Author Archives: Elizabeth

About Elizabeth

My work is based on simple and practical shapes-- a bowl for fruit, a plate for food, a vase for flowers-- though I strive at the same time for a certain lightness and elegance of form. Once the piece has taken form, then I try to push it beyond the limits of the ordinary, pulling the clay to distort it and deliberately or spontaneously layering or splashing on contrasting colour to fuse with the shape and catch the eye. When a piece comes out of the kiln, it pleases me if it makes you think of a nicely laid table and at the same time of surfaces marked by the wind, water and sun, like a rock or the face of a cliff or the trunk of a tree.

Fish Hoek Reverie

I threw this piece while in Cape Town, at the Kommetjie pottery, Zizamele. I was intrigued by the potters’ excellent use of underglazes, and thought I would give it a try too. Then brought it home, not yet glazed (below). I was still in the watercolour mood, following the two University of Cape Town summer school art classes.

Perhaps I should have left it at that. However, once home again, I coted it in a glossy transparent glaze, as I felt it to be rather bare. But that made the colours too stark. As a last resort, I coated it all over with a light yellow slip, and fired it again to cone 6.

Stoneware, underglazes, glaze, and slip. Fired in oxidation, to cone 6.

12 cm x 12 cm

Catalpa, small

This piece is inspired by trees, specifically one tree, a Northern Catalpa (number 9 in the official listing of Remarkable Trees of Canada’s Capital), growing along the Rideau River, in Ottawa, close to where I live.

I start by throwing cylinder on the wheel, then force the clay outwards until the rim starts to give way, recalling the idea of leaves waving in the breeze. After the first glaze firing, I add touches of porcelain, as a reminder of the Catalpa’s white, orchid-like blossoms.

Stoneware, porcelain, and glaze. Fired to cone 6, in oxidation.

Diameter: 21.5 cm, 11.5 cm

Catalpa (1)

Distorted, wide-winged vase.

Glaze applied with varying thicknesses, creating colours ranging from yellow/ochre at rim, to grey, and then to green, matte in some areas, glossy in others. Yellow slip applied over the glaze, when fired to cone 6 in oxidation, creating a contrasting, roughened, volcanic effect.

My hope was to evoke the sense of a tree moving with the wind, with delicate white spring buds piercing the foliage, reaching for the light.

Stoneware, with porcelain inserts, fired to cone 6, in oxidation

Diameter at widest point: 30 cm, height at highest point: 14 cm

Deep Woods

A pair of vases suggesting leaves, reeds and moss, all catching the light around the base of an age-old tree; a play on darkness, shadows and light.

Hand built using a single slab of black stoneware clay, lightened with thinly-poured coatings of Frost porcelain. Yellow slip applied with a flick of the wrist, then sgrafitto<d to suggest waving leaves.

I submitted only one of these to the OGP 2023 Annual Exhibition, because the one on the right had a fault, and the submission deadline was up. A little sanding, a touch of slip, and into the kiln it went for a second cone 6 firing. All went well. From now on, this pair will stay together.

Height: 30 cm; Diameter at base: 8 cm.

Spring Glade – Set of three vases

Accepted into the Ottawa Guild of Potters Annual Exhibition 2023 May 5 – 7), juried by Angelo di Petta. Sold.

See the Exhibition Catalogue at: https://ottawaguildofpotters.ca/annual-juried-exhibition/

Streams of slips create a weathered, bark-like surface, while poured glaze reflects regrowth, through moss dappled green and grey in the sun.

Slips and glaze trailed and poured. Hand built using a single slab of stoneware clay. Fired to cone 6, in oxidation

Height: 27 – 30 cm, Width at base: 8.5 to 9 cm / Weight 664 – 785 g

At The Pond

Reeds waving in the breeze, and leaves floating on the water, all bathed in sunlight.

Wheel-thrown, using reclaim clay at Olaria Mealha, Lagos, Portugal. Only having time to bisque it there, I glazed it once back home in Ottawa. The streams of glaze create an attractive flashing just where they edge onto the bare clay. Did the gas kiln bisque firing in Lagos create that strong effect? Was it iron in the reclaim clay itself? All I know is that I haven’t, so far, been able to repeat it — and doubt whether I ever will. Oh well. I like it.

Wheel thrown. Stoneware; glaze fired to cone 6, in oxidation.

Height: 17 cm, Width: 10 cm

Meadows – vases

Thick slips of glaze provide the rough texture of reeds and grasses, buffeted by the wind.

White stoneware fired to cone 6, in oxidation.

Hand built, fired with slips and glaze.

Height: 27 to 29 cm; Width at base: 9 – 9.5 cm. Weight: about 860 g each

Water’s Edge

Thrown in Lagos, Algarve, at Galeria Mealha, using Spanish porcelain (Vicente Diez – Porcelana Artika XTR).

Partly coated in porcelain slip with 20% added yellow stain. Bisqued in gas kiln, to cone 06.

Streams of glaze added once back home in Ottawa. Fired to cone 6, in oxidation.

The Rideau vase.

Collaborative piece, with Dominique Gaie.

A chance meeting, along the Rideau river; something clicks. We talk trees, bark, about what we do. I pot; she paints. Feel like decorating my vase? I ask. She looks at me, perplexed. I tell her about the vase I’d been making. You could sgrafitto your design. But, c’est quoi ça, sgrafitto? You’ll figure it out, I reply. And she did. But Oh no! She knew nothing about handling raw clay. As she worked, the rim broke. I carved away the broken rim. I asked: Still want to decorate this piece? Wabi-sabi? Take on board the mishaps along the way? She nods.

I had built the vase somedays earlier, using black stoneware clay, coating it with a patch of white porcelaneous slip, and another patch of ochre-coloured glaze. Using my tools, Dominique started creating trails through the slip, and through the glaze, down to the dark clay beneath.

Once bisque fired, I poured a satin white glaze on the inside, and used a spray gun to apply a very fine layer of transparent glaze over the outside surface.

My first collaborative piece; Dominique’s first time working with clay.

Slab-built; fired in oxidation, to cone 6.

Dominique at work