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In 2001 Huntsville potter, Karen Gray took the ceramics certificate course at the Haliburton School of the Arts where she learned the ins and outs of the world of pottery. However, it was some time before she found herself practicing it on a serious basis. In 2008, she engaged the opportunity to leap into the craft full time as a self employed potter in a “small town that knew how to work miracles” in Maynooth. Her ‘The Potter’s Studio & Gallery’ was born. This is where the game of badminton, a ruptured tendon and a cast makes the story more interesting. While immobile for three months, she began carving into her clay pieces and discovered Sgraffito, the technique she now uses to decorate all of her pottery. “Sgraffito is a pottery decorating technique produced by applying colour to unfired pottery and then scratching off part of the colour to create contrasting images and revealing the clay colour underneath”. She says, “Sgraffito allows me to carve images into clay that tell a story. Makes you remember. Makes you respond.” Early in her life, her sister showed notable skill as a fine art painter and Gray recalls often having to say, “No, I’m not the artist.” She was born in Timmins in the early 1960s with the family moving, in 1968, to Pembroke and eventually on to Lindsay and then to Huntsville in the 1980s. After high school she attended Seneca College in King City, graduating after studies in marketing and advertising. She realized that work in that area wasn’t what she wanted. And a long-term job turned out to be with a company that manufactured canoes and kayaks. Some time after her training in ceramics, she moved to Whitney and set up a wheel and a kiln and began making pottery. And then established the commercial studio in Maynooth where she made a wide variety of ceramic ware through to 2016—at which point she moved back to Huntsville and launched The Potter’s Studio & Gallery. Gray creates beautiful and unique works including mugs and goblets, bowls and platters and wall art; with nature themes, including landscapes, trees, wild life, florals and dragon flies. She also accepts to create commissioned pieces—that she finds inspiring but nerve-wracking as it takes her out of her comfort zone and forces her to step outside the box to come up with ideas initiated by another person’s mind. |
And, not content with just ceramics, she recently joined a group of printmakers who assisted her in learning to carve wooden printing plates and make fascinating and whimsical images that are printed in limited editions. She has participated in a very wide variety of arts and craft shows—and in private showings with her sister—all across central Ontario. And although this is a new appearance at the Bancroft and Area Studio Tour, she showed here numerous times in the recent past. As a guest artist, her pottery and prints will be available at the Nancy McKinnon location in West Bay House at the 187 Storey Road, Hartsmere. Reach her at thepotterystudiogallery@gmail.com (Profile writing and photo by Allan O’Marra) |
