Tag Archives: Gunda Stewart

Columbia Basin Culture Tour

If you live near the Columbia Basin or you are travelling to British Columbia, and you will be there for August 10 and 11, you really need to check out the 70 artists that are in the 11th annual culture tour.  Studios are open daily from 10-5, and there are maps, brochures, and postcards at the galleries, craft shops, information bureaus, and studios of the artists.  I have written about many of these creative people before, but it is time to wake everyone up again to get out and see what is new.  For specific information, you can find maps, information on each of the artists, event activities at http://www.cbculturetour.com. It is all free to charge.  Take a road trip and support the local artists in the Columbia Basin of British Columbia.

Standing in Gunda Stewart’s studio in Canyon, I looked down and saw a postcard and started laughing.  Good thing Gunda was out grinding a lid or she would have thought I had lost my mind.  The problem was I couldn’t stop.  Gunda gave me a smile, and I showed her what was causing all of the chaos:  a photo of a sheep under a hairdryer with those bristle rollers, red high heels with her utters spilling over the edge of the chair.  Gunda was quick to point out that that particular artist had managed to get an image of three different works on the three different types of publicity.  Within an hour, we were standing in Andrea Rovey’s studio in Creston, and that is where I came face to face with GlamChops!

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Andrea has this seditious sense of humour.  She made a sculpture in celebration of the Pink pussyhats, women marching against Trump in 2017.  It was her way of dealing with this outrageous situation.  Scattered about are award-winning sculptures, chicks dancing on cars, rabbits, beavers with the brightest red lipstick.  I should have paid more attention because this was a fantastic studio with one heck of an incredible artist.  Andrea studied at Red Deer College with Trudy Golley and also went to Penland- but the humour is all her.  Notice:  Glam Chops is reading a book on ‘Teets’.  Underneath each of these is something that relates to women.  Stop in and check out her work….there is much more on offer.

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The Kootenays are so green this year and hopefully with the rain maybe it will be a wildfire free year. Gunda fired her wood kiln, and her shelves are ready for the tour.  She loads everything up and takes it to Cameron Stewart’s studio up in Passmore.  You can catch her at the market in Creston on the weekends or in her studio when the ‘open’ sign is up.  The wood-fired functional ware of her, Cameron, Pamela Nagley-Stevenson, and Robin Dupont is exceptional and unique to each maker.  Check out their studios on the tour.  I hear the last wood firing for Nagley-Stevenson had quite surprising results.

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If you are not going to be in British Columbia, then check out what is happening with your local artisans and artists.  In Manitoba, the Winnipeg Folk Festival will have its annual handmade village and around all of the provinces are weekend markets where you can buy local.  And if you want to become more ecological, then consider something well made that will make a person happy for a long time that was created by someone local.

Afternoon tea with Destiny, Gunda, Terry, and Harlan

I am not actually having afternoon tea with Destiny, Gunda, Terry, and Harlan but, oh, how nice that would be!  But they are here with me regardless.  Harlan House’s Row House candle holder is always somewhere easily in sight.  Oh, what a nice man Harlan is.  He stopped having his annual open houses a couple of years ago but he still takes calls from collectors and clients and hasn’t stopped working.  He just wants to set his own schedule and after more than 50 years of working with porcelain surely he has earned it.  Harlan has also left another legacy.  He spent the past couple of years working on a digital book.  You can find it on his website – just search Google or ask Siri.  Last week he said that I knew everything that was in it but he hoped it would help my students.  And, indeed, it will just like the videos that he has inserted in his site have helped them to understand the great amount of effort that one has to put into trimming if they want to work with porcelain.  Most are too much of a hurry to allow the porcelain to cure as it dries.  For those of you who read my article on Harlan in Art and Perception you will know this story but, for those of you that don’t, it is a good way to remember to take care with your work.  You can have a giggle, too.  Harlan built a room within his carriage house studio to dry his porcelain.  He put regular household bricks on the floor and there were windows and those baby humidifiers from the 1970s shooting out their warm mist.  His thrown pieces were on shelves where he could see them through the windows.  He said, “These platters are kind of like a love affair.  At first, everything is perfect.  Then about two weeks in you start to notice little things begin to happen” – an upturn of the lip -.  He would remove the pieces, place them back on the wheel and return them to dry.  I never did find out how many trips those large thrown platters made in and out.  By the time they made it to the gallery they were exceptional. but

