When one thinks of important early Alberta potters, the name that usually comes up is Luke Lindoe, and rightly so. Lindoe gave much to the movement in Alberta between his stays in Calgary and Medicine Hat. However, the brief and dynamic arrival of Sibyl Laubental to the north, in Edmonton, in the early 1950s, should give one pause to consider her immense and important contributions as well.

Marie Sibyl (Budde) Laubental was born in Halle, Germany in 1918 just at the end of the First World War to Martin Luther University professor Werner Budde, and his sculptor wife, Grete. Grete Budde was a gifted sculptor and portrait artist at a time when instruction at art academies was typically denied to women. She took private lessons instead and, as a result, produced a great many portraits and scultures in the 1920s and 30s. The Budde family's Jewish heritage put them in tremendous danger with the rise of National Socialism in Germany, and in 1937, Werner was one of 39 lecturers to be removed from the University due to newly instituted racial laws.

​Sibyl Budde started her career in ceramics at 18. She first studied as an apprentice around Salerno, Italy from 1935 - 1938 before returning to Germany and being hired as an assistant at the prestigious studio of Danish born modernist potter Jan Bontjes van Beek in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin. As the war progressed, and things got much worse, Van Beek's daughter Cato was arrested and executed for her involvement in the "Red Orchestra" resistance. Van Beek himself was also arrested for the crime of sipperhaft - or shared responsibility. Ms. Budde, who had been married ​to architect Carl Laubental, was forced to spend the remainder of the war in hiding with her husband and young family in the attic of a baker. The van Beek studio was destroyed in a bombing raid in 1943.

​After the war, with Sibyl spending a couple of years working in a Stuttgart tile factory, the young Laubental family emigrated to Edmonton in the spring of 1952 where her extraordinary talent was recognized almost immediately. She helped teach at the newly formed Edmonton Potter's Guild where she instructed students on the wheel, taught them how to prepare clay and glazes, and how to produce high fire stoneware. These were early days and would likely seem primitive to today's potters but the knowledge base was in its infancy and Ms. Laubental was a major factor in its growth. Her skill on the wheel even caught the attention of Luke Lindoe himself who drove hundreds of kilometres to see her demonstrate. He recalled "(she) taught me what I needed to know about throwing." (Crawford, p.201).

As Ms. Laubental's reputation grew she was invited to teach at more locations including the Banff School and the University of Alberta Extension Department. She gave a great deal of her focus to her students, distracting from her own personal production. As a result her work is now quite scarce and difficult to find. She did manage to send juried pieces off to important exhibitions where she won awards. These included Canadian Ceramics 1955 ($50 prize for a stoneware vase) and 1957 (see below) as well as the 19th Ceramic National in 1957 at Syracuse, New York. This recognition would likely have to be considered the pinnacle of her career.

She also exhibited at;

• First National Fine Crafts, National Gallery of Canada 1957
• Brussels World Fair, Belgium 1958
• Ceramic National, Syracuse 1958
• Contemporary Ceramics, Belgium 1959
• Ceramic National, Syracuse 1960
• ​​Smithsonian International Exhibition of Ceramic Art, Washington DC  1961

Sibyl Laubental's work reflects the Bauhaus design ethic we see in other European influenced potters like Marguerite Wildenhain, Jan Grove, and Leonard Osborne. She believed that glaze and decorative motif should not detract from the lines or designs of a piece but rather should enhance it. All the examples of her work pictured in this article illustrate this.

Sadly, Sibyl Laubental's life was cut short by a terminal illness, in 1961, at the age of only 43. She was succeeded in her teaching role by the likes of Walter Dexter and Noboru Kubo. During her brief decade in Canada she influenced and started the careers of a great many Alberta potters, contributing tremendously to the development of the Alberta ceramics movement along with Luke Lindoe.

I've been fortunate enough to find and acquire but one piece of Sibyl Laubental's work - this bowl. It is a fine example and emblematic of her Bauhaus approach. Simply glazed but with incredible depth and feel. It does not distract from the perfectly thrown form. Likely dating to the mid to late 1950s, the bowl is 8 1/4" across and 3 1/2" high.

Ms. Laubental's only solo exhibitions occured after her death in 1962 - one in Winnipeg, the other in Edmonton. Interestingly, her mother, Grete Budde recently had over 90 of her sculptural works recognized at her first solo exhibition - Grete Budde. Works for the University - in 2021 in Halle, Germany.

I correspond occasionally with a gentleman who shares my interest in the ceramic work of Wayne Ngan. We haven’t been in touch for a number of months, mainly due to the disruption of my recent move to a new town. The time vacuumed up by buying, selling, packing, moving, renovating and settling took much longer than I anticipated and left me no time for my hobbies. Now that life has returned to balance for me, I’ve been able to devote more spare time to my interests, including this site. A recent update I made to a couple of pages here prompted his latest email which I was happy to receive.

In our last series of back and forths he wondered aloud whether the pieces I have are a selection or a collection? I had to reread that line a couple of times because it was something I hadn’t ever really pondered. The question interested me enough to remain with me for a day or two and for some reason I felt compelled to work it out and answer it for myself. I’m presenting my thoughts here in case anyone else has wondered the same.

A little light digging into the question revealed that others have asked the same as it relates to their hobby – astronomy, birdwatching, etc. Folks there seem to delineate the two terms on the basis of need and want. "What tools do you need to engage in your hobby?" - as opposed to those items you want in order to fill a gap but which may or may never be used. My conclusion drawn on this basis was that my ceramics would be more of a collection then, as I really don’t need any of them. I suppose I could find a practical use for most of them (as containers for instance) but they are really only out on display for my enjoyment. So, it’s a collection then?

Moving next into the dictionary definitions led me to distill a variety of explanations for the two terms down to the following:

• Selection – an aggregate of items that are chosen for display or otherwise
• Collection – a group of objects accumulated in one location as a result of some process or purpose. 

The key terms to show differentiation here, I believe, are accumulation and choice…. Since I have chosen to create an aggregation of Mr. Ngan’s work, and I have opted not to acquire a number of pieces even though I’ve had the opportunity over the years (for a variety of reasons), what I have would be a selection then?

After thinking on all of this I decided I've experienced both and its been an evolutionary process. What began, for me, as a collection has morphed into a carefully curated selection.

As my knowledge and collection grew I realized there is far too much great Canadian ceramic work to have it all. The creativity in the ceramic art our nation has produced is amazing really. I came to realize that I can appreciate this vast scope through other people's collections - mine needed to be focused and I landed (almost) exclusively on Wayne Ngan’s work. ​

When I look at the selections I've acquired over the years, I realize I'm interested in a few main aspects of Wayne's work that I feel tell his story, specifically; the eras, the forms, his techniques and his glazes. How do I select and curate samples that show his progression and style from student pieces at the VSA to his most recent contemporary forms? How can you see his story without raku work? Or salt glaze work? Or a selection of his tea bowls? Form becomes important, as does glaze, and on it goes.

To focus further, I've placed a numeric limit (a cap) to the number of pieces I allow myself to keep. Perhaps this is the part I enjoy most as it manages the clutter and challenges me to always "upgrade" what I keep under my "one in, one out rule."

So I've decided, for me at least, what started as a collection years ago is now my curated selection. Time will tell if I have a critical eye and have kept the right examples for what I'm trying to do...
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