Time, Heat, and Wendy Walgate Recounted by J. Lynn Fraser

Time hides, reveals and preserves voices. It is often portrayed as living entity that deliberately layers truths into opacity. There is something romantic in that perception. It gives us the sense that a truth can be found if only we have the tenacity, and perhaps the persistent romanticism, to patiently sift through layers of dust, records, memory, resistance and reluctance.

Art builds and preserves cultural memory. Most artists are well trained in the history of their craft. The works of the masters in their field informs the artists' choices either in support or in rejection of the masters' work that preceded them. Ceramics is a classic study in opposites and faith. Clay, thick and almost implacable, is moulded by the strength of the human hand. Fired at extreme temperatures the clay takes on personality and hopefully -- this is where the faith comes in -- holds its shape. The pieces that survive are then glazed and refired. The fusion of silica, heat and glaze transforms the once implacable grey matter into an object d'art. Through its form, colour, composition, in the very impressions the maker leaves on the layers of heated clay, that object reveals a history.

If you want to learn about a culture's history you look to its art. If you want ceramic art to reveal its truths you ask a ceramic artist to sift the culture's memories. At the Kommos Minoan escavation [1] in Crete ceramic artist Wendy Walgate [2] sifted the layers of antiquity searching for lost voices.

Walgate has studied at the University of Manitoba, George Brown College, Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan receiving her M.F.A., and has just completed her M.A. in Art History at the University of Toronto. She was an invited participant in the 2002 Biennale Nationale de céramique in Trois Rivières, Québec, and is currently serving as the Vice President of the Ontario Crafts Council. She has taught in both Canada and the United States, and her work is part of the Bronfman's Claridge Collection and the Cranbrook Academy of Art Museum's permanent collection [3].

During her training Walgate was introduced to classical Greek vases called "loutrophorus" [4]. These are ritualistic pottery was given to women on the eve of their weddings and upon their deaths. She has been influenced by English Majolica and its complement the "Victorian notion of ceremony" and ornamentation [5]. Bernard Palissy's 15th century [6]"playful" use of three-dimensional ornamentation that used cavorting creatures on traditional plate settings inspired her. Her Ukrainian background, her early family life and its rituals, and now this new stage in her life -- her children have left home -- are all reflected in her latest work. Her ceramics still mix the real and the unreal, the functional and the ornamental, the wild and free in contrast with the framed and contained. However, their subject matter is that of the lost voices of children created not from the earlier pressed forms of found objects, as in her earlier work, but from moulds taken of dolls. "Contradiction," Wendy believes, remains a staple of her work.

In the summer of 2001 Walgate worked on the Kommos Excavation Site in Pitsidea, a southern point, in Crete. Professors

Joseph and Maria Shaw, now both Professors Emeritus at the University of Toronto, discovered and were responsible for escavating this site. Walgate told me that she "took a number of courses with Prof. M. Shaw and when she became aware of my Ceramic M.F.A. background combined with my Art History studies in the M.A. program, she asked me to be a Pottery Profiler for a month at their site in Crete." "A Pottery Profiler," Walgate continued, "is responsible for producing extremely accurate drawings (to the millimetre) of pieces of excavated pottery. In this case, I was working with shards of Minoan cups and vases from the LMIII or Post-palatial period, approximately 1200 B.C." The term Profiler is also used in archaeology to drawings made of the horizontal soil strata, or history in layers of dirt, in which artifacts are found [7]. For Walgate the experience was "a learning opportunity" that enabled her drawing to become "more detailed and precise" and allowed her to "observe the work of a conservationist and two other archaeologists from the U.S."

One of the reasons why this period in Crete's history was important was that it was a period of restabilization after the volcano of Thera, just north of Crete, self-destructed. One theory for the "retreat" of Minoan civilization was that the rain of volcanic debris, as well as the earthquake and tidal wave that followed, help to destroy Minoan society. I found another theory that held that the plundering and subsequent destruction of the palaces, such as Knossos, was the cause for the retreat of Minoan culture. Which ever was the cause, the Mycenaeans arrived, established themselves, and then gradually took over the island. They changed the social and economic system of the Minoans by layering their onto that of the Minoans.

