Exhibition Guide: Making: a career in craft

Exhibition Guide

Making: a career in craft

Making: a career in craft

Alberta Craft Feature Gallery - Edmonton: February 1 – April 25, 2020 Alberta Craft Gallery - Calgary: June 6 – August 29, 2020 In craft, careers are as varied as the objects created, and each artist has their own unique career story to tell. Ushering in the Alberta Craft Council’s 40th anniversary and the nationwide celebration Craft Year 2020, Making: a career in craft shares the career stories of 21 fine craft artists.

Being creative isn’t limited to the making of work.

Craft artists are often some of the most business savvy and innovative folks out there , each with their own diverse mix of revenue streams. Craft is often heavy on research and development; a lot of work happens behind the scenes before new work reaches the public. The level of creativity, determination, focus and ingenuity it takes to successfully refine and perfect the design of a piece, can similarly be applied to other areas of one’s practice.

Just as it is important for an artist to share their work with others, it is also important to share the lesser known and understood aspects of an artist’s practice - the challenges, the eventual breakthroughs, and lessons learned. Whether you are a maker or a supporter, we can all learn from one another. The exchange of ideas and imaginative solutions is an integral part of a healthy creative community.

Fern Facette has been making textiles for nearly two decades. She started with crocheting and knitting and recently completed the Master Weaver Level 2 at Olds College. Since 2012, Fern has sold her woven creations at the Royal Bison Art & Craft Fair in Edmonton. She recently founded Fern’s School of Craft and is a professional photographer.

“After years of selling woven items at Royal Bison Art & Craft Fair, so many people were asking if I taught lessons. And so, after a few subsequent years of collecting used looms, saving money and planning how to do this thing, Fern’s School of Craft began.

At first it was just me, now we have eight instructors!

I’m proud that our team of collaborators includes POC/LGBTQ/gender non-binary folks. Props to ALL my passionate craft instructors who are also opinionated moms, climate activists, university techs and civil servants.” – Fern Facette

Shifting from teaching science and from working in stone, Benjamin Oswald’s career has progressively come to focus on ceramics. With the goal of creating more contemporary designs, Ben has moved from throwing and glazing earthenware bowls and vases; to porcelain, mold making, slip casting, and material manipulation. Ben continues to evolve his own ceramics practice through Emily Carr University of Art + Design’s Low Residency MFA program.

“In addition to my personal studio practice, I currently teach ceramics full-time to high school students in Edmonton. I started out as a physics teacher and taught physics and chemistry for nearly 20 years. A pivotal career moment happened about five years ago when I started a ceramics class at the current high school I teach at. Over the next several years, the student enrollment skyrocketed, and I stepped down as the department head of science and now teach ceramics full-time.”

– Benjamin Oswald Creative careers can take interesting twists and turns, and what may initially seem like a tangent or momentary distraction can become one of the most rewarding and lasting career directions. Taking a leap into the unknown from more familiar ground can be frightening but also profoundly revitalizing.

Carissa Baktay is a glass artist from Calgary who lives and works in both Canada and Iceland. Carissa earned a BFA in Glass from the Alberta College of Art + Design, studied at The Rhode Island School of Design and received her Master in Glass Art and Science from VICARTE Research Unit in Portugal.

“I am lucky to have had the opportunity to live in many different countries around the world, and with each new culture comes a new set of obstacles, creating new paths (or rocky terrain) in my process. I started visiting Iceland more frequently and for longer periods in 2018 when a new obstacle presented itself: there was no longer a glass studio in Iceland. This marked a pivotal shift in my glass-based practice as I started working with horsehair as a material proxy for glass. Echoing one another aesthetically, this partnership inspired new paths within my practice.”

– Carissa Baktay

Shona Rae was a professional clay sculptor before a series of dreams led her to begin studying goldsmithing and the metal arts in 1994. She received her Diploma in Applied Art and Design from the Kootenay School of the Arts Cooperative in 1998 and her BFA with distinction in the year 2000 from the Alberta College of Art + Design. Shona Rae has won numerous national and international awards, government grants and attention for her sculptural art in Europe and North America.

“Allow yourself to be open to new ways of thinking.

Live closer to the edge and force yourself to leave your safe place. Listen to your heart. Believe in your dreams. Do not allow yourself to live in fear of failure, instead, it is important to have faith that the universe wants you to succeed. Why would you receive a gift if you were not meant to use it? Be your own Hero.”

- Shona Rae

Image above: Forging Hammer by Shawn Cunningham Image on cover: Fern Facette at work in her studio.

As we enter a new decade, it is a natural time to take pause and to reflect on where we’ve been and where we hope our journey will take us next. May you too find inspiration and encouragement in the stories this group of artists so generously share as part of this exhibition.

Participating artists: Carissa Baktay Nicole Baxter Tony Bloom Albertine Crow Shoe Shawn Cunningham J. Fern Facette James Lavoie Erik Lee Brenda Malkinson James Marshall Benjamin Oswald

Christine Pedersen Darren Petersen Shona Rae Dana Roman Amy & Tanner Skrocki Annette ten Cate Barbara Tipton Allison Tunis Keith Walker Kari Woo

Carissa Baktay

Calgary, Alberta & Iceland

Career in craft story I am a glass artist from Calgary, Alberta living and working between Canada and Iceland. I am lucky to have had the opportunity to live in many different countries around the world, and with each new culture comes a new set of obstacles, creating new paths (or rocky terrain) in my process. During my first residency in Iceland I became inspired by wool processing and hungry to adapt the technology, as well as the aesthetic, into my glass practice. Influenced by the rawness of Icelandic wool, Soft Machine plays with the materiality of glass pushed past common recognisability.

This ongoing body of work is directly influenced textiles and involves 3D rendering, makeshift machinery and glass making as part of my deconstruction/construction process. Testing the material limits of glass thread through makeshift fibre optics, these forms are built through hours of a repetitive, machine like process of gathering from the furnace and winding around a spinning structure. Through the deconstruction of glass as I understand it, combined with found objects, I utilize glass’s materiality and by approximation its immateriality formally.

This new way of looking at glass from another material perspective would not have happened without travel. I started visiting Iceland more frequently and for longer periods in 2018 when a new obstacle presented itself: there was no longer a glass studio in Iceland. This again marked a pivotal shift in my glass based practice as I started working with horsehair as a material proxy for glass.

