page 2 Editor’s Notes

*=*] desperately need articles and clay news from you. Witness che emphasis on pictures in this month's edition. The people I usually cajole into writing are getting a little surly under the burden. So send, drop off or email your thoughts and facts on clay- Please!

***The article on monkeys a5 art makers (see page three) was pretty interesting ta me. Is this a door into the first artists in our species! | wish | knew af the monkeys had patneons that they repeated and if they were more pleased by some decorations than others. Was there any evidence of colour choice or preference! And is there a Leonardo of Monkeydom, our in the jungle somewhere, too busy hunting for food and aveiding leopards to make art? Or is art a by product of simian boredom? Is it a response to the sterile cages of che monkey's imprisonment?

These questions make me think of the women. of Afghanistan, cruelly restricted in the name of Islam (as interpreted by che ruling Taliban}. These women are caged in their heavy robes and veils, allowed outside only to purchase food, forbidden to talk ta any male whe is not family, nor are they permitted work or education. The widows, of whom there are many after two decades of war, suffer particularly hard under these insane strictures. And do the caged women

De the designs for their carpets become especially brilliant when rigid fundamentalism jails them? Are the exquisitely designed tiles that covered the walls of Persian palaces a resule of captive imaginations?

We all know how much easier it is co buckle down to the clay on a day when rain holds us a temporary prisoner. We have the great literature thar came out of the Soviet gulags. If the body is chained, the mind seeks freedom. Perhaps the women beaten by their mullahs for wearing white socks (sexually enticing, you keow) may become far more dangerous thinkers than they ever were when they walked freely.

eee Act & Science are two diametrically opposed fields of study today, Bur only one hundred years ago, chey mixed freely. The scientists of the nineteenth century were also artists, the ability to draw a part of their recording lexicon. [ was flipping through a biography on Charles Darwin and chere was a photograph of him leceuring to his students. A beautiful and accurate drawing of a gorilla skull was visible on the chalk board behind him. The drawing contained both information and spirit.

Go back a few hundred years more, and you see that many artists dipped, at the

very least, a toe into the pool of science. Remini, a sculpeor, designed much of

the vatican, overseeing the construction, having an intimate kawowledge of his materials. Painners had co know che

science of mixing pigment, as well as cy

geology and anatomy. Later, early machines of the industrial age had a qualiry of arc co chem. My parents have a typewriter built in the 1890's. Ic scill works, I've cyped letters and resumes on it The keyboard is high, each key a piece of Hack ebony with an ivory inlay for the letter, Doric columns wreathed with gold ivy support the keyboard. This is an artful machine. [f you live in old house, look az your tadianors; buried beneath the layers of paint you can see the ormare

floral patterns thar were the pride of the

manufacturer.

Art teday often seems suspicious of any object that is well made. It equaces busy hands with alazy mind, The social

position of the blue-collar worker, a maker

of objects, is nowhere near as prestigious

as that of a lawyer, a worker in ideas,

Craft often occupies the same posigon 35

the blue-collar worker. We are, if you

read © magazine or Art in America, the useful, likeable, bur dimmer cousins of thy pure art producers. Nacurally, [ disagree with this attitude. But what the hell, we have a lor more fun and pleasure in producing our work. And the older | get, the more iraportanc that seems.

Karen Opas

ot Afghanistan make art!

ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee - - 7 7 7 5 = Potter’s Guild of B.C. Newsletter Website: www. margaretdesign.com’pguild/ ‘ = 5 The Newsletter is published 10 times yearly as an information link for members. Submissions of articles, letters and : « anything else of interest are happily received and should be submitted by the 2nd Wednesday of any month. Lnclassifieds and . r articles may be edited for space needs. The fax number is 04/669 - 5627, i ; Editor; Karen Opas General Manager: Jane Matthews Editorial Board: Tam Irving, Gillian McMillan, Carol Mayer . * Gallery Assistance: Julia Maika, Christina Loch, Melanie Corbin, Monica Brisson-Arce : ~ 1997 Membership Fees (Based on Calendar Year): Advertising Rates (not including GST): . * Individwal: $40 Full Page: $130 1/2 page: $65 . : SeniorsFull time Students: $25 1/4 Page: $40 Business Card Size $25 “ » Instirucions! Groups / Corporations: 340 . * Family or Studio (max. 4 persons): $55 Unelassified Rates (mor including GST) " = Members: FREE : in . Nonmembers: 3 lines $8 each addicional line: $2

a a " Board of Directors: President: Ron Vallis; Vice President: Les Crimp; Treasurer: Janet Turpin; Secretary: Gillian McMillan; : : Directors: John Cloutier, Linds Doherty, Fay Hickey, Debra Sloan, Deborah Tibbel, Laura van der Linde, Frank Tureo, June u « MacDonald : ' ' " Email: bepguildi@intouch.be.ca “ ae ee ee eR a ee eee

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