PHOTO COURTESY OF: Maggie Boyd
Vancouver-born ceramicist Maggie Boyd makes objects that people engage with daily: mugs, bowls, pour-over sets, teapots. She is heartened by their utility and by the collaboration inherent between the maker and the user that is present in objects of service. She says she wants her work to feel “precious and quotidian at the same time because [she loves] the moments when art and life intersect.”
These bud vases are made out of red earthenware and glazed with maiolica; the detail work is painted with glaze that Boyd mixes herself.
Each vase takes about a week to mak — 76 hours of that time is spent in the kiln over the course of two firings.
“In some way, it’s a joke on myself to make these extremely simple vessels and paint superior vessels from antiquity on them,” says Boyd, “and yet, like almost everything I make, it is also a celebration of the work that came before me and my existence in its continuum.”
Boyd has been working with clay for more than 15 years. “The most basic hand gestures can produce a utilitarian form out of a lump,” she says, “and yet a person can labour their entire life to refine these movements and outcomes.”
