WALLACEBURG ARTS: Showcasing excellence
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Joni and I are just back from visiting our niece just outside of Ottawa. What a spectacular time for a drive!
The fall colours were fabulous until just about Ottawa where most of the leaves have already fallen (don’t blame Trudeau for that too!).
I am colour deficient and I love the display so I can only imagine what a treat it is for Joni and the other 95 per cent of the world who see all of the colours clearly. I often guess at the colours of passing vehicles that are non-traditional colours. It is surprising how frequently I am wrong – and somewhat entertaining to Joni.
For those who have been hanging out with me here in this column for years, you will recall that our niece is battling leukemia. A quick update on her: Laura is doing well on her current meds and getting around more. Doing well is relative as Laura is a brilliant woman who serves our country in the air force and her 20 per cent is most people’s normal. She found a stem cell donour through her family and that is her last resort.
A reminder that donating stem cells can save lives.
In my last column I mentioned that I would write about the 2nd annual CKACN Arts and Culture Heroes event that occurred on Oct. 11 at the Armories in Chatham. This event showcases excellence in the arts from across the CK community. There are six categories and once again this year there were 12 inductees who represented the very best from Chatham-Kent arts and culture.
It was a beautiful evening as the venue is spectacular. For the second year the Wallaceburg Brass Quintet set the mood prior to the inductions. What a great space to play.
Joni and I were awed by the talent represented by the class of 2023. We were both enthralled by the speech by John (Jack) Beardall’s grandson. As most CK readers will know, Jack started CFCO and those call letters actually stand for something. Jack, and a conversation with his grandson, will be a future column.
As I noted in my previous column, two of Wallaceburg’s sons were inducted into the Wall of Fame this year – joining Jeanne Gordon from last year. Larry Towell, the world class photographer and David Farquhar, the award-winning audio book producer both attended WDSS, in fact, they were only a year apart in school and had a chance to get caught up after the induction ceremony concluded.
Both men are incredibly passionate and a great source of information and wealth of knowledge. David and I are actually working on an exciting new CKACN project with the gifted Troy Brooks. That too will be a subject for a future column.
As I have noted previously, I am always amazed and honoured to meet and know the gifted people that walk among us. Which brings me to our new friends Francois Grenier and Isabelle Milot.
We met this wonderful couple when Joni and I visited them along the CKACN Studio Tour in the spring. Francois is gregarious, talented and passionate and Isabelle is much more subdued but no less talented or passionate.
They are a lovely mix. Both work with clay. Francois is a ceramic artist and Isabelle focusses mainly on pottery. Back in the spring they spoke about a specific type of pottery that meant nothing to us, raku. We were very interested and in mid-October they hosted a firing at their home and invited us. Of course, we said yes.
Neither Joni nor I are potters but it looked interesting and fun so what the heck. We went to their home in September and toured Isabelle’s studio and she gave us a slab of clay to create our creations.
That is when panic set in. What were we going to create?
Isabelle and Francois kept insisting that it didn’t matter, we should just have fun. So, we left with our slab wrapped in plastic and brought it home.
We set it on the table and there it stayed for two weeks, just staring at us, daring us to open the bag and make something amazing. We had doubts, but we also knew creating something was our ticket into this fascinating new world. We had a firm deadline. The piece had to be completed at least two weeks prior to Oct. 13 when it would get its second firing – the raku firing.
Joni and I set to creating something and wondering what we were doing. The finished creation was nothing spectacular, but we had our tickets. On the 13th we arrived to the home of our hosts where we witnessed the process.
Prior to firing, the creations are painted with a variety of possible glazes. A kiln sits outside and the clay creation that has been fired in a traditional kiln days before is placed in it. It gets heated to 1,000 Celsius and removed by very long tongs when it is glowing red. It is placed in a nest of combustibles; woodchips and paper nestled on sand inside a garbage can or bucket. More paper is placed on top of the pottery and it all immediately, well, combusts. It is then covered by a second bucket to suffocate the fire and create smoke which infuses any part of the clay not covered with the glaze.
After a few minutes the tongs are used to transfer the pottery to a pail of water and the creation reveals what the glazes did to it. It was fascinating to be a part of and a great deal of fun. We will definitely try it again.
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