchens, and many others. I had a
glimpse of Jean's studio too - but it was
obvious that it wasn't active. Arthritis is
an inhibition when one practices an art as
physically demanding as pottery. There
was a block of clay there, still covered in
plastic. Jean pinched the clay as she
entered the room - I thought to just touch again the clay she
loved. The top of that block was covered in pinch-marks.

Martin Hunt
Photos: Martin Hunt

January 2005