When first introduced to horsehair I was intrigued by its closeness to glass thread; both fragile and fine yet strong and functional. Echoing one another aesthetically, this partnership inspired new paths within my practice. I use horse hair both as a drawing material and for its conceptual weight; when on the horse it is prized for its beauty, but is discarded through the commercial meat industry in Iceland. Through rescuing horse’s tails as a valuable craft material, I spend hours upon hours tenderly cleaning and grooming them to present them once again as beautiful, albeit transformed, objects.

This work takes risks in both subject matter and material. It is a departure from my glass work that has inspired new forms and opened new doors. Through working with materials differently because of a change in location, culture and available material, this new process has added richness to my practice that would not have come about otherwise. It seeks

to restore the connection between people and their intuitive relationship to nostalgically charged objects and traditional organic materials. Through this work I have learned the necessity of travel, of taking risks, and to look around with new eyes, an open heart and playful hands.

Biography Carissa Baktay is a sculptor from Calgary, currently working in both Canada and Iceland. Working with glass since 2008, she has earned degrees from Alberta University of Art, the Rhode Island School of Design and Universidade de Nova Lisboa, Portugal.

Using experimental technologies and mediums combined with time honoured glass making methods, she has been invited as Artist in Residence at studios in Iceland, Norway, and Finland. Recently honoured with Canada Council for the Arts and Alberta Foundation for the Arts Grants, she has presented her multidisciplinary work in museums and galleries

Nicole Baxter

Edmonton, Alberta

Words of wisdom from jewellery artist and educator Sarabeth Carnat to me, a young student (and now to you): “Learn anything anyone is willing to teach you. Even if you think you’re not interested. Build a massive technique arsenal that you can draw from and your designs will never be limited”.

27 years later and I am still learning and finding new ways to apply what I’ve learnt.

Recently I’ve decided to spend some time exploring spectacles made from Cellulose Acetate. A material, which lends itself nicely to jewellery making.

Follow my learning curve @ seememake.com Biography As a jewellery artist and educator, Edmonton artist Nicole Baxter asks herself the question: “What is the difference between jewellery and jewellery art?”. For Nicole, jewellery commerce dictates that an object is precious because of the materials used whereas jewellery art rises above the materials. As Nicole describes, ...“an object has value because the artist makes it so...{and} this is the constant struggle of the jewellery artist...making art through beauty, line, texture, reflection and the technical application of the craft”.

Nicole Baxter received her formal education at the Alberta College of Art + Design and has maintained a studio practice for over 25 years.

Tony Bloom

Canmore, Alberta

Career in craft story One of the more powerful inflection points in my career came when Stonecrop, the studio I co-founded along with three others, had our first open house on December 7, 1974. Six hundred people showed up -- this was when Canmore was a dusty, mining town of about 1,500 (Calgary’s population was something like 400,000). At the end of the day when we reviewed sales, we were amazed to learn the demand for non-conventional, more sculptural work was considerably stronger than for the mugs, bowls, and plates that was more typical fare in production studios in those days. It told us there was already a sophisticated craft audience waiting to be challenged, which exactly suited my

temperament.

Over the years since then I have moved back and forth among sculptural clay and metal pieces, competition/commissioned work for the public realm, and pieces for gallery exhibitions, along with what is best called ‘research’.

Eventually (1980) I bought out the other Stonecrop members (Les Manning, John Borrowman, and Bart Robinson) and ran the studio as a sole proprietorship, renting out space to potters and clay artists; employing some as apprentices and assistants, trading space for work with others. Over one hundred people have spent time at the studio in some capacity over the past five decades.

Another quantum leap happened in my second decade when I was making raku pinch pots with round bottoms that sat unattached on spindly ceramic cradles. I wanted the cradles to cantilever more but was running into the limits of clay’s capabilities so decided to try bronze. Bingo! That led me down a rabbit hole I am still exploring.

Since early childhood I had always been drawn to art in public spaces (I was raised in Tokyo and Paris, two

cities with a strong aesthetic) and knew it was only a matter of time before I got involved in producing work on that scale, or for that arena.

Even at that scale my work is rooted in craft; the pieces are drawn from or have a reference to the idea of high functioning objects.

WaterWorks, in the forecourt of BC Hydro’s head office in Vancouver, is a water-driven kinetic sculpture that evokes a piece of machinery from the 1800s and borrows from the idea of a shishi odoshi, which is an object used in Japanese gardens to startle deer.

The Lloydminster Border Marker: These four towers are 30m (100 foot) high and are located exactly on the border between Alberta and Saskatchewan. They each have a slot running the entire 30m height which, when lined up with the slots in the other towers, emulates the activity of the Dominion Land Surveyors as they lined up crosshairs in their theodolites in their original surveys in 1905.

Doug Carlyle was the urban designer on this award-winning project and contracted me as the sculptor.

The Threshold gates in Lethbridge is a fully functioning sculptural gate spanning 16.8m (55 ft). It is oriented along a north-south axis so that the sun sets -- and the moon rises -- in the centre of the oculus on the spring and autumn equinoxes.

Toh Tactic, a sculpture with moveable parts in Washington’s Burlington Library, can be manipulated by the library visitors to communicate information in a way similar to but different from the information on the pages in books on the shelves.

The Braid, the fountain component of The Convergence in Edmonton, and the Royal Oaklands Park WaterSpheres both transmit water and have a functioning component that has to be conceived and executed with a craftsperson’s attention to detail.

Biography Sculptor Tony Bloom works primarily in steel, copper, bronze, and aluminum, producing sculpture which ranges from intimate, hand-held objects to outdoor monumental-sized plaza pieces.

For almost four decades Tony Bloom’s work has been exhibited in North America, Europe, and Japan, and he has been the recipient of national, provincial, and civic awards.

albertine crow shoe Pivotal Career Moments In 2013, I did my first show at AUArts, Tradition and Beauty. The show was made possible by Charles Lewton-Brain from the Jewellery + Metals department. It was there that the Glenbow Museum bought one of my pieces for their permanent collection. That raised my confidence and was my first of many big moments.

