Every once in a while I come across a truly special piece of ceramic art that deserves its own post... This ceramic sculpture, shown below, was made in the early 1960s by Santo Mignosa. It stands an impressive 765 mm (30") tall and is 460 mm (18") wide across the top. Santo is known for his large sculptural pieces, a technique he learned in his native Italy before leaving his teaching job at the Institute of Art in Siracusa, and immigrating to Canada in 1957 to become a ceramics instructor alongside Olea Davis and Thomas Kakinuma at the UBC pottery hut in 1959. Santo was featured in a February 1963 edition of Ceramics Monthly and was interviewed on his techniques and ability to create such large sculptural pieces. He explained that his method "consists of just building anything you want by adding a piece of flat clay on top of another and, in doing that, giving a specific direction to the line of the sculpture." He went on to say that "it is necessary that the artist have a very clear picture in his mind of the finished work, as second thoughts are not allowed. Of course, experience makes everything easy..." The clay he chose was also unique as it was "a cone 8 dark- brown-burning clay which is used commercially to join sections of sewer pipe." The Etruscan motifs on this piece are clearly evident and in line with other sculptural works he made during these years. In fact, he wrote "Etrusco" on the bottom where he signed it to leave no question of his intent. At the time of it's creation in the early 1960s, Santo was teaching at the Kootenay School of Art in Nelson BC, with Zeljko Kujundzic. I've seen photos of other sculptural pieces Santo created during that time frame and can see Zeljko's byzantine-style influence in some of it. This one though is entirely Santo and may have been finished earlier when he was still teaching at UBC. Always eager to show his work internationally, the sculpture, titled "Impressions of Vancouver, B.C." was accepted for the 22nd Ceramic National Exhibition in Syracuse New York. The show, held in 1962, was a survey of American and Canadian contemporary art pottery held annually and featured the best work on the continent. "Impressions..." had long been in the possession of an art collector since purchasing it directly from Santo in Nelson in the mid 1960s. There it sat alongside world class pieces by Hans Coper and Toshu Yamamoto. It was important to the family of this gentleman that the Mignosa piece would find its way and end up in a collection where it would be fully appreciated and admired. It is, and now sits among works created by his friend Zeljko, perhaps some of which were thrown or fired at the same time... Update:I recently uncovered this photograph of "Impressions" in the installation at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse. The photo dates to between November 4 - December 30, 1962 just before the show went on a two year long tour of the United States. According to the exhibit catalog, Santo listed the piece at $335 USD (approximately $3500 in today's currency). The Pottery and Sculpture of Santo Mignosa. (1963, February). Ceramics Monthly, 11(2), 24–27.
Installation view, Everson Museum of Art. American Craft Council. (n.d.). Retrieved June 6, 2022, from https://digital.craftcouncil.org/digital/collection/p15785coll6/id/5023/rec/1 Arthur Handy was a Canadian sculptor who started his long career as an artist and teacher in ceramics before mastering the capabilities of other mediums. He would always return to clay periodically though, in his exploration of abstract impressionism. I was fortunate enough to acquire some pieces of his work some time ago, initially knowing very little about him. The pieces were magnificent - powerful and unlike anything else I have in my collection. With a little digging however, I came to be immensely impressed by the man, his accomplished career and of course by his art. And while I primarily focus on the work of BC artists, exceptions have to be made, and Arthur Handy’s work justify this. Born in New York City in 1933, Handy grew up under the influence of the dynamic American art of Jackson Pollock and the improvisational prowess of Miles Davis. Handy graduated Magna cum laude with a BFA from Alfred University in 1959, and again with a MFA in Ceramics in 1960 and upon completion, immediately took a job as the Head of Ceramics at the Ontario College of Art where he stayed until 1966.
His final couple of decades were spent teaching, exhibiting, and returning to clay now and again. When Arthur Handy passed away in 2004 he was remembered fondly for his gentle manner and his humility. Of his sculptural work it was said “his response was deft and light. His handling of form was immensely sophisticated, informed by deep knowledge of the history of ceramics and his love of looking at art.” Arthur Handy’s work is in the collection of the Canada Council Art Bank, Alfred University, and the Royal Ontario Museum. Canadian Ceramics 1961: April 4-May 7 Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto ; May 26-June 26 Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. (1961). Montreal: Canadian Guild of Potters.
