We met with ceramics artist Robyn Williams (yes, she has heard it before) at her work/studio space near Commercial Drive. Born in Australia, Robyn has lived in Vancouver for the past twelve years after moving here to pursue a Master's degree in Theological Studies at the Vancouver School of Theology. Robyn has practiced ceramics from when she was a little girl, but chose to pursue performance arts after graduating high school. After working in community theatre and teaching, all the while with pottery in the back of her mind, Robyn found herself living across the street from a church that had a community orientated and welcoming pottery studio in its basement. She just had to become involved, and six months later knew that this was it - she wanted to be working with people and clay. After Robyn finished her Masters (she made a ceramics exhibition for her thesis, including a labyrinth made from little pots!), she became the head potter for the newly established Just Potters, a social enterprise pottery studio under the umbrella of Just Work, whose mandate is to provide work for people who face barriers to employment. Just Potters teaches people the craft of pottery making and produces high-end work that is sold in order to pay wages, and provides a community to people who have been isolated. When she is not working for Just Potters Robyn is able to use the studio to craft her own line of tableware and jewelry, Willowcraft.
You can see more of Robyn's work on her website and learn more about Just Potters here. Their pottery can be found at Bird on a Wire in Vancouver and the General Store in Victoria.
Our Q&A with Robyn:
I don't remember the first time I created something, but I do remember my first experience with clay. I must have been 4 or 5 – we lived on a farm and there was a drought so my dad was boring for water, so that we could try and sink a well. When you're drilling you go through all the layers of the earth and we got to the clay layer. It was this rich red, terra cotta color - it was beautiful. My dad built us a pottery studio/cubby out of the cage that went over the utility truck - he set up this pottery shop and dug up all this clay and away my sister and I went. I loved it, it was amazing.
What are you working on right now?
I am about to go on vacation so I'm at the end of a few big projects. For Just Potters we just finished a project for a new bakery that is opening on Main Street – we made all their dinnerware which is a really visible thing for us. I also finished mugs for VanCity with their logo on the front and mugs for the Wired Monk cafe. Then, for Willowcraft, I'm just finishing up an order for the Four Seasons Hotel in Whistler – I made a big order of water carafes for them, they are putting handcrafted locally made pieces in all their rooms.
What do you like the most about working as a ceramics artist? And what are some of the challenges of working in ceramics?
I like how dynamic the process is. You have to develop a very specific skill set to work at the wheel and hand build – it takes training and practice and making mug after mug after mug. I've always been drawn to that kind of hard work to get good at something. I enjoy the fact that I'm not as good now as I am going to be in ten years because I've had that time and practice. I also like the different parts of the creative process – shaping, letting it dry, being patient, paying attention to timing and how things don't always work out. The process of fire is also interesting to me, I love what it does and how it transforms. I love the fact that on a molecular level something shifts in the kiln and that there is this amazing reaction that happens there.
I think the main challenge is my body – it is an incredibly physical job and I really have to be making sure I'm fit and well fed, because it's so easy to get injured. I stand to throw now because so many people end up with herniated discs from being hunched over at the wheel. At the moment I have tendonitis in my hip from using the pedal to make 360 water carafes! I wish I had gone straight out of high school into ceramics because what will stop me in the end is that my body won't be able to do it anymore!
What moves you as an artist?
I take inspiration from looking at work by other artists – I spend hours on Pinterest! I find that I also get inspired by color - I love this time of the year because the colors are so incredible.
Do you think about the relationship between artist and viewer when creating?
I make functional ware as opposed to sculpture because I'm driven by my deep commitment to hospitality. For example, I make beer steins because so much about beer is about relationship – you sit down with someone and have a beer, and if you can drink it out of a really nice satisfying beer stein, it makes that experience better. I think that relationships and community, in particular in our studio, is about inviting people in and that hospitality.
What are your thoughts on exhibiting art in non-traditional platforms, outside the formal spaces of art museums and galleries?
For the people that I work with on a day to day basis in the pottery studio and around the DTES community, a gallery is an incredibly intimidating place. It's white and it's quiet and you might do something wrong. There are all these kind of procedural rules about how you need to behave when you walk into a gallery. Great swaths of our society can be excluded by these spaces, and so to see art in places where people are invited in and there are less rules around the way you need to interact with it means that art becomes accessible to people who need to be participating in it. I think the idea of art looking outward is really important.
In your view, what are some ways that artists can impact their communities?
I think by inviting people into experiences, whether that be in their studios or by doing a community project where they invite people to participate. I have a friend who is a fabric artist and she makes quilts in the libraries – she takes her quilting materials and invites whoever is in the library to tie a knot or sew a patch with her. The finished quilts then go to shelters. People can chose to participate or not, but the possibility is there.
How do you participate as an artist in your community?
Working as the head potter of Just Potters is the main way that I participate in my community. Our mandate is to employ people with barriers to regular employment which means that the demographic that I'm working with are people who have been socially and economically excluded. We work together as a community to create beautiful things and then get them out into the community for other people to enjoy.
At Papergirl, we are all about the art of giving art. What is the greatest gift you have ever received?
My daughter! I'm so predictable but I'm amazed at the delightful person she is. I had no idea that you could be so full of joy and hilarity. You normally meet people after they've done stuff and are carrying around baggage but she is brand new and so excited about everything, especially the cat! She is quite the gift.
Tell us about the piece you have donated to Papergirl Vancouver.
It goes back to my hospitality thing - I donated 2 coffee mugs (PG - in a paper tube!) so that you can share a hot beverage with a friend. So much of how we interact with each other is over a hot drink - we go out for coffee, make tea if someone comes over. So much happens over a mug!
To wrap up the interview, if you could be a bike what kind of bike would you be?
I love bikes! Right now, all things considered, I would like to be an eco-friendly hand built bike with a bamboo frame. Paul Brodie who started Brodie, a local bike company, is teaching classes on frame making at SFU and I think they are going to make a bamboo frame. They somehow heat treat and compress the bamboo and it's hard as steel and really light. They use resin or carbon fibre for the joints and the bikes are totally eco-friendly. It's the future of bikes. Oh, and a buggy on the back for my daughter!
interview & photos by Julie Nicole Photos