Working as the Artist in Residence at Glenbow Museum in 2018 transformative period for me. I made many visits to the GIenbow Museum to see the Blackfoot collection then I would come home to work in my studio. I had to choose different pieces from the collection and create pieces of inspiration that would all make up an exhibition.

The artists/jewellers from the North American Tribes from the Southwest have carried on the traditions of silverwork for generations. I was introduced to the Navajo culture and visited many accomplished Navajo and Zuni jewellers. I was moved by the richness of the traditional and modern forms of Navajo silver work.

Would you do it all again?

“I believe in living your life with no regrets. Life is short and it can all change on a dime. I took my first class in jewellery and metals when I was in my late forties. I knew my decision to become a full-time jeweller/artist would mean leaving my job and a guaranteed income but it has been worth it. I have been very fortunate to meet some very talented jewellers who have become close friends and family.

I have been humbled by my experiences. Someone asked me once, if I should have started this when I was younger. I disagreed, I bring with me my life ex-

Piikani Nation

periences- it wouldn’t be the same if I started earlier in my life as a jeweller because I wouldn’t have the knowledge I have today, that is expressed through my work.”

Biography Albertine Crow Shoe (Piikani Nation) considers her art to be a bridge that connects traditional Blackfoot culture to today’s modern non-Native world. Traditional Blackfoot culture still exists and thrives within modern society. It is a rich and spiritual world that she interprets through the art of jewelry making.

Albertine’s great grandfather Stumik Sapop, Bull Plume inspired her to take this path. Until his death in 1920, he maintained a Winter Count ledger that recorded significant events in Blackfoot history for each year, from its start in 1764. Each small pictographic image carried with it a story for that event.

Blackfoot history, told by Blackfoot, became visible to the outside world. Albertine believes she too can present Blackfoot stories and beliefs in similar images to the outside world.

By remaining true to the traditional art forms as a base, Albertine combines modern and traditional materials to produce a connection between cultures. Her designs flow from images that, symbolic in Blackfoot culture, evoke memory, history and spiritual power. Albertine uses traditional materials such as elk and buffalo horn, shell, types of pipe stone, and other local materials. And while she puts these on nontraditional bases [silver and brass] she strives to remember her path and roots in life.

Shawn cunningham Career in craft story Over the last 30 years is become ever more present in my mind, an old adage: “by hammer and hand all arts do stand. “ Creating a life in craft started with creating the most basic tools to realize the creations in my mind’s eye.

Aside from smelting the metal, all my design is created from the rawest of material and manipulated into its final form. I seek to explore the plasticity of a material commonly regarded as hard, rigid and immobile. I like to infuse movement and whimsy into novel forms.

My sculpture Azimuth is a gimbaled navigation compass disassembled and reassembled in a direction of my choice. The title is from a bearing or sight line one takes from a compass. In an age where GPS is rendering the ability to relate to a map uncommon, Azimuth has an even more important role in reminding viewers to keep an eye on the intended path.

My hand forged hammer began (as many of my sculptural pieces) as a 2 inch cylinder of solid steel. It was forged with a hammer and anvil at over 2000°F to its final shape. I often have dreams where I can squeeze and form metal with my bare hands the way a potter can but alas, that’s impossible. Its creation begets another hammer and tools to create it. Thus is built an artist’s life one step upon the next. What’s attainable is limited only by imagination and intent.

Edmonton, Alberta

Biography Shawn taught himself the basics of forging and by 1992 he established Front Step Forge in its first location. Shawn does historic recreations and restorations as well as his own brand of completely new designs that stay true to traditional techniques. Shawn is often called upon to extend and reuse architectural antiques using the same methods as the originals, which requires precisely matching the finishes to get the look of authenticity. Shawn has taken on an amazing variety of commissions from exotic railings where the detail was so intricate the build time was one hundred and four days to the simplest coat hook completed and delivered in a day. Shawn is the premier supplier for crafts people, providing custom made tools for sculptors to farriers.

J. fern facette Edmonton, Alberta A pivotal career experience A pivotal decision for me as a weaver was to start selling woven items at a local art & craft fair in 2012. Committing to share my work with a larger audience compelled me to strive for quality and efficiency. I also discovered that producing a lot of weaving under a deadline made me focused and happy. My creative process benefited, too: weaving one item always leads to an idea for the next.

The item I’ve chosen to highlight for this show is woven cushions. They are a perfect miniature canvas on which to explore pattern, colour, and texture. At each annual craft fair, people were really interested in my process and I was often asked if I taught weaving. After a couple years of planning I launched Fern’s School of Craft. In the beginning I was the sole instructor, teaching weaving and rug hooking. Since 2017 we’ve had ten passionate instructors share their skills as textile artist and makers.

Biography J. Fern Facette has been weaving for over a decade, including study in Peru, the Edmonton Weavers guild, Olds College and the Alberta University for the Arts.

Her work is a modern spin on traditional techniques and patterns. Aside from her own weaving practice she has also volunteered teaching textiles at the Nina Haggerty Arts Centre and the Strathcona Place Seniors Centre.

James Lavoie

Edmonton, Alberta

Career in craft story My life as a maker has its roots firmly in the nurturing ground of the Alberta Craft Council. In the early 1990s there weren’t many artists in Canada working in, let alone teaching, kiln glass. I was still experimenting with the medium when I was introduced to this organization, and with no formal arts education I really didn’t know where I was heading….or wanted to head. So a show-and-tell session with Tom McFall was a godsend and I was encouraged to know that someone, who clearly knew what he was talking about, saw some potential in what I was making.

Before too long my fused and slumped glass was selling in the gallery, and with ongoing consultation and no little trial and error eventually became a best-seller. As my relationship with the ACC deepened I hoped that in serving on the board, and for a period as its chair, I could give something back to an organization I sincerely valued and respected. I was honoured to help with the organizing of the Cheongju Biennale event, and to have a piece of my work accepted into its principal exhibition.

As my work evolved and I began testing the waters of mixed-media; glass and concrete, the idea was embraced by the ACC and I was given an exhibition. This theme flowed and ebbed for a while, but resurfaced recently, after a few years of working in kiln glass ‘with a twist’ – the pâte de verre technique.

I like the marriage of something akin to rock with something light and fragile – materials which in their physical makeup happen to be not all that different.

As I reflect on my career in craft one thought stands out; I am fortunate in that I had the luxury of opportunity to experiment with materials and techniques.

