Finding a Voice
Friday, July 18, 2008
PROFILE Newschool Arts: so much more than pottery
Perhaps this most recent profile is my favourite: Newschool Arts. Not just because it's my brother, but because I recently read that the best profiles are based on interviews about the person more than with the person. So I asked several people for their impressions of Jeffrey and was delighted to hear what they said. Funny enough, I didn't actually interview Jeffrey for the profile -- I went from my experience of knowing him all his life (he's younger) and of living with him these past months, added bits from quizzing other people, then had Jeffrey check the draft.
BUSINESS PROFILE A Last Mountain Times Advertising Feature
Newschool Arts: so much more than just pottery
July 22, 2008, page 8
Jeffrey Taylor is so well-known as a potter that people are sometimes surprised to learn of his other diverse talents. The proprietor of Newschool Pottery in Duval, Saskatchewan made his acting debut this year, rediscovered his love of painting, and has been working hard at expanding his professional arts to include photography and video.
Growing up in southeast Saskatchewan, Taylor’s family lived on a farm near Parkman in spring and summer, and in the town of Manor in winter. Like many prairie boys, Taylor played hockey, rode bikes, and explored the countryside. Early clues to Taylor’s creative genius were copious drawings, an animated cartoon, carpentry projects like a three-storey treehouse and a nook that transformed his bedroom into a studio, and a greenhouse operation that provided a source of income.
Taylor took grade 12 as a boarding school student in Caronport. Here he fell in love with the craft that would define his life: pottery. After two years of post-secondary education at Briercrest Bible College, Taylor enrolled in the Fine Arts program at Red Deer College, majoring in pottery.
Reluctant to limit himself to a single arts medium, Taylor spent a few years traveling in the States with a construction crew, then working for his brother in Vancouver, BC.
In 1997 friends informed him that Duval’s old school was available for sale. By this time Taylor had recognized that establishing himself in pottery would later free him to branch out into other media. He purchased the building, which was actually a two-room schoolhouse and a one-room schoolhouse joined together. Putting his artistic flare and carpentry skills to work, the larger original school became his home and the one-room addition became his pottery studio.
The old school transformed into a home is full of character, colour, and texture. Some of the old school maps and health posters acquired with the building hang on walls painted gold, leaf green, deep marine, and burgundy. Taylor constructed the front steps from railroad ties, gallery shelves from old timber and his dining table out of salvaged wood from an elevator leg. Massive triple-paned windows provide endless prairie sunlight and picturesque views, with a playground, farm fields, and the Last Mountain hills on the east side and two steepled churches on the west side.
Neighbour, co-worker, and friend, Dennis Hodgins marvels at Taylor’s creativity. “Jeffrey could be creative in any medium if he wanted. Give him a pile of junk and he could create something out of it if he wanted.”
Take sewing for an example. Hodgins recalls Hallowe’en parties at the old school, with Taylor “whipping up costumes” beforehand. “Jeffrey could take a heap of rags and make a Joseph coat out of it.” Of course, trick-or-treaters get pottery cast-offs.
Taylor’s pottery has always been functional art. He serves up dishes for everyday use – plates, bowls, mugs, casseroles, butter dishes, sugar bowls, creamers. While he repeats uniform shapes and sizes, no two pieces are exactly alike. Unusual tools like gear wheels and syringes produce unique imprints, splotches and strokes. Taylor has worked especially hard to design dripless teapots with snug lids, handles for easy lifting, and a special hole in the lid for dangling a tea ball.
“It’s interesting to watch people’s faces as they look at his work,” says Cheryl Wolfenberg, co-owner of Traditions Handcraft Gallery in Regina. “His work gets fondled a lot because of the textures.” Personally she adds, “When my husband and I go camping, we always take Jeffrey’s pottery. I’m sure I’m the only person in the campground with a full set of pottery.”
Even so, not all of Taylor’s art has an everyday function. In experiments with setting stained glass in clay, the function is in the message: a ceramic mask (part of a juried show) reflects on judgmentalism; ceramic spaceship-shaped lamps with stained glass windows consider the relationship between religion and science; large pieces composed of smaller rounded shapes illuminated by mini-lights depict human cells with a variety of colours, evoking the Christian concepts of light and of the Church as the body of Christ.
As an active artisan, Taylor has held memberships with several professional associations. He sat on the board of the Saskatchewan Craft Council for several years. With SaskTerra, he has enjoyed artistic community and professional development in raku and wood fired pottery.
