I arranged with Lefebvre Gallery, in Edmonton, to hold my first major exhibition as a full-time artist in the spring of 1978, along with fabric artist Maureen Hemingway.
I was full of ideas for it. However, we suddenly decided to move to a small farm an hour’s drive northwest of Edmonton, with a ramshackle house and an old, broken down barn, with only an old granary to work in. But I managed to get a show together, borrowing room in other potter’s kilns.
I explored textures on basic shapes (spheres, cubes, cylinders), made by pressing clay slabs in wooden or plaster moulds. I used a warm-coloured clay, augmented occasionally with an iron oxide wash to emphasize the texture.
Only one piece, a large, convoluted arch, was glazed. I made the arch to try a building technique that I’d devised, using slabs of clay sandwiched with nylon ‘crinoline’ mesh for tensile strength. It was also a test of my building abilities, because the piece required two separate, twisting towers that had to join at the top with the twists matching.
king pyrrhus, 1978, stoneware, 38 cm high, unglazed, ∆5. Pressed in a wooden box mould, with textured pieces filling holes that were left and then expanded out.
convoluted arch, side one, 1978, mesh-sandwiched clay, 112 cm h, manganese metallic glaze, ∆5.
convoluted arch, side two, 1978. It was fun building it so that the twists would match at the top.
one of the weavings shown by fabric artist, Maureen Hemingway, with a sphere sculpture below it.
tower, 1978, stoneware 40 cm h, unglazed, iron ox rub, ∆5.
tower, 1978. This was cast in a plaster mould I made for the purpose.
egg (inside out I) 1978, stoneware, 46 cm h, unglazed, iron oxide rub, ∆5. Cast from a porcelain mould.
potentialities, (a smaller egg) 1978, stoneware, 33 cm long, unglazed, iron oxide rub, ∆05.
inside out II, 1978, stoneware 39 cm h, unglazed, iron oxide rub, ∆5. This piece, cast in a large plaster spherical mould, required interior walls to achieve the effect of a many channelled form.
inside out III, 1978, stoneware 35 cm h, unglazed, iron oxide rub, ∆5. Here also, walls inside were required.
inside out IV, 1978, stoneware 30 cm h, pressed in a wood box mould, unglazed, ∆5.
textured obelisk, 1978, stoneware 60 cm h, partially glazed, ∆5
sphere, 1978, stoneware 39 cm d, formed in a large plaster mould, unglazed, iron oxide rub, ∆5.
till we meet again my darling, 1978, 2 pc. each 35 cm h, stoneware, unglazed, iron oxide rub, ∆5.