I hate to think that any committed maker of craft feels obliged to make only that which is profitable.

Creativity should be allowed to seeks its own path…. to go where imagination, rather than economics, dictates. Some of my associates doubted that the combination of glass and concrete had much potential, and they may not have been completely wrong, but the concept speaks to me and I can’t deny my creative spirit the pleasure of taking risks!

The life of a maker of craft is often difficult and rarely lucrative. But for me it was an adventure that I only regret waiting so long to discover, and I am grateful to the Alberta Craft Council for helping me along the challenging and fulfilling journey.

Biography James Lavoie (Edmonton, AB) was born and raised in Alberta. Early experiences with drawing and pottery laid the foundation for his sense of design and three-dimensional shape. He has worked with glass since 1978 – many years of producing work in ‘cold glass’(stained glass) taught him about colour, composition, texture and density. He later experimented with ‘hot glass’ (blown glass) and came to appreciate the speed and spontaneity of that creative process, the ability to manipulate the flow of colour and form.

But he eventually found his passion of expression through the ‘warm glass’ medium of kiln-firing.

James is best known for his visually distinctive and technically challenging kiln-formed glass. His work illustrates a steadfast appreciation of simple design and attention to detail that result in pieces both sophisticated and elegant, enhancing the inherent qualities of the material. His studio is located in Edmonton, Alberta.

Erik Lee

Maskwacis, Alberta

Beginnings “I started making silver jewellery about ten years ago. Prior to that I sculpted stone, antler, wood and worked in many other Cree art forms such as hide tanning, tool making and beadwork. I’m also trained as a graphic designer, all these skills helped. The jewellery started when I lived on Vancouver Island. I was carving wood with Coastal First Nation artists, one of the artists, named Jackson Robertson from Kingcome Inlet, was hand engraving silver. I thought it was amazing so I asked him to teach me. He said, “I can’t really teach you but sit and watch me for a while and then you give it try.”

Advice for other artists If you aren’t a little bit scared all the time then you aren’t taking the right risks. I think every artist goes through periods of self doubt followed by extreme confidence, or maybe that’s just me? Maybe an artist doubts themselves when they feel like they aren’t being recognized by the right institutions or not getting a nod from someone you respect. I guess that’s the time to just lean on the confidence lever and believe in your own ability and vision. There have been periods of interrupted work, especially when relocating and having to set up a new studio or at a dry time when it seems like the money’s stretched too thin. In the past I’ve had to rely on my graphic design business and take other jobs to support my passion. Making jewellery and having the ability to create work I believe in is what makes me the happiest and most fulfilled so that’s what keeps me at it.

Do what you feel creatively. Follow your heart and instincts in your work. Be disciplined, (that’s a real challenge) especially when it seems like you are not really getting ahead. Learn from others, ask a million questions, study your craft.

Try to hang around with artists you admire and pick their brains, do apprenticeships if you can. Even try and study under masters in other parts of the world.

There’s so much to learn. Never stop learning and always push yourself to evolve the work.

Biography Residing in Maskwacis, Erik Lee specializes in engraved silver, bezel set buffalo horn, moose antler and semi precious stones. Erik’s designs incorporate indigenous Plains Cree motifs in a unique contemporary style.

Brenda Malkinson

Edmonton, Alberta

A pivotal career experience I began by making small stained glass suncatchers.

My first “studio space” was the bathroom of my one room apartment. I am a self-taught stained-glass artist and as I became more proficient, I made more suncatchers and a few larger pieces to sell at the many arts and craft sales at that time. Since then I have had several studios of various sizes, often being forced to move as the economy went up and down and struggling to make ends meet. Teaching craft was what got me through some very lean times, and I am still in contact with many of the students who have gone on to careers in crafts themselves.

This preamble informs what I feel was a major swing in my early days from suncatchers to fine art craft.

That shift was the impromptu meeting Hart Massey of the Massey Foundation. He and John Flanders, (photographer), were traveling across Canada visiting craft studios that they had heard about through word of mouth. They spent two days with me at my second-floor derelict studio space… in the winter… with very little heat. We had wonderful conversations about what was happening in craft in Canada in 1978 and all the crafts people they were meeting.

This is when I realized I was part of a larger community. They commissioned a stained-glass window for the Massey Foundation now housed in the Museum of Man, my work was published in The Craftsman’s Way, and selected for the cover of the Book of Days for the museum.

The visit of Hart Massey is one of many events that shifted and shaped my path. This particular event is especially important to me because it came early in my career and for the first time, I took my work seriously. I felt a confidence to begin experimenting with what I could do with stained-glass beyond the historical traditions. Somehow it resonated with me that I could conceivably carve out a path in craft.

It took many years after that meeting for further acknowledgment to come my way but for me that is not what my career has been about. I have an independent spirit that has served me well through the ups and downs over the years. My path in glass craft took the form of large architectural stained-glass commissions where I would design and make glass work for others. It has not been until the last few years that I have been able to use glass as my own form expression and craft glass into exhibition pieces along with woodblock printmaking.

I consider my long career as a total dedication to making the best work possible, come what may, offering my knowledge and skills with students, and sharing my passion for the beauty and poignancy of stained glass with others.

Words of wisdom/career lessons The thought occurs to me that one has to like/love what one does and to trust oneself and one’s choice to make a career in craft in order to sustain the long road. Explore and invent new methods, do not stagnate, try new things, travel if you can. Be willing to invest your time, energy and money into your craft practise. Independence is a good thing however asking for help or advise when needed is okay too. Be resourceful, take risks, make mistakes, do the work, show the work.

Biography For over forty-five years, Canadian artist Brenda Malkinson has focused on working with coloured glass and vitrified glass stains and enamels creating contemporary architectural commissions that enrich and illuminate public and private spaces with colour, shapes, textures and meaning. Her studio practise and exhibitions incorporate stained-glass and woodblock printmaking. Malkinson is a recipient of 2013 Edmonton Artists Trust Fund Award, 2018 ACAD Alumni Legacy Award, 2019 Eldon & Anne Foote Edmonton Visual Arts Prize, shortlist award.

