260 Fingers, an independent artist-run pottery exhibition, took place Nov. 11-13 at the Glebe Community Centre. Its 12th annual show featured 26 ceramic artisans from eastern Ontario and western Quebec.
Chandler Swain from Almonte is the founder of 260 Fingers. With the popularity of craft and art shows spiking, Chandler said he took the risk to create an exhibit and sale for professional potters to make their living.
“It wasn’t a hobby. It wasn’t the second thing in our lives. It was the first thing,” Swain said. “There was 25 colleagues of mine who were really being pushed out of the market. So I thought, well, what if we create a sale? What if we do it ourselves? What if we have an exhibition? . . . and we’ve done it. And that’s what came to be.”
Swain said many of the artisans have studied art, and they have a background in technical or design education, putting the exhibit at the top of many pottery consumers’ and collectors’ lists. Each artist has their own mini gallery to display at the show.
Heather Smit, an artist from Georgina, ON, is showing her art for the first time at 260 Fingers. She studied blacksmithing and casting at the Kootenay School of the Arts in Nelson, BC. Ten years after she left school, Smit started to take pottery classes at a local studio.
“I wanted to do something,” she said. She added she soon fell in love with hand building, soft slabs, and wood firing when she developed a technique to make wood-fired work look like it is metal.
Raymond Warren, a potter from Maniwaki, QC, said he uses stoneware clay to create sculptures. After studying fine arts and diving into figurative work, he said he decided to enter a pottery contest.
“By accident, I entered in a contest where the theme was humour and I found that I had a lot of fun doing it,” he said.
His work is “intended to end up in homes, not museums or public spaces,” he said, and added he hopes they become like companions to their owners.
Chiho Tokita, an artist based in Toronto, started with functional pots on the wheel, but said she realized over time that she “was more interested in the form . . . and material, rather than the usefulness.”
“A spoon can be amazing if you play with the form,” Tokita said.
Emma Fieldhouse, a masters student at Saint Paul University, attended the show for the first time in hopes of finding her mother a Christmas gift.
“It’s neat to see the difference between the art and the functional pottery. I haven’t been at many pottery shows that mix both of those,” Fieldhouse said.
Carol Lovejoy, a local, said she has been attending craft shows since they started popping up in Ottawa. Her final conclusion? 260 Fingers is “the best of the best.”
