The Forgotten Man - Reckoning the Past in the Present

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The Forgotten Man - Reckoning the Past in the Present

“I had been reading some of my reflections on mine and my late father’s lived experience of race. My mother interrupted my monologue, “…of course there’s the time when your father was interviewed about his relationship with Perry over that race thing by Readers’ Digest …””

Image: Heidi McKenzie, “Power Structure (Detail),” hand-rolled paper-clay with ceramic decal, 8” x 3.5” x 0.16” each (actual size of computer punch card). Photos by Olivier Lamarre.

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Linda Rotua Sormin’s Uncertain Ground at the Gardiner Museum

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Linda Rotua Sormin’s Uncertain Ground at the Gardiner Museum

“What I felt was a sense of voyeurism into the subconscious mind of not only the artist, but the intergenerational trauma of the artist’s ancestors. It is messy, in parts it is ugly. In parts it is surprising in its brokenness, it’s seeming haphazardness, and yet, the marriage of experimental video collage with the visual collage of the ceramic installations laced with found objects work together in a unify the whole.”

Image: Linda Rotua Sormin: Uncertain Ground, Installation views, Gardiner Museum, Toronto, November 6, 2025 – April 12, 2026. Photos by Toni Hafkenscheid

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Beacon reviewed by Heidi McKenzie

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Beacon reviewed by Heidi McKenzie

“When I virtually sat down with Lantin, she spoke to me about wishing to honor the risk people were taking in being vocal and vulnerable about their political and/or social justice beliefs. She was interested in spotlighting artists who are taking a stand, pulling on the ties of the straitjacket of political correctness in which many of us tend to abide.”

Image: Adero Willard’s daydko, red earthenware, slips, underglazes, wax, 2025.

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Walking the Talk: Sustainability in Ceramic

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Walking the Talk: Sustainability in Ceramic

“Treading Lightly: Walking the Talk” was curated by the celebrated and prolific ceramics maker, facilitator, inventor, and educator, Lisa Orr. Orr showcased the work of fourteen artists who are all in their own way responding to the environmental crisis, global warming, and seeking innovative ways of creating in ethical and responsibly sustainable ways.”

Image: Yuliya Makliuk’s Goosebumps: The Great Meadow, 15 in. (38.1 cm) in height, wood-fired stoneware, 2024. 

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Gardiner Museum Opens with Building Blocks

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I’m so thrilled that Sequoia Miller and the Acquisitions Committee at the Gardiner Museum chose to acquire Building Blocks and have re-opened their newly designed first floor galleries with this work in the cases alongside so many amazing artists!!!!

Missive - Belfast Linen Biennale September 2025

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Belfast teams with energy and possibility. I feel totally sympatico with this city. I feel like the pink double-decker buses were painted just for me. Pink has been my core colour since I bartered with a design firm when I was a consultant and they told me that hot pink was “who I was” and I realized they were right. It’s strong and bold, feminine but not fragile. When the man with the orange rug on his head (who shall not be named) was elected, I decided that bright colours would be my form of protest, a counter move to the darkness in the world. Belfast has bright bold colours nearly everywhere you look – even in the bathrooms!

I found the light entrancing. The mystery in the sky is ever-changing and changeable. I stopped to consider the way the light fell on buildings and snapped away on my iPhone, trying to capture the essence of this place. People don’t seem to take head when the clouds burst and there is a sudden rain shower, they just keep walking. After a couple of days, I found myself leaving my umbrella in its bag, knowing with confidence that the sun was just around the corner.

I went to Belfast partly on a reconnaissance mission, to find future fits and folks for as yet unimagined projects, and partly to mark my participation in the Linen Biennale Norther Ireland.

Tragically, UPS held onto my sculpture until the day I left, the day before the show closed. Meadhb (pronounced Maeve) curated Common Threads. She’s a warm and spritely 30-something independent curator, artist and arts manager. Meadhb hosted me, showed me around the East End of Belfast, that boats multiple mixed art/commercial complexes that have taken over the shells of old factories or mills – reminiscent of the Distillery District in Toronto’s East end. I had a meaningful and memorable studio visit with Derek Wilson, who shared openly about his creative process and took me to his “secret room” where he’s working with cardboard and paper collage, reflecting on the ceramic work he is known for internationally. I dropped by Belfast Ceramics, the first and only drop-in/membership based community pottery studio in the city – odd that, there is much demand, just as there is for the many many pottery places that mushroomed during/post COVID in Toronto. Helen and her tech Lucy and I had a great exchange of ideas and process, career challenges and hurdles.