Benjamin oswald

Edmonton, Alberta Career in craft story My name is Benjamin Oswald and I’m a ceramist and sculptor based in Edmonton, Alberta. I studied mold making and slip casting with Sasha Wardell in Wiltshire England. I am also working on my low residency MFA at Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver. My works are primarily made in porcelain and are slip cast, hand thrown, or hand built. I started sculpting in the early 90’s, influenced by several British modernists and using stone as my medium of choice. I still have over a ton of beautiful white marble at my home studio (which I will potentially revisit sometime in the future).

Line Sculptures The post-structuralist philosopher Jacque Derrida said, “everything begins with structure . . .”. Wire is often used as an introductory step into sculpture to translate line into three-dimentional form. One day after working with my students using wire, I asked myself the question, “could I manipulate porcelain in a similar way as wire to map out my imagined volumes and shapes in space”? The more I thought about this I realized I had to devise a technique to work with such a fine material and in such a different way. Certainly, forming thin lines and stitching them together would present many challenges. I started by reinforcing my black porcelain clay body and extruded it into thin coils then bent them into curvilinear lines. Once dried, I fired the lines to temperature and stitched them together using special supports and holds. I work on four or five sculptures at a time creating them piece by piece and moving from one composition to the next almost like playing several games of chess at the same time. Upon first viewing and due to the black matte porcelain most people think they are simply made from welded metal. However, the discerning eye can see they are indeed composed of ceramic, are extremely light and fragile and can hang, balance and drift almost like an ephemeral cloud.

A pivotal career experience In 2007, I taught my first ceramics course and decided to move my practice in stone to ceramics.

Much like a traditional potter, I was hand throwing and glazing earthenware bowls and vases. As time passed, I began to search out methods to create more contemporary designs which lead me to porcelain, mold making and slip casting. I soon found I could use units of designed objects to compose abstract shapes, forms and compositions in addition to my series and editions of vessels. In addition to my personal studio practice, I currently teach ceramics full time to high school students in Edmonton. Those who know my history know that I started out as a physics teacher and taught physics and chemistry for nearly 20 years. A pivotal career moment happened about five years ago when I was asked to start a ceramics class at the current high school I teach at.

Over the next several years, the student enrolment skyrocketed and I stepped down as the department head of science and now teach ceramics full time.

Words of wisdom/career lessons As I’ve been practicing art, design and contemporary craft, I feel at times an urge to be more conceptualist in my approach to making. However, as I consider themes to explore and begin thinking them out with a material, I usually abandon the concepts I originally started with. In essence, I consistently find that the material guides my thinking during the making and that the conceptualist thinking serves more as an impetus to get me started. I have enjoyed that fluidity and free-play in my practice. It keeps me discovering and making meaningful connections. I have come to terms with deriving meaning after the work is finished and not before.

Christine Pedersen

Calgary, Alberta

Words of wisdom/career lessons I have always believed in the need to make “me” work, and have been encouraged by other professional artists to hold on to that authentic voice, basically not being all things to all people. But maybe it takes some time to relax into doing that?

After all, somehow artists need work that makes a living, meets gallery expectations of how to promote us and generate sales, and the artworks must satisfy us as artists… I don’t, therefore, believe that all fine craft artists have to make all the forms in any given medium: I think we should play to our strengths, and make the work that emerges from having dedicated our lives to developing the skills necessary for excellence. And take commissions—people come to us because of our style of work, because they would like us to interpret what we do into something special for them. I find the commission process a fantastic source of inspiration and growth, and you can’t buy the feeling you get as an artist delivering a beautiful meaningful thing to a happy client.

Biography Christine Pedersen works predominantly in metal, clay and wood in her Calgary studio.

Pedersen studied Jewellery + Metals at Alberta College of Art + Design, and has worked in clay since her childhood. She hand-makes jewellery, smaller-scale metal and ceramic sculpture, and is part of the LEXM artist team building larger commissions and public art. She specializes in chasing and repoussé in metal, and building complex organic forms in porcelain.

Exploiting material properties for texture development and surface disruption are key features of her work. Work has been featured in the Alberta Craft Council, Metal Arts Guild of Canada, Narrative Jewelry: Tales from the Toolbox, The Crafted Dish, Society of North American Goldsmith’s Jewelry and Metalsmithing Survey Vol. 2, Ceramics Monthly and Ceramics Review.

Darren Petersen

Calgary, Alberta

The Rosettes are discard objects that result from the cane roll-up process when creating a Venetian filigree-patterned vessel. They represent my informal but personal apprenticeship to the Venetian tradition of glass-making. Developing skills in any fine craft discipline is a process that requires bucket loads of repetition along with some degree of focused determination. The thousand plus rosettes that I have saved and collected over the past 25 years are precious reminders of this process.”

Biography Darren Petersen has been creating blown glass for over 25 years. He received a BFA in glass from the Alberta College of Art & Design and is a regular Series instructor at Red Deer College. He has exhibited work across North America as well as in Germany and South Korea. Darren’s work is well represented in the collection of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and in private collections worldwide. Darren is a passionate Naturalist, Wildlife photographer, Flyfisher, and Bowhunter. These outdoor activities directly inform his studio practice as creative inspiration.

Annette ten cate Medicine Hat, Alberta

Career in craft story I worked for several years as a graphic artist, and although I originally thought this profession would combine my love of art with making a living, I found my time was spent primarily behind a keyboard. I was definitely missing something significant and discovered that missing element when I joined a clay sculpture group. I remember feeling a connection while sculpting, an organic and life-changing response to clay that continues to this day. After 20 years in graphic design, I returned to Sheridan to study ceramics full-time. I had found my heartfelt passion working with my hands and creating forms based in nature but incorporating my own touch of whimsy and humour.

I continued to work in a traditional job and sculpt in my spare time, but I also longed to follow my fantasy of working with clay full-time. I kept thinking about an anonymous quote I remembered: “If you can’t stop thinking about it, don’t stop working for it.” I finally told myself that I had to try, even if being a full-time ceramic artist ended up being an unrealistic dream.

Fortunately and amazingly, some wonderful opportunities have come my way, and so far I have been able to follow my dream of a life in craft. Whatever the future holds, I have no regrets about taking a chance and letting my passion be my guide.

