In the fall of 1979, my partner Ted Hodgetts and I moved to our schoolhouse near the village of Millbrook Ontario, and began our lives as studio craftsmen together. My first studio was a renovated porch in the house, and Ted established a small shop in an adjacent shed that was once the school's woodshed.
By the early 1980's we realized that our workspaces were too small, and so in 1985 we built a studio building, designed by our friend Peter Fluker, to house both a pottery studio and a woodworking shop. A wonderful space, it has served both functions beautifully.
In 1995, Ted and I were founding members of The Millbrook Gallery, a collective of nineteen local artists. Most makers spend a great deal of time alone in their studios and so it was exciting to work together as a cooperative. We mounted new shows every six weeks, and hosted a variety of concerts, book launches, retrospective shows, and reading series. The gallery flourished until 2002.
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| Millbrook Gallery |
In 1998 I took on a part-time job installing exhibitions at The Art Gallery of Peterborough. The initial intention was to help fund a trip to India the following year. It did, and I stayed with the gallery until 2006. I thoroughly enjoyed working with Illi Marie Tamplin, who was curator at the time. I learned a great deal by spending time with a wide variety of artists and their work. In 2005, I guest curated a ceramics exhibition at the AGP 'Exploring Surfaces' which featured the work of eight exceptional Canadian ceramic artists: John Chalke, Angelo di Petta, Harlan House, John Ikeda, Ann Mortimer, Matthias Ostermann, Laurie Rolland, and Bill Rowland.
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| 'Exploring Surface' Art Gallery of Peterborough 2005 |
For the better part of thirty years, Ted and I shared our studio building. His work in wood found it's place in numerous private and public collections worldwide including representation on a Canadian postage stamp in 1999. His intelligent and meticulous craftsmanship, love of beauty and a good line, and his respect for his material, was always an encouragement and inspiration to me. There were many good 'work related' conversations in our studios, how a form presents a line, how to treat a particular edge, what should the relationship be of a foot to the body of a piece, and often...why are we doing this!
This blog project evolved over the winter of 2011 while I was recovering from heart surgery. It has been an interesting way to connect with my work without being in my studio. So after several blog tutorials from my friend Bill Slavin, a wonderful children's book illustrator, here we are As is probably obvious, I'm treating this site as more of a web site as opposed to a blog site, so my apologies to all serious and genuine bloggers out there. I will add new work as it is available.
