RUTH
DUCKWORTH

COMES TO TOWN

We are delighted that Ruth Duckworth will be
giving an evening slide lecture October 14th and
one day workshop October | 5th. Please note that
the announced dates in the June/July newsletter
were incorrect. The event is co-sponsored by the
Emily Carr Institute of Art And Design, The
U.B.C. Museum of Anthropology and the Potter's
Guild of B.C. Don't miss this rare opportunity to
meet an artist with an international reputation.

While she is often associated with small sensuous
porcelain forms, Ruth is also a master of scale
and has helped redefine her medium with large
scale ceramic murals and free standing sculpture.
Born in Germany in 1919, she fled the specter of
Nazism in the 30's and moved to England where
she began her training and career as an artist, In
1960 she emigrated to the United States where
she has earned a reputation as one of that nations
leading ceramists. Writing in the Chicago Times
(Thursday, Sep. 17, 1992) Bill Mahin describes
her living arrangements:

"She works in a former pickle factory in
Ravenswood. Her studio is on the ground floor,
It is a huge space - from across the room the two
large kilns look like squat microwave ovens,
Hundreds of her pieces in various stages of
completion are lying about.

The diversity is striking: enormous, pod shaped
pieces five and six feet high are intermingled with
fragile-looking, inches-high constructions of
unglazed porcelain so thin that they radiate with
their own internal light. Everything is covered
with a fine layer of clay dust, which somehow
adds to the effect.

Duckworth lives in on the second floor. Other
than a 30-foot square cutout section of flooring
that provides her with a different perspective on
works in progress in the studio below, the second
floor is a testament to the harmonious use of
living space,

The kitchen is large and open. Duckworth, of
course, made the floor tiles, as well as the plates,
bowls, cups and vases, Elsewhere the floors are
industrial wexxl beams, dark and highly polished.
Off to one side, under a narrow skylight that runs
the length of the building, is a platform holding a
sofa, some of her smaller pieces, and a number of
enormous plants. The pots, which Duckworth
made, are exquisite. The several large pieces of
sculpture, which are set here and there about the
room, enhance rather than minimize the space.

There is also room for a small gallery of her work
over the years on this floor, [tis here, in this
glorious second-floor space, away from the
clutter in the studio below, that the essential
rightness of Ruth Duckworth’s work becomes
apparent, the realization that in cach of her pieces
the integration of idea, material and execution is
total, rich, and complete."

A sample stained glass piece by the Guild new
Executive Director, Jan Kroeger.

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