As a child I would admire figurative sculpture greatly and cherish the stories they tell. Today I strive to tell my own stories with clay. I love the way clay responds in my hands and seems to come to life in the form of figures. When placed together the figures transform as they meet or turn away from each other. I am captivated by this and strive to be true to the various personalities that emerge. I feel surrounded by endless sources of inspiration for further narrative exploration.

It appears in everyday life no matter how simple or subtle, just by observing and interacting with others.

Clay is the perfect medium to explore these ideas and is a true joy to work with every day.

Shona Rae Calgary, Alberta

A pivotal career experience In 1976 I fell in with a group of misfits that were to become the movers and the shakers in the Canadian Punk Rock scene. I immediately recognized their passionate creativity as the perfect career path for me! I have never once looked back and I have made it my primary focus and job to make music and art ever since. During the winter of 1994/95 I dreamt about hammering metal almost every night. In February 1995 I took my first jewellery class and once again, realized that this was to be my new career.

Here are a few pivotal moments from the last 25 years.

Words of wisdom Allow yourself to be open to new ways of thinking.

Live closer to the edge and force yourself to leave your safe place. Listen to your heart. Believe in your dreams. Do not allow yourself to live in fear of failure, instead, it is important to have faith that the universe wants you to succeed. Why would you receive a gift if you were not meant to use it?

Be your own hero.

Biography Shona Rae was a professional clay sculptor before a series of dreams led her to begin studying goldsmithing and the metal arts in 1994. She received her Diploma in applied art and design from the Kootenay School of the Arts Cooperative in 1998 and her BFA with distinction in the year 2000 from the Alberta College of Art + Design.

Shona Rae has won numerous national and international awards, government grants and attention for her sculptural art in Europe and North America. She received “Steel Trophy Award” for the 70th Anniversary Canadian Metal Arts Guild exhibition, the “Award of Excellence” from the Alberta Craft Council, an “Alumni Legacy Award” from ACAD, to name a few.

Rae is a member of the Alberta Craft Council, The Burns Visual Arts Society where she had her studio for over a decade, SOCAN, Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada and The Canadian Metal Arts Guild.

Presently, she operates Shona Rae Studios and the Blackboard Gallery in the new cSPACE King Edward facility. The gallery represent over 13 artists and the studio offers classes and bench rentals, all supported by 4-6 part time assistants.

Along with her professional studio practice, she teaches part time, and is the lead singer/ songwriter for “Shona Rae and the Bona Fides” (formerly the VooDoo Hand), a professional, original swamp rock band.

An utter Madwoman and an obsessive ‘maker’ and ‘songwriter’, Shona Rae maintains a commitment to the study, practice and education of art, craft, design and ROCK and ROLL!!!

Dana Roman

Calgary, Alberta

Career in craft story My career as a designer, craftsperson and an artist has spanned fro more than 50 years.

It is nice to plan your life but life doesn’t always go by the plan. I planned to do something with design since I was a teenager. I studied architecture, which included also urban and interior design. My dreams were big; I wanted to design buildings which would look like sculptures, maybe design the cities where the citizens could live a happy life. I lived and studied in one of the most beautiful and artful cities in the world – Prague.

But it was hard to achieve really happy life, since it was a communist country behind the Iron Curtain.

When the Soviet Union invaded our little country in 1968, my husband and I decided to immigrate to a free country - Canada. In Toronto I was lucky and got a job in my profession right away and worked for architectural firms. With two kids it was easy to work, but when I was expecting the third one, I decided to take a break and I started to develop my hobby –textile art. By the time a year had passed and as planned, it was time to go back to work as an architect, I realized that I really want to be with my kids a few more years and surprisingly my art business started to bring me more money than being a hired architect. So plans changed.

I was selling hand painted silk fashion and silk wall hangings to the stores (bridal stores, small galleries and gift shops, fashion boutiques, fashion and interior designers, gifts for large businesses or government etc...) The trick was to believe that you are helping businesses to succeed with selling them handmade, unique and one-of-a-kind pieces, which made them unique and one-of-a-kind as well. The big turning point was when I started to sell to US. Really it was my sales rep that was the hero and made my business succeed, not just my special designs.

The advice I would give to craftspeople Keep your designs one-of-a-kind, something which no manufacturer can start copying, and keep developing new designs every new season. You do not have to strive for perfection. That is something mass manufacturers should do. You should show that it was done one piece at a time, with your hands connected to your heart and brain. And you have to understand the materials and tools you are working with. The occasional little imperfections, which will make the art pieces more human, will just add to the beauty.

Biography For the last 40 years Dana Roman has been constantly experimenting with finding the new ways to paint on silk. She creates wall pieces where she combines her skills in silk painting with her knowledge of traditional textile art like batik, rozome, shibori, quilting, crochet, knotting, and felting. In Dana’s work one will always discover something that has not yet been said or seen.

Dana earned her architecture and engineering degree at the Technical University in Prague and worked as an architect for 10 years. In 1978 Dana established her textile art business ‘Artacious’ in Toronto and she designed and painted silk fabrics and art wear, selling to stores across North America.

Dana became a member of the Alberta Craft Council in 1998 after she moved from Toronto to Canmore.

Dana has won many awards for her artwork, including the Kroma Award at “Painting on the Edge” - an international exhibition organized by the Federation of Canadian Artists-, the first prize in the professional division at Silk Painters International in Washington. She also received two `Best Product Awards` at Toronto Gift Show (for her painted silk fashion). Dana has continued her education at the Ontario College of Art, Alberta College of Art and Vancouver Island School of Art.

barb tipton

Calgary, Alberta

Making: A Career in Craft 1. Earning a living When I got out of grad school in 1975, I had no clear idea of how my career would proceed. Perhaps, like many MFA students at that time, I assumed I’d look for teaching, hopefully land a permanent position, achieve tenure, and thus, be set.

Not so.

Although I did get a sabbatical replacement at a nearby university, a year later no other teaching jobs were in sight, my then husband was in business and unwilling to move and we had a new mortgage to pay off. So I worked in my basement studio, developing a body of work that would be hopefully salable, but kept an eye open for employment to supplement our meager income.

The town where I lived was close to the offices of a ceramics publication, and it seemed to occasionally post job listings. Though I had journalism experience in high school and university, I hadn’t considered applying at first, but when I did, and got a position as copy editor, I found myself embarked on a different sort of education. It also got me out, meeting other artists, attending conferences, meeting gallery owners, as well as learning about photography, how other artists promote themselves, and the world of publishing.