I “did” the museum and contemporary gallery circuit, buried my nose in Belfast’s last subscription library, Linen Hall, and partook of a guided tour of City Hall. I returned to the Lisburn Irish Linen Museum that Ali had spontaneously taken us to as a detour two years ago. I met with fellow ceramic artists in the community and the museums’ curator. I gave my artist talk at the civic arts complex. It’s a tiny walkable town that oozes charm. The calibre of the international exhibition that Meadbh put together is more than impressive – I was completely drawn in, somewhat spellbound by much of the work. And I’m home, turning my head to completing the solo show that’s opening in Montreal on October 23rd around the race protests of 1969, and my father’s character witness of the accused white Biology professor who catalyzed the whole international incident.

thanks to the Ontario Arts Council for the Market Development Grant

MISSIVE: NCECA SYMPOSIA IN NANTUCKET - A GIFT!

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Missive re Nantucket Island School of Design & the Arts

 

I’m still basking in the glow of my week on Nantucket, tucked away in a massive studio barn with some NCECA peeps and a couple of new mug slinger friends. (National Council for the Education of Ceramic Arts – I’m on the volunteer working board of this organization through which this opportunity came about).

I used the time and space to play, and begin to bring concept to clay with the still life series I’m planning for the Montreal solo show this September. I had brought moulds to get out of the gate running, and little tubs of different possible inclusions to enhance the gritty surface textures I am going for. Serendipity prevailed, and the quality of the tile crushed pebbles/gravel in the sand on the beach at the end of the road need the studio proved to be the most conducive – stunning. I travelled with a small Rubbermaid container of this in my backpack, and twice had security do some extravagant fenagled test on it – apparently they were testing for explosives – but they were happy to let me have a piece of the island.

I have to admit that I also carried a small sampling of scallop shells home, hoping to make earrings for my friends. The abundance of these shells on the beach is immeasurable. Drinking in the fresh Atlantic Sea air brought me right back to summers in my youth at Kouchibouguac, New Brunswick. Tracing a collage of sandprints on the beach with my tai chi remains a favourite privilege and joy.

Steve Hilton, the incoming President of NCECA was our fearless and incredibly helpful leader, and Yesha Panchal, Grace Han, Alex Ferrente, and Stephanie Lanter were part of our talented group. We had an outing to Long Point – bouncing along the beach in the back of a pick up truck, and tumbling out to explore the dunes that bourgeoned with wild rose and fluffy baby sea gulls. The ocean was azure blue and ice cold, but the seals were just as curious about us as we were of them, and they frolicked nearby, peering at us as if we were the main attraction. The excursion ended in an unexpected team building experience when we took the interior road back, and got seriously stuck in the sand. After digging ourselves and pushing and grunting for a while, uner the relentless hot sun – we sent two parties out in two different directions in search of help. Mitch and I eventually flagged down a friendly ranger who saved the day.

 The crew of young residents were shy at first, but once we got them to strut their stuff, we felt like a team, and ended the week with twelve wheels spinning, 24 hands creating pots for the Empty Bowls charity.

 Laura and Mitch are the summer resident couple who basically make things happen – Laura is the Director of Programming and Mitch makes things happen, along with his trusted furry buddy, Buddha. Mary Kuhn is the magic maker who envisioned and realized the arts centre oasis. We had artist talks, Pecha Kucha style and 15 or so community members came out, and we each had a piece in the small gallery. One community member, invited us to her home with her friends and we got to take in the charm, wit, beauty, and honestness and hospitality of the spirit of Nantucket.

A highlight for me was the Whalers’ Museum that I visited when we spent an afternoon wandering the city itself. The hydrangea are too beautiful for words, and the majority of the homes conform to a grey and white palette, mostly cedar shingles. I happened into a guided visual presentation of the history of not only the island, but the relationship between the Indigenous peoples, the W, and the settlers – it was the Wampanoag People who taught the white man to salvage and efficiently harvest the whales who washed up on the shore. It was the white man who got greedy and started to hunt the whales out of the water. Nantucket was one of the top five whaling ports in North America.

 I would be remiss if I did not to mention the culinary expertise that abounded – chipotle, arepa, dosa, chole/channa, falafel, bibim bap – pretty much an unparalleled global cuisine!

 I came away richer for the new and deeper friendships forged, with a fulsome sense of mutual sharing – sharing of ceramic technical and creative tips, sharing of critical feedback, and sharing of our lives. All of the members of the ad-hoc committee re Multicultural Fellows Exhibition Planning happened to be with me – and we engaged in much productive NCECA visioning.

What We Inherit - WAHC

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What legacies of labour do we inherit? From pride, activism, and working-class values to injuries, diseases and pollution, the work of Natalie Hunter and Heidi McKenzie in What We Inherit reveals how the legacies of family members’ occupations shape us. Using media that evoke basic elements, the artists ask, how do years of labour performed by our family members occupy every breath, etch onto the skin, leave residues in the body?

