Regina Clay: Worlds in the Making Greg Beatty
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Document généré le 24 sept. 2021 15:01 Espace Sculpture Regina Clay: Worlds in the Making Greg Beatty Sculpture & humour Numéro 76, été 2006 URI : https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/8873ac Aller au sommaire du numéro Éditeur(s) Le Centre de diffusion 3D ISSN 0821-9222 (imprimé) 1923-2551 (numérique) Découvrir la revue Citer ce document Beatty, G. (2006). Regina Clay: Worlds in the Making. Espace Sculpture, (76), 41–42. Tous droits réservés © Le Centre de diffusion 3D, 2006 Ce document est protégé par la loi sur le droit d’auteur. L’utilisation des services d’Érudit (y compris la reproduction) est assujettie à sa politique d’utilisation que vous pouvez consulter en ligne. https://apropos.erudit.org/fr/usagers/politique-dutilisation/ Cet article est diffusé et préservé par Érudit. Érudit est un consortium interuniversitaire sans but lucratif composé de l’Université de Montréal, l’Université Laval et l’Université du Québec à Montréal. Il a pour mission la promotion et la valorisation de la recherche. https://www.erudit.org/fr/ EVENEMENTS /: V ClltS Regina Clay: Worlds in the Making Greg BEATTY "Make Pottery Not War!" may not member) Kenneth Lochhead to do have been a rallying cry for anti- so. Beth Hone, wife of long-time Saskatchewan artist MacGregor Vietnam War protestors and other Hone, was one ofthe first counter-culture types in the teachers. "Those people haven't 1960s, but given the subversive been recognized, so this exhibi tion gives them some credit," says nature of clay as an artistic Long. "Then, of course, when Ric medium at that time, at least Gomez arrived [from California] in among professors and students at '64, his job was to set up a sculp ture department, and to advise in the University of Regina, it might the setting up ofthe ceramics well have been. That's just one of department. He [and Marilyn Russell CICANSKY, Self-Portrait (Aries), 1973. the subtexts in "Regina Clay: Levine were] instrumental in hiring Earthenware, glaze, paint. Jack Sures. Once you had Jack and Worlds in the Making," a fasci 28.8x23.6x29.8 cm. Ric, you had the makings of a MacKenzie Art Gallery, nating survey of clay practice in University of Regina [first-rate department]." Collection. Photo: Don Regina in the late 1960s and early Sures, who received his BFA Hall. 1970s curated for the MacKenzie from the University of Manitoba in 1957, and his MA from Michigan Art Gallery by Timothy Long. State in 1959, was trained as a "The genesis for the show painter and printmaker, but came from a visit I made to the turned to ceramics shortly after graduating. He subsequently U of R archives in 1998," Long spent a year in Europe as part recalls. "I thought I'd do a small of his self-education process. show of ceramics Vic Cicansky and "I found this place in Chelsea," he recalls. "They made decorative David Thauberger had given to the plates that they shipped all over archives, supplemented by a few the world. They had a few wheels works from the MacKenzie's that they rented out. So I paid sixpence an hour, and another collection. But then it struck me sixpence a pound for the clay. 'Maybe we should do a bigger I got friendly with the guy who show looking at that entire loaded the kiln, so I got free firing." Upon returning to Canada, period?'" Long proceeded to do entering one room, he saw a pile internationally acclaimed group of Sures worked for three years as a of bricks in the middle of the floor. abstract painters known as the just that, gathering over 130 works studio potter in Winnipeg before He happened to glance up, and Regina Five, the university, at the from fourteen artists, including being hired by Lochhead's spotted scorch marks on the time of Sures' arrival, was a successor as dean (and fellow such nationally and internationally ceiling. He put two and two bastion of formalism. Clay, with Regina Five member) Arthur together, and shutdown the both a functional and decorative known figures as Joe Fafard, McKay in 1965. "It was a great makeshift kiln. While Sures aspect to it, was not consistent Marilyn Levine, David Gilhooly and opportunity," he says. "I was doesn't recall that particular inci with this aesthetic. "I had to carve struggling to make a living. Vic Cicansky. dent, he agrees that the ceramics out a space for myself at the At the university, I had this great department's beginnings were university," says Sures. "But I According to Long, the stage salary-1 think it was $8900, which modest. "We got one room in never had a big brawl with them. was set for Regina's emergence as in 1965 was pretty good. I only