A lot has changed since then.

Eight years later I quit that job, remarried, moved and set up studio in Calgary and took a one-year visiting artist in ceramics position at the University of Calgary. After that ended, I worked on and off as a sessional at both the university and at Alberta College of Art and Design (now Alberta University of the Arts).

Sessional, or part-time teaching, gave me a small income and also the opportunity to work in my home studio. And the pressure was on to continue developing my work, because every year it was necessary to reapply, submitting slides, CVs and statements.

This took its toll, and there were times spent wondering if it was all worth it, and plenty of times worrying about income.

There were other jobs not mentioned here, some brief, some lasting several years, but they all were part-time, offering supplemental income, and all were related to art.

Somehow there was always just enough, though no excess.

Art has always been the centre of my focus, with other work serving as satellites.

2. The work When I first got out of grad school I had a studio in the basement to produce high-fire work in an electric kiln.

It was a shock.

Surfaces on the first works were disappointing: there were none of the nuances afforded by vapors and flame of a gas kiln. Glaze application was unforgiving – every drip and overlap glaringly showed up, and unlike gas reduction firing which softened such methods and added to the overall effect, oxidation in the electric shouted carelessness. After numerous tests to adjust my glazes and more care in my glazing technique, the glazes still seemed bland. These limitations of electric firing soon led me to liven the surface through decoration and creating variations in glazes through more testing. A grey glaze that was fluid at cone 8 pooled in recesses and flowed away from white slip trailing, allowing three tones of value from the same glaze. Slips left unglazed served as contrast to glossy glazed surfaces, as did very dry matts. Intrigued, I experimented with refiring, trying slip on top of glaze or adding materials to glazes which would cause them to shrink, revealing the layer underneath. My work, though largely utilitarian, gradually became more one of a kind as I became more involved in drawing and decorating the surface.

In order to separate them from utilitarian plates they were shown on the wall.

When I moved to Calgary and started the one-year visiting artist position at the university, a wareboard of leather-hard cups from the throwing class I taught tipped over onto the floor as I was carrying it.

Stunned, I looked down, wondering if anything was salvageable. Some of them looked like the drawings of cups I’d been putting on plates, so I picked them up, added handles and saucers to make wall pieces.

As part of contract for my position, I had agreed to a solo exhibition in the Nickle Gallery and “wall cups” became the starting point for that show, as well as the starting point for making more sculptural wall works that were a move away from plates.

The wall cups developed over the years, and I began hand-building them out of a thick, groggy body, until they became more and more ambiguous, moving

away from any cup resemblance. However, I always related to the starting point for these forms, and still refer to them as “cups”. Here and there, the work has ventured into other directions, but so far, I’ve always returned, and for over 30 years now I’ve been making cups.

from the thickest side, or formed from cut off clay added back on. The point in this project was to make a shape without actually touching the clay with my hands until refining the form.

Today, the above process is pretty rapid – the immediacy is important to me – but refining the shape takes much longer. Working intuitively, I cut some areas away, smooth others, add more clay where it feels needed.

Firing the work is an even lengthier process: some rudimentary decisions are made with imagery (to be added later) in mind; clay body color dictates whether to add a white, black or colored slip. After the first firing the work is glazed, usually with several glazes of varying color and surface texture. I am rarely satisfied with the results of the first firing, and often reglaze areas and refire until the object seems to “work” or destroys itself.

This approach to making has slowly changed over the years, and doubtless will change again, as I’ve relocated into a different space in British Columbia.

I’ll welcome those changes, and hope they offer new learning for me.

About works in the exhibition: Adrift in Jetsam was my response to the plight of the masses fleeing to safety in 2016 across the Mediterranean in inadequate vessels, which often capsized.

A Clean Breath of Red represents thoughts on the gnarly black and yellow surface that covers most of the work. A flower decal seemed ideal in further expressing a fresh relief.

The ones I’ve been making over the last few years are very three dimensional, and begin on the wheel, although they’re not thrown in the strictest sense.

The first originated from a “what if” thought, as I ripped clay fresh from the bag in big chunks and threw it at the center of the wheel head until I had used almost half the bag. A nearby 2x4 was handy, and useful for beating that mound of clay to compress it as the wheel slowly revolved, and a slightly smaller stick forced into the center of the mound opened it a bit. A “saucer” was formed by using other tools to cut through the side of the form and add this rudimentary shape. If too much clay had been moved or a cup seemed bottomless, I simply stuck more clay back in place. A handle was teased

Solo Voyage being widowed after more than 30 years with a fellow ceramist has been a shock to adjust to. I let this visual quote from a Blue Willow pattern decal illustrate that, since we both shared a love of ceramic history.

Amy & Tanner Skrocki

Edmonton, Alberta

Words of Wisdom What we have learned after doing this as a sole income for myself (Amy) for 12 years, and 6 years for Tanner, where we sell 96% of the items ourselves is to create what you want with the understanding it may never sell but also create pieces others are looking for in your own artistic style. Once I created what more people wanted, it was possible to have Tanner quit his job to work with me.

Biography Since 2008 Amy and Tanner Skrocki, have been creating works of art in a variety of mediums - metal, fibre, leather, paper, and wood.

Skrocki Design is their independent handcrafted lifestyle brand, with a mission to create fashionable fantasy inspired items with a historical and edgy twist. With a unique blend of influences from fairy tales, to mythology, and travels to historic sites and the beauty of Canada, mixed with a modern edginess, we hope our items will inspire creativity in anyone using them in their day-to-day activities and hobbies. We specifically make items based off our pursuits of our own passions including: fashion, music, writing, drawing, photography, home decor, and cooking. We predominately work with artisan leathers, metal and gemstones.

