Meet Our Juror
Juror for the Ottawa Guild of Potters’ 2022 Annual Juried Exhibition
For over forty years, my partner David McKenzie and I have worked as studio potters in Wakefield Quebec, an artistic community north of Ottawa where we built our home/studio/gallery. At Galerie McKenzie Marcotte, we have curated and presented over 60 exhibitions of painting, sculpture, glass work and drawings as well as constantly showing our own porcelain pottery in our gallery setting.
In the past few years, I have had exhibitions, group and solo (with David McKenzie) at The Art Gallery of Burlington, The Carnegie Gallery in Dundas Ontario, Charlie Cummings Gallery in Florida, Companion Gallery in Tennessee, The Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery in Waterloo and at Jonothan Bancroft-Snell in London Ontario. I have also been a constant member of 260 Fingers in Ottawa.
Throughout these years, I have been preoccupied with surface decoration on functional pottery forms. There has been a steady evolution in my work, an increasingly refined intensity in surface decoration on porcelain based on a love of pattern and the ways in which repetitive motifs can be used to enhance a simple form.
Much of my inspiration comes from textile arts: batiks, Persian carpets, Fair Isle knitting patterns, complicated quilt patterns among others. Historical ceramics, in particular Persian pottery, Iznik vessels and artists like William Morris and his associates have all influenced the patterns I create, whether they are geometric or based on the natural world. As a result of my reverence for these traditions, my work has evolved to include layered floral patterns as well as geometric patterns that subtly make reference to the past.
When decorating a piece of pottery with an intense overall pattern, nothing is rushed. The design is built up incrementally using fine Japanese brushes and wax resist. This slow, cumulative, organic method induces a meditative approach that requires slowing down and appreciating the material, the process and the pleasure of working with one's hands.
