PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
Georgina Lohan Studio
Spearheading this event, Georgina Lohan will be opening her studio to showcase her large scale sculpture and will also be offering new designs in her functional pottery featuring lemonade jugs & pitchers, lemon juicers, tumblers and pasta bowls.
Georgina Lohan Studio is the creative container for my porcelain sculpture & pottery as well as oil painting and jewelry work. What unifies the diversity of my offerings is the intention to activate positive energy in myself and others through the experience of beauty, engaging it as a transformational force.
Current artwork explores the theme of “Bringing in the Sweetness of Life”
Espiritu Design Studio
Diane Espiritu, of Espiritu Design Studio, PGBC board member and co-event coordinator will be offering new work for sale
Espiritu Design Studio is a multidisciplinary design studio based in Vancouver BC. As an artist and ceramic designer, I work in clay to explore concepts that resonate with me as a mother, maker, and community member. Clay gives me a medium for creative expression and a means to nurture myself so I can continue to care for the people I love. I enjoy challenges that enable me to exercise creative problem solving and stimulate growth through the methodologies and industrial processes of my practice. I find purpose and pleasure working with my hands to execute each stage of my craft delighting in the details and deliciousness of simplicity. I find strength in collaboration and engaging in the clay community to form meaningful connections.
Kate Metten
Kate Metten will be offering her current line of functional pottery at this event.
Kate Metten is an interdisciplinary artist whose material investigations into oil painting and ceramics deal primarily with the language of abstraction. Working at the intersection of those two histories allows a flexibility to address painterly concerns with clay, research into colour theory, visual perception and the still life, while also reflecting on Modernist philosophies of the Bauhaus, the unmaking of craft and material hierarchies. She is deeply concerned with phenomenology and the physicality of form. The internal logic of her artwork is determined by intuitive construction and response to material; Images and objects arise out of multi-layers of decision making to develop forms that are at once recognizable yet unfamiliar. The indexical quality of both painting and ceramic render dynamic impressions of mass and surface that preserve evidence of the hand and mind in motion. Metten’s preoccupation with the mechanics of looking, the psychological play of optical illusions, and our brain’s response to reductionist imagery confronts the viewer with the conditioning of their own perception.
Ilena Lee Pottery
Iena Lee will be offering her current line of functional pottery at this event.
I come from a trailer park at the end of the road in Alaska, the last frontier. As such, every road I take feels like I’m moving backwards. I travel through history and pick up artifacts – bits of mud, rusty stuff, stories – to make as-of-yet-unseen things. I make things that feel comfortable and familiar, yet altogether new and surprising.
Whether I am making plays, poetry or pottery I am making art that is simple and accessible. I search to find the universal language – touch, laughter, home. My pots are empty spaces meant to hold my day dreams, a loving touch, or a wine warmed smile.
My current practice revolves around simplicity. After years of collaborating in theatre, and making ceramics in a fully equipped studio – I challenged myself to make objects with only my hands, my brain, a seam of clay, and a fire.
Coral Patola /Piton Pottery
Coral Patola will be offering their current collection of utilitarian ceramics
The overarching theme of my work is the intention to instil mundane objects with mindfulness and attention. Creating utilitarian art that inspires people to slow down and appreciate the complexities and interconnectedness of ourselves and the outer world, spanning generations through materiality and form. I hope to create modern heirlooms capturing the ephemeral presence of nostalgia. I am currently exploring patterns and motifs found in women’s work. Examining the matriarch's role in passing down familial knowledge and tradition as an exploration into understanding my personal relationship to gender and place within the Chinese diaspora as a 1st generation mixed-race Canadian.
Rob Middleton-Hope
Rob Middleton-Hope is a woodworker, builder and musician who has come to clay sculpture recently. The pieces are a study of humans and our relationship with our planet. "Described with symbolism and form, I try to direct the viewer to images that reveal a part of our Human story. We are creatures of ritual, and symbolism carries the torch.”
Brit Bachmann
Brit Bachmann will be offering a selection of functional and sculptural soda, salt and gas fired vessels.
I am an artist and cultural worker with a sculptural, visual and sound art practice grounded in clay since 2014. My pots are borne out of curiosity, intuition, and the thrill of functionality versus dysfunctionality. I have a Bachelor of Fine Art from the University of British Columbia with a focus on drawing. I credit that study of line and contour for my clay aesthetic, which considers silhouette, hollow space, skeletons and touch. In 2022, I completed ceramics residencies at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts and Medalta. I am currently working on another research-based ceramics project as a Deer Lake Artist-in-Residence at the Shadbolt Centre.
Christer Myrberg
Christer Myrberg is a potter and musician who trained in Japan and draws inspiration from the art of antique Asia, specifically Song (China), Georyeo (Korea) and Japanese Mingei. His work is primarily interested in exploring vessel forms, vases and bottles, and modern interpretations of classical forms.
Hyeran Woo/HW Ceramicworks
Hello, my name is Hyeran, the creator of hw ceramicworks. I started pottery as a hobby at the beginning of the pandemic as a creative outlet. Now it is a big part of my life, keeps me grounded, and brings a lot of happiness.
Creating things from clay fascinates me - it is one of the coolest ways to be connected to the earth, where it all started. I love that I'm involved in each process, from the design aspect to working on it using my hands. I am excited to be part of this summer festival. Thank you!
Suzan Marczak/Firebelly Clayworks
Suzan Marczak will be will be offering her current line of functional pottery at this event.
Hillary Webb
Hillary Webb will be offering a selection of one-of-a-kind handbuilt functional pieces featuring meticulous mark marking details inspired by her embroidery practice. She will also have clay bead necklaces available.
I am a Vancouver-based artist who practices primarily in textile mediums and ceramics, combining techniques such as hand-built pottery, hand embroidery, natural dyeing, and drawing. My work is inspired by geometry and pattern, colour theory, the natural world, and a sense of place. The slow, meditative process of hand embroidery and hand built pottery lends itself to a practice based in mindfulness and focus. My work imparts a sense of calm beauty, with a hint of playfulness and delight.
Lindsay Gowler
Lindsay Gowler will be offering handbuilt and wheel thrown pottery at this event.
Kerria Gray
I am an artist living and working in Mount Pleasant, Vancouver. I am interested in how the processes of ceramics can relate to material and theoretical practices of care, attention, and community. I am especially interested in the ways that technology and capitalism affect our relationships with each other and how our attention is distributed and spent. I am continually exploring how to embody and enact slowness, attention, collaboration, community, care, and play -- in my ways of making, in the objects I create, and in thinking through how these objects might be used or interacted with in the rituals of everyday life..