Hello everyone!

Our guild meeting is May 5th and I am happy to announce that Ian Chung from Tucker’s Pottery Supplies will be our guest speaker. He will be doing demos for us and it should be a wonderful night!

It started with a dream

“I will like to travel!”  I heard that when I was 18, I can travel all around the world and find jobs in different ceramic factories. That’s sound like a plan to see the world. So the first thing I did is to sharpen my technique then I moved to Canada.

Ian started working in his first Ceramics Studio since he was 16. At the age of 21, he had already gained a lot of attention in different art competitions & awards.
1989, 7 years after his first time on a potter’s wheel, he was attending full time in Ontario College of Art as an advance standing student. His art work was collected by different artists and collectors during his school years.
After he graduated, he was running a production line in Italian style dinnerware factory located in the Woodbridge, Ontario area.   He joined Tucker’s Pottery Supplies Inc (1 of the only 4 Clay manufactures in Canada) since 1997.
Ian moved to Markham in the year 2000 & has been actively involve with different group of Artists & Craftsmen, including the Markham Guild of Village Crafts, Kaolin Pottery Studio & Village Potter’s Studio.
He is also active in different Clay Artist’s Groups including Fusions-Ontario Clay & Glass Association, and the  Durham Potter’s Guild.
In the past 24 years, he has been working on different ideas. He developed a unique brush decorating technique during the year in Italian dinnerware factory. He always allows the clay to teach him how to react.

Britta has volunteered to bring goodies for this meeting as I will not be able to attend, as I am on vacation from May 5-16th so I will see you next at the May potluck which will also be discussed during this meeting.

We received a plea from the Gardiner Museum to help them with their Empty Bowl event. More information on it HERE.

They have sold 400 tickets for the fundraising event however they have not received as much response from potters as they would have liked so they are short on bowls. The event is May 18th which is only a couple of weeks away so if you had time to make some bowls for this event, or donate complete bowls, that would be wonderful. All proceeds benefit Anishnawbe Health Toronto, an aboriginal community-based health centre.

Because the Bruce Cochrane mentorship is taking place in our guild, we wanted to bring you this information!

FUSION is pleased to announce that it has been awarded the Ontario Craft Council Curators Award for 2012.
Bruce Cochrane and Angelo di Petta, FUSION Mentors, will be curating an exhibition with the participating FUSION mentorship participants. The Mentorship Exhibition will take place in August 2012. Do not miss the application deadline April 29, 2011 for participation in this exciting new FUSION program.

For more information about the FUSION Mentorship Workshops and to download the Application, visit:

FUSION Mentorship Workshops

(So that you all have an inside track – we are also planning to have a Bruce Cochrane workshop at the guild I have started working on this and you will hear more soon as we tighten up some dates)

Hi everyone,

This month we will be joined by Toronto Potters’ Joy Eliuk. A bit about Joy:

I am a ceramic artist who produces wheel thrown, functional ware. My current work explores additive and subtractive techniques on basic shapes. The glazes I select are simply applied to accentuate the form. I work with white porcelain stoneware fired to cone 6 oxidation.

My lifelong interest in art led me to take fine arts in University before pursuing a career in interior design. I left interior design to become a full time potter in the spring of 2004. My training includes pottery classes in Edmonton and Toronto and an apprenticeship with Paul Stewart which began in 2002. I now work and teach from my home studio.

Hope to see you all there!

Cindy

Mug-a-Thon Fun!

This past Saturday 10 dedicated members participated in our last Mug-a-Thon to produce mugs for the upcoming Mad Potters’ Tea Party on May 15th.

Ann Allen, Adam Beales, Keri Currie, Cindy Dron, Vicki Lepe, Grace Pastore, Dawn Stafrace, Wendy Vervoort, Pat Watson,
Jennifer Zabawa-Beales attended our Mug-a-Thon expecting fun, food and friendship while making functional mugs and that is what resulted!

Yummy foods and beverages (wink wink) were shared by all along with great conversation and bonding over our common love of clay.

There is now a Mugometer posted on the wall to chart our progress in reaching our goal of producing 200 completed functional mugs for the Tea Party. At the moment there are 12 completed (glazed) but the Mug-a-Thon produced the beginning of dozens more plus a few teapots too.

Thank you to all who attended and to those who didn’t you missed a fun day!
Of course we still expect that all of you are busy producing mugs on your own schedule.  And don’t forget that we need teapots too for our Silent Tea Pot Auction there’s only a couple months left to prepare.

A bisque firing for the Tea Party mugs has been scheduled as has a glaze firing. More details to follow!

See you all at the meeting this Thursday March 3 where we will be handing out the Tea Party tickets for you to start selling!

Thanks again!

Vicki Lepe
President

MUG-A-THON

Hi everyone,

Just a reminder that our mug-a-thon is this weekend to allow us to spend some time making mugs for our May Tea Party – the largest fundraiser for our guild. We ask that as many as possible come out to attend. We are going to have a bit of a potluck and just throw as many mugs as we can to prepare for the Tea Party. There will be potters on hand to help you with your mug throwing abilities. Should be a really fun day! Hope to see you all there!

Some inspiration!

Hello everyone,

I am pleased to announce that Celia Hirsh will be joining us for the March meeting. Celia is a Toronto potter who you can learn more about on her website – http://www.hirshpottery.com/

She has her own studio and has very beautiful work. An artist bio:

Chasing Beauty

My work is saturated with deep, intense and multilayered colour. My core aim is to produce pottery that conveys a feeling of warmth, pleasure, and visual clarity. Although, I use a complex and technically rigourous glazing process, I seek simplicity in the finished product. My work is functional, yet a strongly sculptural sense of form runs through it.

