Celebrating the Source
Exhibition at the Richmond Art Gallery in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada

I grew up in a suburb of Montreal, Quebec. My very earliest memories of the natural world are of collecting tadpoles from ponds behind our house, of little jaunts into the bit of wooded area not yet claimed for further development, and of tobogganing on the hillside of Mount Royal. I was always fascinated by growing things, by rocks, shells and interestingly shaped sticks, flowers and leaves. My first encounter with real wilderness was when I came to British Columbia in 1978. That move changed my entire perception of the world.

This is a place where the city lives at the periphery of the way the world has always been. Here there are still vast tracks of wilderness without traces of our encroachment. This landscape has inspired me to think differently, not just about scenery or the environment, but about life itself. I don't feel that I'm living on the skin of a rock with trees and bits of wildlife here and there. Living in this province has made me aware of the common thread of life running from the core of the planet to the tips of our fingernails, claws and antennae. It has shown me that humanity was meant to live within the natural world, not along side of her.

Each summer I go on an extended kayaking trip with my husband, and on these trips we often come across shell mounds left by natives in seasonal camps. The pieces of shell are bleached, stained by the earth, and each containing in themselves a history of the natural environment, and of the cultures that ultimately deposited these shell shards in piles on the shoreline. The forms of these coiled and altered vessels are at once representative of the human spirit, aquatic animals, and the forces of nature themselves. Each of them contains rock - crushed almost into dust - from all over the province. This body of work celebrates the source of inspiration that I feel whenever I am out in the lap of the wild.

All of my work is coiled, altered, slipped, and bisqued to 05. I then coat the work with an oxide wash and fire it to 04. The final step is to sand the exterior, which opens up the surface colour. I then wash the pieces with a little oil and water. The twelve vessels in the show were named after experiences I've had while kayaking or mountaineering in British Columbia. Rising Angel was inspired by the sight of a massive Orca rising out of the water in a small bay directly in front of our camp at dusk. Radiant Soul was inspired by the memory of watching the tiny black backs of porpoises break the silken iridescent surface of the early morning ocean off the West Coast of Vancouver Island. And Wave of Calm was made with the memory of sitting in a kayak 10 meters from a pair of surfacing Gray whales four days after my husband and I were married. The experiences I have when out in the wilderness inform the work I make in clay. Nature provides everything I need - the form, the inspiration and sometimes the materials themselves.

Rachelle Chinnery