Spring ‘21: Surface Level

In choosing to work with ceramics, you are faced with three inevitable eventualities:

One: you will under fire, or over fire, a kiln filled with very important pieces. Two: you will spend more money on materials than you ever imagined. Three: you will spend hours contemplating the surface treatment of your ceramics.

All ceramicists, no matter their practice, employ their own unique surface treatment. Whether choosing to saturate their forms in dripping, viscous glazes, leaving the bare clay body exposed to the world, or spending hours rubbing a stone over the surface until you can check your teeth in the reflection, ceramicists are constantly engaged with the surface of their work.

Surface Level pulls together a dazzling variety of works across a spectrum of scale, style, and method. From functional tableware to grand sculptures, it exemplifies the potential of clay and the skill of the artists to listen to the material and coax it into shape in tandem. This exhibition reveals the plentiful approaches to surface that ceramicists can take and the significance of these choices in our understanding of their work. In a medium in which the surface is comprised of the structure itself, artists’ creative problem solving is given a place to shine.

Surface Level celebrates and commiserates with the joys and frustrations that are inherent to the practice of ceramic artists. It shows just how impactful some well-handled mud can be when placed in the right hands. And it bids a fond farewell to the ceramicists of the graduating class of 2021.

The Southern Resident Killer Whales, Clare Wilkening Ceramic, cedar frame — *The Southern Resident Killer Whales,* Clare Wilkening
Ceramic, cedar frame

I have been working on a large ceramic project meant to connect myself, my community, and the citizens of Vancouver and beyond with our neighbours, the Southern Resident Orcas. These are whales migrate annually between the open ocean and the Salish Sea, and feed nearly exclusively on Chinook salmon, which are overfished and threatened by disease and climate change. The Southern residents are on the brink of extinction, and it is very possible that we will lose them over the next few decades.

There is a tile representing each Southern Resident killer whale. Every whale is individually sculpted and has their name, pod, and scientific ID number, and is painted with accurate dorsal markings. Calves that are less than 10 years old share a tile with their mother. The whales are assembled across the surface of the work according to the family groups that they swim with in the real world. The viewer sees the entire Southern Resident population swimming over the ocean.

I made this work to raise awareness among residents of Vancouver and beyond that these individuals are our neighbours. They live complex, emotional lives with their families, and they have been doing so for countless generations. There are currently 75 individuals left in this unique subspecies, and the time is now to take actions to care for them, or else face a future without them.

For me, thinking about them out there, living their lives in matrilineal, non-material societies gives me a feeling of peace when life in this city overwhelms me. But of course they bear the brunt of our hyper-consumer lives. I try to convey all this with these tiles. I am continually updating the tiles with the births and deaths in the population, and plan to do so for the rest of my lifetime. Hopefully it will be an exercise in watching their lives grow and thrive, rather than dwindle and flicker out.

Fall ‘21: I Know What You Did Last Summer

Spring ‘21:Sun Through The South Window