I asked Walgate if modern Greece had an effect on her artwork. She replied that:

During the month of July 2001, the brilliant colours of bougainvillea vines and heavy scent of jasmine bushes could be experienced along all the pathways in Pitsidea. The town is small, quaint and consists of a few, narrow and winding streets and laneways for walking. The homes are clean and whitewashed[...]. The temperature hovered around 100 degrees Fahrenheit and we snorkelled in the salty, warm water of the Mediterranean. The elements of intense heat and colour were primary influences that reinforced my adoration of the use of colour in my own work. In the future, ornamentation and detail may be sacrificed in order to examine the effects of colour in the ceramic medium. My work is moving from tightly packed frameworks of information to simplified narratives of single colour objects and backgrounds.

Along with fellow artisans (Melinda Mayhall, Lily Yung, Ann Barros, Beth Alber, Peggy Mersereau, Tosca Teran) Walgate is trying to assert a new gallery culture. In *new*, the name of their gallery, the culture will be one "devoted to the investigation of the relationship between visual art, the artists and the audience with a focus on contemporary fine crafts." In *new* the public will be exposed to both the work, but also to the "underlying production processes" while "exploring new exhibition formats." Walgate notes that "craft, is after all, more than the sum of technical skills and material...it provides access for the artist to broader societal, political and cultural phenomena, in addition to personal expression." Additionally, what Walgate and her colleagues hope to achieve is a space for "exhibitions that are experimental or conceptual in nature which require a more contemplative environment." This type of gallery environment would allow "emerging and even mid-career craft artists to show their work in a gallery and thus to build up their CV."

Interestingly, the base for *new* is the old Gooderham and Worts distillery complex built in the 1830's and until recently derelict.

Distillation: a process in which a liquid or vapour mixture of two or more substances is separated into its component fractions of desired purity, by the application and removal of heat.

The City of Toronto escavated/renovated/distilled away the layers of urban blight to restore the 13 acres, 72,000 square feet, and 40 buildings into condominiums, offices, rehearsal halls, and space for over 50 artist-run organizations. It is appropriate that in a complex that has been given new life so that artists are given a place for their voices. It is appropriate, as well, that the staid and gentrified Distillery Complex should house the contractions of a woman whose voice is sure in its own expression as it is in its determination to preserve the voices of fellow artists. Walgate ended our interview by saying:

I hope to continue to present challenging and almost perverse information in my work. A Zen-like, passive approach is not my style. Confrontation with the viewer may be initiated by the use of diverse colour combinations and forms that are taken from the everyday process of life.

Through heat, pressure, layering and time, Walgate has found a route to purity in colour, form and her art.

Notes

[1] Kommos Escavations Crete. 19 April 2003. <www.library.utoronto.ca/fine_art/kommos/index.html>. [^]

[2] Wendy Walgate Ceramic Artist. 19 April 2003. <http://walgate.com/>. [^]

[3] Cranbrook Art Museum. <http://www.cranbrookart.edu/museum/>. [^]

[4] Loutrophoros: The Athenian Marriage Vase. 19 April 2003. <http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~loxias/loutrophoros.htm>, Loutrophoros. 19 April 2003. <http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/Test/Pottery%20Public/Script/Loutrophoros.htm>. [^]

[5] A Short History of Tin-Glazed Earthenware. 19 April 2003. <http://www.nevelow.com/majolicahistory.html>, A History of Pottery. 19 April 2003. <http://www.artistictile.net/pages/Info/Info_pottery.html>. [^]

[6] The Collections: Bernard Palissy. 19 April 2003. <http://www.getty.edu/art/collections/bio/a867-1.html>. [^]

[7] Stratigraphy. 19 April 2003. <http://imnh.isu.edu/digitalatlas/arch/ArchDef/strat.htm>. [^]

[8] Distillation: An Introduction. 19 April 2003.<http://lorien.ncl.ac.uk/ming/distil/distil0.htm>. [^]

[9] Eye Weekly, Distilling a Vision for the City. 19 April 2003. <http://www.eye.net/eye/issue/issue_11.08.01/news/editorial.html>. [^]