Canadian sculpture today. (1964). Toronto: Dorothy Cameron Gallery. Thompson, D. (1965, February 23). Display of Ceramics Sparks Craftsman - Artist Comparison. Calgary Herald. Hale, B. (1977, April 23). The Physical Art. The Ottawa Citizen. Arthur Handy: Ceramic sculpture, 1962-65 and 1985. (1985). Macdonald Stewart Art Centre 22 June - 4 August 1985. Guelph, Ont.: Macdonald Stewart Art Centre. Flinn, S. (2004, December 4). The Magnificent Mystery of Mickey Handy. Halifax Chronicle Herald. I met Des Loan in the fall of 1982. He was my high school English teacher and he was different than the rest of my teachers. Des taught differently, talking to us in seminar as opposed to marching us through a textbook. He told stories - including one I remember about his friend “Zeljko” who had been a prisoner of war during WWII. (I would later discover this man to be Zeljko Kujundzic, another prolific and important Canadian artist who spent a considerable part of his career in British Columbia). Another time I remember him singing to us in sonnet and then admonishing us for being embarrassed by it. Yes, Des was certainly different than the rest of the staff at my high school but I credit him for reigniting my interest in reading and writing that had been dispatched over the previous three years by the drudgery of a traditional education.
Their pottery career started later in the 1950s when Peg took a pottery course on hand building at the Naramata Summer School of the Arts with California potter Hal Riegger - who headed the pottery department at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. As it happened, the ceramic seed was now planted and Des was soon getting his hands in the clay too. By the early 1960’s Des and Peg had generated enough work and interest in what they were making that they began selling pottery directly from their home in Summerland. Wanting to further his ceramic skills and deepen his understanding of the whole process, Des enrolled in UBC Summer Extension Programs at UBC in Vancouver. The classes all took place at the “Pottery Hut” - the crucible of ceramic art in British Columbia. Starting in the early 1950s and on into the 1960s, the pioneer potters of B.C. learned from the likes of American luminaries Edith Heath, F. Carlton Ball and Marguerite Wildenhain and also from international artists like Alexander Archipenko and Kyllikki Salmenhaara. Des attended for two consecutive summers; the first hosted by Stan Clarke in 1961 and then with John Reeve in 1962. Reeve had just arrived back in Canada after completing his apprenticeship with Bernard Leach at the Leach Pottery in St. Ives England (1958 - 1961). So began their fascination and journey with pottery. With an electric kiln to get them started, they established their first studio “Okanagan Pottery” on Bottleneck Drive in Summerland. Des was involved in a number of exhibitions during the 1960s, including the Western Ceramics touring exhibit in 1967. His work was one of many featured in this juried show of western Canadian artists that travelled to over a dozen galleries. His drive to explore, experiment and have a dedicated space for making pottery led Des to make the move to Peachland and build the Okanagan Pottery Studio in 1968. Right on the side of Highway 97, just past the foot of Princeton Avenue, Des constructed his studio facing the lake and looking out across at Rattlesnake Island. Here they had both a retail and studio space that was easily accessible to the public. Another big step forward here was the purchase of a gas fired kiln for producing stoneware and porcelain work. This larger scale kiln allowed for not only a huge range of glaze possibilities but also sculptures and larger scale ceramic vases like the one shown below. This is a collaborative piece signed by both Peg and Des and dates to around 1972. The 1960s and 1970s were exciting times in B.C. pottery. Artists were coming into their own, programs and careers were becoming established, and the exchange of ideas was in full swing. The Leach apprentices were back from St. Ives and luminaries like Wayne Ngan were emerging. Many notable artists moved freely between B.C. and Alberta sharing ideas and influence. Calgary, Edmonton, Banff, Nelson, Vancouver and the Island were all very prolific hubs of creation. The Okanagan valley was no different. With the passing of the Schwenks in the mid 1960s, it was the next wave of Okanagan potters like the Loans, Zeljko Kujundzic, Frances Hatfield, Walter Dexter, Leonhard Epp and Frank Poll who would create their own creative epicentre. While Dexter’s stay was fairly brief (he would leave for Nelson in 1968 to head the Kootenay School of the Arts) - Des, Zeljko and Frank would form three of the Five Okanagan Contemporary Artists collective. Along with Weldon Munden and LeRoy Jensen (later of the Limner group in Victoria) the group injected a great deal of energy and leadership into the valley art scene. Looking at Des Loan pieces created during these years you can see the mutual influence and interchange of ideas between many of these potters. You can see it the works of Kujundzic, Mignosa, and Poll at this time. The influence of Thomas Kakinuma can be seen on some of the figural animals Peg produced during these years. You can also see it in the work of his friend Les Manning who asked Des if he could work at the studio for part of the year during his sabbatical from the Banff Centre in the early 1980s. Les and Des had a great rapport with one another and inspired each other in clay and philosophy. Des had such an appreciation