We Women Who Wood
are proud to present our second exhibition:
June 4 - July 10, 2011
at the
Colborne Art Gallery
It all began 2004 at Monica Johnston (potter) and Paulus Tsiang (glass blower)
Frantic Farms in Codrington, Ontario.
Monica asked a master kilnbuilder Mark Peters, from North Carolina, to come and give a kiln building workshop. We were part of that group. It was a week of long hours, sweat, tears, laughter, and hugs. Under the patient tutelage from Mark, and much help from Pauus, we did get a beautiful kiln built which we named the "Hog Barn Baby".
At the end of the workshop we fired the kiln with wood that we had split and ended up with some pretty nice wood-fired pots. We were hooked!
In 2006 Barbara Murphy from Waterloo Pottery, asked Mark up to her farm close to Waterloo, Ontario to come up and give another workshop...
so now there were two kilns that we could fire!
We are women of all ages, mostly well into our 50s, 60s and 70s. We come from different areas of Ontario, and have all been making vessels out of clay for many years. Though we fire together, we work separately, and our work consists of a wide variety of form and surface treatment. Our schedule is to stack the kiln during the day, then slowly begin the firing with small sticks of wood, gradually increasing the sie and amount of wood put into the kiln. We work in shifts and by dinnertime the next day, the firing is usually complete, reaching a temperature of between 2300 to 2400 F. In a few days the kiln is cool enough to open up and see the pots that we have fired.
We hae been addictiely firing two cross-draft kilns for the past 7 years.
This experience has led to close friendships and a sharing of knowledge, as well as growth in our work. The participants are:
Celia Brandao
Shirley Clifford
Heather Daymond
Kim Harcourt
Monica Johnston
Carol-Ann Michaelson
Zsuzsa Monostory
Barbara Murphy
Marie Paquette
Terry Osborne
Liz Willoughby