Taylor’s work can be found in several Saskatchewan venues: Traditions Handcraft Gallery in Regina, Silver Street Jewelers in Prince Albert and Saskatoon, The Comfort Zone in Strasbourg, and his own studio gallery, of course.
Occasionally, Taylor has taught art classes for both adults and children. One class led to a contact that led to his involvement with a heritage project at Raymore School in 2008, funded by an ArtsSmart grant from the Saskatchewan Arts Board. Taylor delighted in seeing the kids realize they could create something.
Hospitality is one of Taylor’s gifts. He has hosted several creative retreats for college students, and he holds two or three open houses per year – Christmas, summer, and sometimes Mother’s Day.
Gallery shows have given Taylor opportunities to hone his craft. Traditions’ Cheryl Wolfenberg praises his work as “always pushing the limits, yet always related to what he does in his everyday work with functional pottery. He takes the pressure of a gallery show and improves on it.”
Wolfenberg continues, “The effort he puts into the gallery work has resulted in an extreme change in what he’s doing, whether he realizes it or not. With the first show he went from pale white and blue to soft greens and creams. With the second show he moved to more vivid green with touches of blue. With the third he arrived at exactly what he does now, vibrant green and blue.”
As Taylor expands into photography and videography, he is especially drawn to the fields around Duval for photography and to Northern Saskatchewan for video. He desires to explore, preserve, and document that land. He has also used these skills for online pottery demonstrations, weddings, graduations, and the Last Mountain Times, and is the official photographer and videographer at Arlington Beach Camp.
A non-exhaustive list of Taylor’s other artistic skills includes drawing, painting, carpentry, singing, guitar, harmonica, songwriting, and poetry. Drama has twice put Taylor on the front page of the Last Mountain Times. He is brilliant with computers and is mechanically inclined.
In the wider community, Taylor is an active member of the Strasbourg Alliance Church, is on staff at William Derby School as an educational assistant and special needs bus driver, and is a member of the Duval Optimists. He likes to tease the ladies at bingo by calling non-existent numbers.
He loves the outdoors and cares deeply about the underdog. Anyone who knows Taylor finds him creative and fascinating, generous and welcoming. Dreaming big dreams, Jeffrey Taylor continues moving forward.
BUSINESS PROFILE A Last Mountain Times Advertising Feature
Newschool Arts: so much more than just pottery
July 22, 2008, page 8
Jeffrey Taylor is so well-known as a potter that people are sometimes surprised to learn of his other diverse talents. The proprietor of Newschool Pottery in Duval, Saskatchewan made his acting debut this year, rediscovered his love of painting, and has been working hard at expanding his professional arts to include photography and video.Growing up in southeast Saskatchewan, Taylor’s family lived on a farm near Parkman in spring and summer, and in the town of Manor in winter. Like many prairie boys, Taylor played hockey, rode bikes, and explored the countryside. Early clues to Taylor’s creative genius were copious drawings, an animated cartoon, carpentry projects like a three-storey treehouse and a nook that transformed his bedroom into a studio, and a greenhouse operation that provided a source of income.
Taylor took grade 12 as a boarding school student in Caronport. Here he fell in love with the craft that would define his life: pottery. After two years of post-secondary education at Briercrest Bible College, Taylor enrolled in the Fine Arts program at Red Deer College, majoring in pottery.
Reluctant to limit himself to a single arts medium, Taylor spent a few years traveling in the States with a construction crew, then working for his brother in Vancouver, BC.
In 1997 friends informed him that Duval’s old school was available for sale. By this time Taylor had recognized that establishing himself in pottery would later free him to branch out into other media. He purchased the building, which was actually a two-room schoolhouse and a one-room schoolhouse joined together. Putting his artistic flare and carpentry skills to work, the larger original school became his home and the one-room addition became his pottery studio.
The old school transformed into a home is full of character, colour, and texture. Some of the old school maps and health posters acquired with the building hang on walls painted gold, leaf green, deep marine, and burgundy. Taylor constructed the front steps from railroad ties, gallery shelves from old timber and his dining table out of salvaged wood from an elevator leg. Massive triple-paned windows provide endless prairie sunlight and picturesque views, with a playground, farm fields, and the Last Mountain hills on the east side and two steepled churches on the west side.