Skrocki Design has done over 200 craft and art shows since 2008. In 2014, after the birth of their daughter, Seraphim, Amy took a break from many of the major craft shows to finally create the work she had been making the patterns for and drawing over the last 14 years and create an online presence and webstore. Tanner, continued to apprentice under Amy and has now taken over the creation or partial creation of all the repeatable items. This allowed Amy to create Skrocki Design’s many signature and one-of-a-kind pieces and do three Western Canada Fashion week showcases where she designed, created and then photographed all her wearable art and every day pieces.

allison tunis

Edmonton, Alberta

A pivotal career experience In my final year of Fine Art studies at the University of Alberta in 2007, I decided to start incorporating my out of school “hobby” of cross-stitch embroidery into my work at school. This was a bit of an abrupt change – until that point I had been practicing as an abstract colour-field painter (with success gradewise), and when I decided that I needed to focus on creating art that spoke more to my daily experiences of life, my newly developing interest in feminism and social justice, and my questions for society, I risked a fair amount. My grades dropped significantly – both because I was still developing the language and skills to do this type of art, and perhaps also, because I was in between areas of study in the school – there were no programs for intermedia or fibre arts, and I had to force my work into my drawing and painting programs, which led to an interest in mixed media and using materials to further concept.

However, despite these challenges, this decision was monumental and has lead me to become the artist I am today. The massive shift was a risk and was frightening for me, but I felt a real sense of urgency that the work I was to create needed to speak to something larger than myself, and to develop my own self through the art, which I did not feel I was doing with my abstract works. Since then, while I have always felt secure in the decision I made, I certainly have still felt the repercussions of choosing to embrace a “craft” technique instead of purely more traditional Fine Art mediums, and have had to fight hard to have my work recognized within the contemporary art community.

“The medium is the message” has been a constant refrain for me in my work in contemporary art. While I love stitching, I only include it in my works when it strengthens and adds something to the concept of the project. Every inclusion in my works should have meaning, including the materials and techniques that I use. The works I am including for this exhibition show this development throughout the last 12 years of my career. Since this moment in my career, I have only strengthened my passion for creating work that speaks to societal issues and larger-scale community concepts, and now also strive to create work that connects communities through conversation, representation, and actual in-person contact and opportunities.

Biography Allison Tunis is an intermedia artist based in Amiskwaciy-waskahikan (Edmonton) on Treaty 6 territory.

She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Alberta, and a graduate diploma in Art Therapy from the Vancouver Art Therapy Institute.

Working mainly in hand embroidery, Allison is interested in combining fine craft and contemporary art techniques to create works that address her interests in cultural conditioning and the societal implications of restrictive standards of beauty, as well as the discrimination and violence experienced by people living in marginalized bodies, with a particular focus on the experience of fat and queer people. Allison recently was selected to receive the 2018 Early Achievement Award from the Alberta Craft Council, and the 2018 Edmonton Artist Trust Fund Award from the Edmonton Arts Council, as well as completing a year as Harcourt House Artist-Run Centre’s Artist-in-Residence in October of 2019 with an exhibition entitled An Anthology of Sticks & Stones, that featured a suite of mixed media and embroidered paintings, along with an interactive installation focusing on how our society uses language towards fat people and the impacts that may have on them.

Keith walker

Edmonton, Alberta

Humble Beginnings The first large-scale project that I did as a glass artist was for the Central Lions Recreation Centre, and it was a pivotal moment for me. I created dozens of flowers, balls, and vines, and wired them together to fill the ceiling with as much glass as possible. All those different components gave me the opportunity to refine different techniques and think through how the pieces could work together. It was challenging, but I figured out, and learned more about glass as a material along the way.

It was the challenge of glass that drew me to it and keeps me working with it - I never get bored. The second you get comfortable with glass, it’ll turn around on you, and there is always something new to learn. But this challenge is connected to the sculptural potential of glass: it can be anything. Rather than lean on this, though, for this showcase I want to explore the optical qualities of the material, especially how it can reflect and transmit light. I want to celebrate glass for what it is rather than its ability to be something else.

Biography Classically trained in the art of glassblowing, Keith Walker’s glass practice began at Glass Happens Studio in Edmonton, AB. Since then, further experience was gained by volunteering at the Pilchuck Glass School (Washington); attending a summer course at the Pittsburgh Glass Centre and collaborating with other local artists on various projects.

His work has always had a strong emphasis on form and has been heavily rooted in the sculptural tradition. ”I wish to create pieces that command a real presence to the viewer and evoke personality, I continue to challenge myself with the technical complexities of glass and explore glass as an installation medium”. Keith has a series of work on display at the newly renovated Edmonton International Airport.

He has a permanent public art installation located at the Central Lions Seniors Recreation Centre and the Muttart Conservatory, both in Edmonton and has artwork acquired by The Alberta Foundation for the Arts for their Permanent Collection.

After spending a year developing the flat glass program at the Nina Haggerty Centre in Edmonton, he has embarked on a collaborative relationship with Highlands Junior High whereby he hopes to get students interested in this diverse art medium. Keith also teaches from his studio, Blow in the Dark Glass Studio in Edmonton.

kari woo

Canmore, Alberta

Career in craft story As fortune would have it, a temporarily debilitating snowboard accident in 1993 is what lead me to discovering my capacity for working in metal. During my months long recovery from a knee injury I enrolled in an Introduction to Jewellery night class. As soon as we began working with the material and processes it felt so familiar, like there was a distant muscle memory of having done this before. From that moment on there was really no looking back, my path was before me.

With regards to career choices since that mythical beginning, they are most always intuitive. If I’m working on a project or in a direction that doesn’t feel right I am able to recognize it, and then when the time is right I will make a shift. My practice consists of two important strands of activity. The design, production and distribution of my jewellery designs is the foundation of my practice and provides the financial stability needed to be able to focus on exhibition work and special projects. I used to perceive these different sectors of my creative output as totally separate from one another, which was confusing. Once I realized that they are braided together like strands in a rope and that they make each other stronger, I was able to feel much more centered in my approach.

Biography My aim is to create substance and meaning through design. Patrons know my work through two distinct collections of sterling silver jewellery that offer the wearer versatility, comfort and simplicity. I also work with clients to create custom designs perfect for their specific occasion. My collections can be found across Canada and abroad through independent boutiques, galleries, tradeshows + online.

I am a fine art school graduate [ACAD 2003/BFA {Honors} specializing in Jewellery + Metals], a former brick + mortar shop owner [INFLUX Jewellery Gallery, Calgary, AB], an aspiring sculptor and proud parent. Currently I live in the glorious Canadian Rockies in Canmore, Alberta with my sweet family, where I also work out of my home-based studio.

www.albertacraft.ab.ca