Key artistic influences in my life include: Sung Dynasty pottery; Danish Modern; the British potter Lucy Rie; my mother – printmaker Sharon Merkur; and my teacher – sculptor Leonhard Oesterle. Hopefully you can see their energy, restraint and elegance shine through in my pots

Hope to see you all there for snacks, refreshments and a view into another lovely artisan’s creative window.

Cindy Cole
MPG Workshop and Meeting Coordinator

Hello Guild Members!

Our next guild meeting is February 3, 2010 and we have a really fun evening planned. The night will begin with a BOOK SALE – so please bring with you any magazines or books you would like to contribute. Also, if you could bring small change to allow our librarian to have easier cash handling, it would be appreciated. Note that the books do not have to be pottery, or even art related. All proceeds go to the MPG Library fund to purchase new books for the guild library.

We will then break for homemade refreshments while our presenter does her setup.

I am pleased to announce that we will have Susan Card as our guest artist and speaker.

Susan Card specializes in wheel-thrown porcelain and smoke fired pottery using motifs from nature as decoration. She has exhibited across Canada for twenty years and has published many articles about ceramics.

For several years, Susan taught Business and Professional Practice to students in the Faculty of Animation Art and Design at Sheridan College in Oakville, ON. and also taught recreational pottery to adults at Cedar Ridge Creative Centre for the City of Toronto, ON.

In 2006, Susan opened DISH Gallery + Studio in the Toronto Distillery Historic District.

Susan will be doing an artist talk with slide demonstration and will then perform some demo work dealing with surface and embellishment.

To read more about Susan and her delightful work, check out her website – http://www.dishgalleryandstudio.clayandglass.on.ca/

Hope to see you all there!

Cindy
Meeting and Workshop Coordinator/Webmaster – Mississauga Potters’ Guild

Here are some highlights from the Mississauga Potters’ Open House in December – lots of beautiful work on display.

Work by Vicki Ruple-Lepe:

Work by Katie Shi Perry:

Work by Jennifer Zabawa-Beales:

The annual FUSION conference will be held May 27-29, 2011 with Sequoia Miller and Audrey Killoran. FUSION has released this lovely write-up on why you should attend – take a look here:

Fusion – why you should go!

As well, Fusion’s winter workshop is taking place in Peterborough this year and features one of our favourite YouTube potters – Simon Leach!

January’s meeting was a lot of fun. We received a very bold and personal artist talk from member, Dawn Stafrace and enjoyed some homemade goodies and apple cider. The guild has a sign-up sheet for our annual Tea Party event, and for those interested, please contact Gaye Longo for further information. We are really looking for a lot of effort from our guild members to both throw teapots and mugs, as well as take part in helping us out with the day of our largest fundraising event, May 15th, 2011. More information on ticket sales, mug throwing, bisque and glaze dates will be communicated shortly.

There is a new information center in our guild next to the clean-up area which is a central place to use the ‘guild events’ calendar, book your kiln schedule, view membership roles and duties, seek information on the various tasks to be done around the guild. If anyone has any questions, they can contact our new studio coordinators – Adam and Jennifer Zabawa-Beales.

I baked some cookies and a banana cake with cream cheese icing. As the cake was such a hit – as promised, I will share the recipe at the bottom of this blog entry.

Also, it was determined that we will have a BOOK SALE at the beginning of February’s meeting. We are asking members to bring in any books and magazines that they have in their house that they no longer have use for and we will sell them off. The funds will be donated to our library for the purchase of new pottery/ceramics book for guild use.

As discussed lastnight, please click below to view Dawn Stafrace’s slideshow and see detailed photos of her incredible work: (Allow a bit of time to load as the images are screen-sized. This may take a few minutes on slower connections)

Dawn Stafrace Artist Talk for MPG guild

I hope everyone had fun, and thank you for your patience with some of our technical issues on the presentation. It was an unknown and we will take steps to prevent the technology issues as we can. I will also be sending an email to the membership with Dawn’s presentation in the event anyone cannot download the document because of connection speed, etc.

Banana Cake with Cream Cheese Icing Recipe

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups bananas, mashed, ripe
2 tsp lemon juice
3 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup butter, softenend
2 1/8 cups sugar
3 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups buttermilk

Frosting:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1 tsp vanilla
3 1/2 cups icing sugar

Garnish (if desired):
chopped walnuts

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 275 degrees.
2. Grease and flower a 9 x 13 pan.
3. In a small bowl, mix mashed banana with the lemon juice; set aside.
4. In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.
5. In a large bowl, cream 3/4 cup butter and 2 1/8 cups sugar until light and fluffy.
6. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then stir in 2 tsp vanilla.
7. Beat in the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk
8. Stir in banana mixture.
9. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake in preheated oven for one hour or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
10. Remove from oven and place directly into the refridgerator for 45 minutes. This will make the cake very moist.
11. For the frosting, cream the butter and cream cheese until smooth.
12. Beat in 1 tsp vanilla.
13. Add icing sugar and beat on low speed until combined, then on high speed until frosting is smooth.
14. Spread on cooked cake.
15. Sprinkle chopped walnuts over top of frosting, if desired.