Neighbour, co-worker, and friend, Dennis Hodgins marvels at Taylor’s creativity. “Jeffrey could be creative in any medium if he wanted. Give him a pile of junk and he could create something out of it if he wanted.”
Take sewing for an example. Hodgins recalls Hallowe’en parties at the old school, with Taylor “whipping up costumes” beforehand. “Jeffrey could take a heap of rags and make a Joseph coat out of it.” Of course, trick-or-treaters get pottery cast-offs.
Taylor’s pottery has always been functional art. He serves up dishes for everyday use – plates, bowls, mugs, casseroles, butter dishes, sugar bowls, creamers. While he repeats uniform shapes and sizes, no two pieces are exactly alike. Unusual tools like gear wheels and syringes produce unique imprints, splotches and strokes. Taylor has worked especially hard to design dripless teapots with snug lids, handles for easy lifting, and a special hole in the lid for dangling a tea ball.
“It’s interesting to watch people’s faces as they look at his work,” says Cheryl Wolfenberg, co-owner of Traditions Handcraft Gallery in Regina. “His work gets fondled a lot because of the textures.” Personally she adds, “When my husband and I go camping, we always take Jeffrey’s pottery. I’m sure I’m the only person in the campground with a full set of pottery.”
Even so, not all of Taylor’s art has an everyday function. In experiments with setting stained glass in clay, the function is in the message: a ceramic mask (part of a juried show) reflects on judgmentalism; ceramic spaceship-shaped lamps with stained glass windows consider the relationship between religion and science; large pieces composed of smaller rounded shapes illuminated by mini-lights depict human cells with a variety of colours, evoking the Christian concepts of light and of the Church as the body of Christ.
As an active artisan, Taylor has held memberships with several professional associations. He sat on the board of the Saskatchewan Craft Council for several years. With SaskTerra, he has enjoyed artistic community and professional development in raku and wood fired pottery.
Taylor’s work can be found in several Saskatchewan venues: Traditions Handcraft Gallery in Regina, Silver Street Jewelers in Prince Albert and Saskatoon, The Comfort Zone in Strasbourg, and his own studio gallery, of course.
Occasionally, Taylor has taught art classes for both adults and children. One class led to a contact that led to his involvement with a heritage project at Raymore School in 2008, funded by an ArtsSmart grant from the Saskatchewan Arts Board. Taylor delighted in seeing the kids realize they could create something.
Hospitality is one of Taylor’s gifts. He has hosted several creative retreats for college students, and he holds two or three open houses per year – Christmas, summer, and sometimes Mother’s Day.
Gallery shows have given Taylor opportunities to hone his craft. Traditions’ Cheryl Wolfenberg praises his work as “always pushing the limits, yet always related to what he does in his everyday work with functional pottery. He takes the pressure of a gallery show and improves on it.”
Wolfenberg continues, “The effort he puts into the gallery work has resulted in an extreme change in what he’s doing, whether he realizes it or not. With the first show he went from pale white and blue to soft greens and creams. With the second show he moved to more vivid green with touches of blue. With the third he arrived at exactly what he does now, vibrant green and blue.”
As Taylor expands into photography and videography, he is especially drawn to the fields around Duval for photography and to Northern Saskatchewan for video. He desires to explore, preserve, and document that land. He has also used these skills for online pottery demonstrations, weddings, graduations, and the Last Mountain Times, and is the official photographer and videographer at Arlington Beach Camp.
A non-exhaustive list of Taylor’s other artistic skills includes drawing, painting, carpentry, singing, guitar, harmonica, songwriting, and poetry. Drama has twice put Taylor on the front page of the Last Mountain Times. He is brilliant with computers and is mechanically inclined.
In the wider community, Taylor is an active member of the Strasbourg Alliance Church, is on staff at William Derby School as an educational assistant and special needs bus driver, and is a member of the Duval Optimists. He likes to tease the ladies at bingo by calling non-existent numbers.
He loves the outdoors and cares deeply about the underdog. Anyone who knows Taylor finds him creative and fascinating, generous and welcoming. Dreaming big dreams, Jeffrey Taylor continues moving forward.
posted by Colleen McCubbin at 7:59 PM
1 Comments:
I'm visiting my sister L and I was on the internet and looked up Strasbourg and came across this blog to read (and of course I always tease L and say that I am going to take her's [or Jeff's] pottery home with me, anyway I really enjoyed reading this post. Your writing just flows and I enjoy.
Thanks
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