06/10/2010 to 08/08/2010
Location: Medicine Hat, Alberta , Southern Alberta
Harvey Fix: My Life in Communications
This solo exhibition features three new series of ceramic sculptures by Medicine Hat artist Harvey Fix. In the major installation called "My Life in Communications," Harvey Fix presents life-sized ceramic torsos with various adaptations such as communications devices inserted into a cavity in the area of the heart. The devices are all from Harvey Fix's personal collection, and range from an insulator from an abandoned rail line north of Bassano which was collected in 1969, to a circuit board from the first Pulse Code Modulated Carrier, to fibre optic devices used today. This installation represents Harvey's long career in communications with Canadian Pacific Telecommunications and later AGT, which evolved into TELUS. The work is fascinating in its detail as well as poignant, and suggests that in any era, the need for communication is essential to our human nature.
The two other bodies of work in the exhibition also relate to ongoing artistic interests of Harvey's: in one a school of raku-fired ceramic trout drift in a stream bed of raku-fired pebbles and river rocks; and the second is a collection of large ceramic sculptures in the shape of bones, influenced by items Harvey has collected from the native prairie landscape of southeastern Alberta. This exhibition is generously sponsored by TELUS.
Luke Lindoe: Clay Pioneer
Luke Lindoe’s (1913 – 2000) career as a ceramist and artist spanned over 50 years and he was one of the most important contributors to the origination and development of now-flourishing creative ceramics in Alberta. In addition to his own work as a ceramist, painter and sculptor, he was a dedicated and exacting teacher as well as Alberta’s preeminent researcher/developer of numerous technical aspects of ceramics, including clay mining and the development of clay bodies for commercial and individual use. Curator Joanne Marion comments: “Although Luke Lindoe also lived in Calgary and Kelowna, he considered Medicine Hat and the unique land of southeastern Alberta to be his home. This exhibition presents modernist ceramic works by Lindoe from the Esplanade Art collection, most of which were part of a generous bequest from Luke Lindoe never before exhibited here.” This exhibition was organized by the Esplanade Art Gallery in conjunction with the Moose Jaw Museum & Art Gallery’s Hansen-Ross Pottery - A Way with Clay.
Hansen-Ross Pottery - A Way with Clay
Folmer Hansen was born and raised in Copenhagen, Denmark and met David Ross, originally from Winnipeg, in the early 1950s when Ross travelled there to further his ceramic studies. Hanson moved to Canada in 1958, and found David Ross teaching ceramics in Fort Qu’Appelle, Saskatchewan. Together they set up their studio in the former Saskatchewan Arts Board’s Craft House in 1961.
Heather Smith, Curator at the Moose Jaw Museum & Art Gallery says, “What Folmer Hansen and David Ross did was break new ground. They gathered together and educated an audience for locally-made ceramic objects for their homes. They were developing clay bodies and glazes out of what was locally available and yet they were also in tune with the international ideas surrounding craft and art. They were the first professional crafts people to make modern functional ceramic objects in Saskatchewan, and it is a testament to their skill as artists that this work still so looks so well-designed, quietly-innovative and beautifully-formed.”
For more information visit the Esplanade Art Gallery website.