and deep understanding of literature that he could easily share and discuss at depth a great variety of authors, poets and playwrights. Les found this most inspiring and would often tell Des how he would incorporate ideas and quotes he had learned from Des in lectures and keynotes he would deliver. For Des, having Les working in the studio opened his eyes to a whole new range of design ideas and especially glazes. Les was a great artist and especially keen as a careful technician in formulating and firing a wide range of very interesting glazes. Des continued to use many of the recipes Les shared with him from that time. Especially a Shino glaze of Japanese origin that Des used right up to his final days of working with clay. When I was doing some research on Des' pottery career I connected with his son-in-law Peter Flanagan. Peter is also a talented and widely regarded potter who has been actively creating for the past 40+ years. Peter is known for the incredibly large plates he throws - some requiring 70 lbs of clay! They’re impressive and they’re beautiful. You can check out Peter’s work here. One of the things Peter impressed on me was that Des was a Renaissance man. He had varied interests and was good at many things. He enjoyed playing his grand piano for visitors to his home. He was an avid painter in oils and exhibited throughout the Okanagan. He was also interested in photography who had a knack for portraiture and candid capture. Des was also a published poet, his works appearing in literary journals and also in a book of his own collected works. He shared this interest with his friend George Ryga, a notable writer from the valley whom Des first befriend in the early 1960s. Peter also shared an excerpt of one of Des’ poems with me and reading it immediately took me back to 1982, to my desk by the window on the second floor, to my English teacher reading poetry aloud to the class… last night I held in sleep a hollow cylinder of carved Brazil nut a curved window in it opened on a totally negative presentiment a chocolate Haida face with empty eye sockets today at the kickwheel two angled wire-cuts in a cylinder of clay a final cut at the base pick it up to ball and discard the excess folding in the pointed flaps and through the window of the severed underside my unremembered dream lies once again in my fingers I honour the moment by making it the handle of a new pot which ironically was my intended purpose A big thanks of gratitude to Peter Flanagan for his assistance and the information he provided for this post. Identifying and dating Loan potteryOne thing you notice when you see and hold a Gordon Hutchens pot is its technical excellence. Every piece of his pottery I have held amazes me in its form and balance. The glazes he concocts and their application are somehow immediately recognizable as his alone. Gordon Hutchens originally hails from the U.S. where he obtained his B.F.A. with Honors in ceramics at the University of Illinois but has been a fixture in the B.C. pottery scene for nearly fifty years. He established his pottery on the north end of Denman Island in British Columbia where he has lived and worked since. Mr. Hutchens formulates and blends all his own clay bodies using many different clays from across North America as well as clay from his own property. I’ve heard him refer to his glaze work as alchemy and the range and results of what he has created over time with experimentation certainly fits this description. Equally adept in various in various methods, he creates pieces in raku, salt glaze stoneware, reduction fired earthenware, and a line of crystalline glazed porcelain (shown below) - a complicated technique that emulates the natural formation of crystals in rock cooling deep in the earth - that took him years to perfect. Hutchens designed and built an Anagama woodfiring kiln - the fourth Tozan kiln in the world -under the guidance of Dr. Yukio Yamamoto between August 1996 and April 1998. Made from 3000 firebricks, the kiln holds hundreds of pottery pieces, burns for three days straight—using five cords of wood that the potters hand-feed in shifts—and reaches up to 2350°F (1300°C). Taking inspiration from the natural world around him and inspired by the famous Edo period wood-block prints of Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai, my favourite works by Gordon have to be his “big wave” vases. Evoking the turbulent beauty of foam-crested waves rolling across stormy seas, these pieces are magnificent. Mr. Hutchens also generously shares his knowledge throughout British Columbia, across Canada and internationally through classes, workshops and exhibitions. Since 1999 he has taught ceramics at North Island College, School of Fine Art and Design. In 2019 Gordon Hutchens was bestowed a BC Achievement Foundation Award of Distinction in Applied Art and Design. He has exhibited across Canada, from Halifax, Montreal and Toronto to Vancouver & Victoria. He has had over 25 one-man shows and over 70 group exhibitions across Canada and the U.S.A., with three major exhibitions in Japan. His work is displayed in permanent collections such as the Bronfman family’s Claridge Collection, the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, the Burlington Art Centre, and the Canadian Museum of Civilization.
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Studio Pottery CanadaPottery enthusiast learning about the history of this Canadian art form and curating samples from the best in the field pre-1980. Archives
March 2023
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