A pottery refresher workshop with Robert McMillan
March 7 - 8 at THE STUDIOS, 94 water street, Charlottetown.

10 am - 3 pm both days, with a lunch break from 12 pm- 1pm (bring your own lunch or go out to buy)

Cost per person $150 plus hst SIGN UP HERE

Learning the techniques of making pottery for intermediate and advanced potters seeking to take their own work to the next level.

Day1:

• Robert will demonstrate and discuss form and function of various thrown forms encompassing a multitude of production items.

• He will demonstrate various techniques of form alteration, slip application, trimming & finishing, handles lids and spouts and sectional forms.

• Ask him anything.

Day 2:

• Creating your own palette of glazes colours using several easy to learn processes from base white glaze recipes.

• Robert will demonstrate finishing the pottery from the day before.

• Ask him anything.

• Wrap up.

50 years of making pottery has taught me many things. I want to share these with you. Begin the work in discovering your own unique journey. Robert McMillan

The PEI Crafts Council was pleased to host a 3 day workshop with Gloria Loughman of Bellarine Peninsula, Victoria, Australia September 13-15, 2024. The workshops were held in the new Charlottetown Library Learning Centre in downtown Charlottetown, 97 Queen St.

Quilters came from across PEI, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Manitoba to attend the workshops.

Distinctive Doorway Workshop
12 quilters arrived at 9:30 am to set up for the first workshop, a small quilt based on a doorway. Armed with freezer paper and steam a seam we learned a construction technique that outlines the main features with a thin dark line to create a more graphic image. By 5pm everyone had a fairly assemble project to take home, quilt and finish on their own time.

Dynamic Landscapes Workshop

15 quilters took part in this 2 day workshop which taught techniques to create a beautiful landscape full of movement and direction. Gloria demonstrated with samples how diagonal lines bring energy and movement to a design and when the light is just right, commonplace subjects are transformed and become noticed. She showed how to choose fabrics using a color wheel to make complentary, analogous, split complimentary, triads, and monochromatic color shemes. We had a lesson on mixing paints to create our own colored fabric, then using translucent fabric paints we painted skies on plain fabric. As the fabrics dried we continued with tracing pattern pieces onto tracing paper, freezer paper and steam a seam. We laid out our fabrics and Gloria helped us decided which sky pieces should be cut into diagonal strips.
Day 2 continued with cutting the diagonal strips, layering and ironing the pieces to the base fabric. Gloria shared how to quilt the skies,the foreground and add a black contour line to hills and buildings. Everyone loved the process and went home enthused to finish their pieces.
Gloria was a wonderful teacher, very patient and kind. She shared much knowledge about her techniques and stories about her travels.

 The weekend of October 28-30, 2022 we facilitated a three day, in-person, hands-on Cone 6 glaze testing workshop was led by renowned potter and expert glaze master John Britt. The 20 potters that took part in this workshop learned how to test a base recipe and get various colours and progression testing. They discussed clays, slips, cones, kilns and firing cycles. The class learned how and why each type of glaze works and how you can achieve the best results, how to adjust your glazes and find new ones.

On Friday the class mixed glazes and applied them onto the test tiles. The test tiles, over 600, were transferred to Suzanne Scott- Village Pottery’s home kiln and were fired.  On Saturday John talked chemistry all day and on Sunday the fired tiles were brought back, analyzed and discussed. Everyone gained so much knowledge about how to mix glazes, how to adjust and change them and they all left with at least 30 test tiles, a sheet of recipes and new friends. 

We absolutely enjoyed spending time with John, who is very down to earth, funny and so knowledgeable. John’s philosophy is all about sharing information and he answered any question thrown at him.

August 2022, the PEI Crafts Council hosted an Indigo Vat creation workshop led by Valérie d. Walker. Valérie arrived on August 16th with containers of fabric, resists, and indigo.

We spent the next few days transforming the back deck of the PEICC into a warm, dry and well lit space, shopping for “vats” and borrowing many items like pots, burners, blankets, pipes from our textile artists. As we boiled water to create the alchemy needed for a Bio-Fermentation Natural Vat, Valérie shared stories of her travels and experience with Indigo. She patiently demonstrated and answered endless questions about the many techniques for Hand-shaped Resist Patterning (Adiré/Shibori) using folds, elastics, bamboo, string, thread, clips.

A week after we began, Valérie declared the vat would be ready for dyeing the next day. Tues, Wed and Thur we had several textile artists join us on the back deck to dye their folded, wrapped, sewn and pinch pleated creations. The excitement was high after the first dip and a few fabrics were opened up to see the magical results of the indigo.

By the end of the week with the help of the dedicated group of dyers we were able to construct 5 lanterns for Art in the Open.  

Several of the indigo pieces are hanging in the window at the PEI Crafts Council until September 15th. 

And, the magical vat continues to live at the PEICC.  We are grateful to Valérie d. Walker for sharing her knowledge of the vat and setting us up for success by making sure we can continue to dye with an organic vat for years to come. 

**2026 update, the vat continues to live at the home of Arlene MacAusland.