what is now the Extension Ted Godwin used to say 'Craft is a clay hot-bed in the 1950s when had to teach 18 hours a week, and Building. It was in the basement, something you piss in, and art is the Saskatchewan Arts Board's the rest ofthe time was my own." and was used for storage. We something you piss on.' There was Norah McCullough hired Patricia While doing research on a branched off into the next room. that attitude, it still exists today. Wiens to make pottery from local related topic a few years ago, There was this old incinerator. It But I think most intelligent people clays in the Saskatchewan town of I heard an anecdote from one had a big chimney that went up understand that a vessel can be as Eastend. Wiens subsequently set prominent Saskatchewan artisan three floors. That's what we fed important an art object as a non- up the first ceramics program at about a fire inspector touring the our kilns into." vessel." The formalist mindset, the University of Regina, over university's old College Avenue Thanks to the influence ofthe adds Sures, extended to the coming resistance from then Dean campus shortly after the ceramics famous Emma Lake workshops in MacKenzie Gallery itself. "When of Fine Arts (and Regina Five program was established. Upon the 1950s, which spawned the Ron Bloore and Terry Fenton [who ESPACE 76 ÉTÉ / SUMMER 2006 41 Russell CICANSKY, Prairie Waterworks, 1973. Earthenware, glaze, wood, sand, enamel paint, epoxy, plastic flowers. 48.3x71.1 x 45.7 cm. MacKenzie Art Gallery, University of Regina Collection. Photo: Don Hall. what you wanted, to break the production in Canada]," says rules." Sures, "but it was the most inno Another touchstone of the vative. There was a lot of ceramics counter-culture movement was coming out of Nova Scotia, also present, he adds. "The 'Back Quebec ... but it was very hand to the Land' movement had a craft [based]. Toronto had a lot of significant role to play when you ceramists too. But it was vessel- consider that of the fourteen orientated across Canada, except artists in this exhibition, at least here." In Regina, conversely, clay six moved out of Regina to small was employed primarily as a towns. The artists were interested sculptural medium. Albeit with a in living where it was cheaper, but nod to traditional ceramic prac also in raising their own produce tice. "Even when I was making and living a more natural wall pieces [like a mural commis lifestyle." Six of the fourteen sioned by the Canadian Museum artists in the show are also of Civilization for its Group Visitor women. "The whole question of entrance in 1990] and more sculp feminism was in the air at the tural pieces I never got away from time," says Long. "Some of these pots," says Sures. "I'm trained as artists were actively involved in a painter and printmaker. When I feminist organizations like the do functional ware-plates, mugs Regina Voice of Women. The work and stuff-they're surfaces to that was created wasn't neces decorate, that's how I see them." sarily 'feminist' in its intent. But "There was this notion [across it does have some interesting Canada] that Regina was this connections to feminist art prac place of Funk ceramics," agrees tices [particularly in the use of a Long. "Trajectoires '73 [which was non-traditional art material to exhibited at the Musée d'art served as assistant director from people. [Gilhooly] was a big influ subvert the privileged position moderne in Paris in 1973] included 1965-71, before assuming the ence on Joe Fafard and Russell accorded painting and sculpture a whole section on Regina director's post at the Edmonton Yuristy. But he was only here a in the art pantheon]. If there was ceramists." Art Gallery] ran the MacKenzie, couple of years. I went back to a stereotype, it was that men were Since then, Regina, thanks in they were strictly New York ... clay and we let him go." more interested in throwing clay large part to the university's that kind of 'Five' mentality. It was Abstraction in its various while women preferred hand- ongoing commitment to ceramics, painting. Ted Godwin also used to guises—abstract expressionism, building." which included the establishment say 'Sculpture is something you post-painterly abstraction—was Ultimately, some ofthe values of a first-rate facility when a new back into when you're looking at then entering its fourth decade as championed by the ceramists who Fine Arts building was painting'. That was the attitude North America's dominant art emerged from this strange constructed in 1997, and the then. It wasn't until Nancy Dillow movement. But because it was amalgam of prairie practicality creation of the first ceramic art in the early '70s ..