COLUMBIA

Katrina Chaytor: A Decorated Practice

The North-West Ceramics Foundation is pleased to announce that Katrina Chaytor will be the featured speaker at a free public lecture at Emily Carr University on Nov. 12.

Katrina Chaytor is a nationally and internationally known ceramic artist and educator based in Calgary, Alta., where she has been a permanent member of the ceramics faculty at the Alberta College of Art + Design since 2001. Born and raised on the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland, she received her BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax and her MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, Alfred, New York.

Katrina has exhibited in numerous national and international group, two-person and

Katrina Chaytor at

solo exhibitions. She has been an invited work.

participant for residencies in Greece, Mexico,

Red Deer College, Watershed Centre for

the Ceramic Arts in Maine and Medalta International Artists-in Residence in Medicine Hat. In 2007, she was one of ten Canadian ceramic artists invited to participate in a month-long residency at the Fule International Ceramics Art Museums (FLICAM) at FuPing, Shaanxi, China. She has lectured and taught workshops across Canada including at the Metchosin International Summer School of the

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— Workshop November 22 10:30am-1pm Surrey Art Gallery

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Sign up! 604.501.5100, press 0 Mon-Fri, 8:30am-5:30pm

Kiln Operations Sunday,

Learn all about electric kiln operations from Murray Sanders, a pottery instructor and kiln manager at the Surrey Art Gallery for 18 years. Topics include: kiln loading, re-wiring, firing schedules, cones and temperatures, trigger adjustments, troubleshooting,

maintenance and safety. $26.50

Surrey Art Gallery is located at 13750 - 88 Avenue

604-501-5566 | www.arts.surrey.ca

By Amy Gogarty

Flower Holder. Stoneware, Oxidation-fired. Decoration: Repeating cursors and circuitry latticework pattern.

Teapot with Trivet. Stoneware, oxidation-fired, Decoration: circuitry latticework pattern.

Arts near Victoria, B.C.. Chaytor has been awarded grants from the Manitoba Arts Council, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and the Canada Council. Her work is held in public and private collections across Canada and in China.

Katrina is best known for her hand-built functional ware including elaborate sets of stacking condiment pots and flower holders. These are constructed with the precision of an architect and decorated with the eye of a painter. Inspiration from the industrial arts is evident in the clean lines and geometrical purity of much of her work and in the flawless perfection with which she completes every detail. She works with slab construction, imparting complex patterns onto her surfaces with plaster moulds and enhancing them with luminous glazes in jewel-like colours. She is dedicated to functional work, believing that “pots have an inherent and intimate connection to daily life.” She makes pots “that serve and signify; connect sensuous life with active experience; and intertwine use with beauty, necessity with pleasure.”

Much of her studio research has focused on the role of ornament as a “mediator between art and life” in contemporary culture. Chaytor has written and presented extensively on the symbolic and semantic value of ornamental motifs. She responds to decoration’s capacity to “carry information and ‘carry on’ a performance,” its ability to both

Continued on Page 8, Ornamental Motifs

Potters Guild of BC Newsletter : October 2009

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