Images of structures once populated by workers cast through film celebrate Hunter’s family legacy at Slater Steel and Stelco while mourning the effects of deindustrialization. In earthenware McKenzie explores the impact of work in Trinidad’s oil refinery on her father’s health. Using ceramic tile and video projection McKenzie explores bodily traces of her ancestors who worked their way to Canada from Belfast and India by way of the Caribbean. 

Hunter and McKenzie also represent the labour legacy of their maternal lineage in farming, weaving, housework and reproduction using porcelain, ceramic, and photography. Time has moved on, yet what of this work does our heart and body remember?

Common Ground, Indian Ceramics Triennale 2024

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I was honoured to be invited to exhibit Girmitya Herstories at the Indian Ceramics Triennale with this international group of multi-disciplinary/ceramic artists, all working with the theme of Common Ground, at Delhi’s hottest new gallery, Arthshila. (January 19 - March 31, 2024)

Opening Night Artist Group Photo

Maria Gezler Garzuly Workshop - Kecskemét

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Missive – Maria Gezler Garzuly Printing on Clay Workshop, Kecskemet, October 2-8 2023

Maria Gezler Garzuly

Sharing and learning with mentor, Maria Gezler Garzuly is a powerful, would-nourishing experience.

I met Maria in May of 2018. I was participating in a Hungary/Canada symposium at Kecskemet Ceramics Institute on the theme of Muscle Memory facilitated and invited by Mimi Kokai. There were seven Canadians and seven Hungarians, and we were working very hard to get our exhibition pieces ready within the one-month time allotted. I noticed this tall, yet spritely elderly woman with a lovely blue apron working to glaze a number of large stone-like objects near the gas kilns. I was curious, but Maria was frantic, working with extreme focus and tenacity. Two days later, Maria came to me, and she asked me about myself, and she shared about herself, her life, her work, and her family. We found a natural connection through our mutual love for classical music. I had begun to explore photography on porcelain prior to meeting Maria. A few days later, Maria invited me to come and study with her in her workshop to learn about image transfer and screen-printing. Covid happened, and five and a half years later, October 2023, the universe opened a doorway — Maria’s invitational course aligned directly with the end of my residency at Cill Rialaig in Ireland. I knew it was meant to be. The week was a massive adrenaline shot to my professional development, and a gift that I am so grateful to have received.

Nine women came together under one roof and drank fully of the wisdom, knowledge and expertise of Maria. We began, unexpectedly for me, with printing on glass, and suddenly I was a multimedia ceramics/glass artist! We each chose an image and made our own 8” x 10” silk screens from scratch – stretching the fabric over the frames, and learning under Maria’s careful instruction the magic of emulsification, light and image transfer. Maria taught us that there is no limit to what we can achieve, except for our own imaginations. She also taught me not to rush forward, to be patient, to be precise and to honour accuracy while at the same time allow for spontaneity. The joy of watching Maria create a new work from a shattered set of shards is something I will never forget.

I chose to work with an Irish block print image that was reminiscent of the landscape that seeped into my soul in the south of Ireland. Others brought their existing screens, six of the students are repeat apprentices under Maria’s tutelage. Each shared their images, and the collective ingenuity of the group was also a great learning opportunity. My creative taps are bursting with ideas to explore when I return, many years-worth of inquiry in the studio await me.

We also spent several evenings sharing our creative journeys on the big screen over palinka (vodka-like plum schnapps that is a local specialty). Maria offered us an overview of Hungarian ceramic artists and her work, I shared my work with image on clay, others shared about their life and work, including administrator, Kitti Antel, and our last guest, the mentor starting a workshop the following week, David Binns from Wales, illuminated us with his impressive research, creation and “green” recycling industry glass/ceramic work.

I had two days at the end of the course, and the warmth and openness of the group did not let me down. A fellow student from Austria offered to drive me to Maria’s hometown of Szombathely, the oldest city in Hungary, settled by the Romans in the 2nd century. Five of us arrived in virtual tandem, and spent a rare and enraptured afternoon at the Szombathely Keptar, revelling in Maria’s solo retrospective exhibition, Drama in the Garden. Maria has donated the works to the museum, and this is to become a permanent exhibition – the culmination of a lifetime of love, passion, loss, pain, curiosity, joy, rendered through Maria’s lens and life experience. Words are not enough.

We were then treated by Maria to a visit in her home and her studio, stories of her family, of the war and of the Revolution. Maria’s generosity and hospitality is overwhelming.

I am honoured to have eight new friends and colleagues in clay, and to glimpse but a fraction of the genius of Maria Gezler Garzuly.

I would like to thank the Ontario Arts Council for supporting in part, my participation in the workshop with Maria Gezler Garzuly in Kecskement, Hungary.