Gunda is never far away but, this weekend she is firing her wood kiln in Canyon, BC getting ready for the last big market of the year.  Her temmokus are luscious – I do repeat that often.  They break at the rim and over the finger marks into a gorgeous kaki.  Someone told me once that she could “just fire them in a gas kiln”.  Of course, she could but then she would not be part of the complete process.  She often makes her own clays and mixes her own glazes.  She is part of every aspect of the firing and my back breaks when I think of her climbing in and out of her Manibigama kiln with the heavy silicon carbide shelves.  But, if she put everything in the gas kiln it would lose that subtle softness that only comes with wood firing.  Gunda is the only studio potter I know of that makes her teapots so that you can actually fit, with ease, one of those large strainers in the top opening.  I thank her every time I want to make a full pot…and she is with me in spirit every day otherwise I would find myself travelling to BC far too often.

This is what I mean when I talk about the joy that quality handmade items make to your life.  I am not talking about the “crap” out there and the word “craft” still gets a bad name from people who purchase bags of parts of things and assemble them together and call themselves an artist.  It takes a long time of study and the mastery of the material to be someone whose work won’t make it into the garage sale in five years time.  Terry Hildebrand is young.  I wrote about my favourite plates of his yesterday.  Today one of them is holding the offering of lemon and rosemary scones to my guest while Destiny Seymour’s textile ties the whole lot of these lovely people together.

We have a very close friend, Ruby, who is a Cree Medicine Woman.  She deals with the dead.  But she has imparted a lot of wisdom to me over the years (thank you, Ruby).  One thing that I learned is to only surround yourself with the work of “good” people.  Remove the objects made by those who carry negative energy.  The world is full of it, why bring that into your house?  How lucky am I then to be having Saturday afternoon tea with such a remarkable, creative group of good and kind people?  Think about that when you are shopping, too and support these wonderful makers who have chosen to live a creative life.

Gunda Stewart

I do not know when I was first introduced to Gunda Stewart.  I wish I could remember who it was that told me to contact her because I would like to thank them.  I consider her a dear friend, a treasure, that came into my life so unexpectedly.  I do remember flying into the tiny airport at Cranbrook from Calgary.  What a view over the Rockies!  And driving a rental car – some sort of Honda that had to have rear wheel drive through the mountains, south to Canyon BC.  On the road to Gunda’s studio and home, nestled in the valley of the Selkirk and Purcell Mountains, there is a single blue artisan sign.  But it doesn’t tell you that if you follow it, you will discover one of Canada’s best wood fire potters!!!!  Gunda lives on a beautiful acreage with gardens, both flower and vegetable, with her partner Wayne and their dog, Sadie.  Her studio is separate from the house and next to it is her Mamabigama 40 cubic foot wood kiln.  It is a beauty!

Gunda studied with Tam Irving at the Vancouver School of Art.  Her work clearly shows the influence of Irving as well as Irving’s friend, John Reeve, who also taught at the VSA for a short time.  Her temmoku bowls, mugs, and baskets are covered by the deep rich iron glaze breaking at the lip into kaki (persimmon).  She says she puts them at the back of her kiln and in the front is the ash glazed ware, runny and luscious.

Her work is sold at the local artisan market during the summer and at several holidays sales in the late fall.  She also has a few sales out of her studio and visitors are welcome to drop by and purchase ware when there is not a public market or sale.

I often wonder if the people who attend the weekend markets in Canyon beginning in May know what a treasure they have in their midst?  Or does the old adage, ‘You are not a prophet in your own land’ still apply?  Google her.  She has her own website where she features images of recent work.  This was a bad year for all the wood firers in British Columbia.  The wildfires kept the fire ban going until the end of September.  Then it was a mad rush to fire the kiln, load after load, tiring and backbreaking at the same time, to get everything ready for the holiday markets.

Now that the season is drawing to a close, Gunda tells me she is ready to curl up, drink nice tea, and read a few good books as the snow covers the landscape in the winter.

If you happen to be in the area, follow the artisan sign.  You will be so happy you did!