My lifelong passion for working with clay began in Ontario with the Waterloo Potters Workshop in 1975. I enjoyed teaching and participating in the guild’s sales and now share my joy of this craft here on Vancouver Island. I create mostly functional pottery through throwing and hand building. www.instagram.com/oceanspraypottery
Member Pages
Kristin Jeffrey
My name is Kristin (Kris) Jeffrey and I have been a hobby potter for a little over 20 years. I live in Victoria and have a home studio in the Interurban area. My interest in pottery was sparked in high school art with a short pottery program. I caught the bug and vowed to learn…. Read More
Ellen Desjardins
Ellen has been practicing ceramics since 1996, learning from the many potters and resources at the Waterloo Potters Workshop in Ontario. In 2018 she moved to Vancouver Island, where she started her own studio in Spirit Bay (near Metchosin). In her work space perched on the edge of the cliff overlooking Beecher Bay, Ellen enjoys…. Read More
Marilyn McNamara
I don’t know what it is about a thrown pot but I have always admired and enjoyed them. I was doing an undergraduate degree when I heard of a six month pottery course offered in Fredericton, New Brunswick. I told my mother I would quit just for the six months and then I will go…. Read More
Helene Poulin
Hélène started pottery lessons to explore a new creative outlet. Having always enjoyed crafting, especially working on three dimensional projects, throwing on the wheel fit right in! She started at Cedar Hill Rec Centre like many other local potters and owes her instructor Michael Giles for helping her develop her budding ceramics skills.
Margaret McIntosh
Margaret joined the South Vancouver Island Potters’ Guild in 2024, after moving to Victoria. Previously, she was a Member of the Pine Tree Potters Guild, in Aurora, Ontario, for about 8 years. Margaret began her journey as a potter at Pine Tree, where she participated in numerous classes, workshops, sales, and a juried exhibition. Margaret…. Read More
Linda Mercer
Working from a home studio in Victoria, BC, ceramic artist Linda Mercer creates small batches of functional ware as well as unique sculptural pieces in stoneware clay. The graphic quality and painterly approach to her surface decoration arise from a background in printmaking and oil painting. Her work, primarily figurative and narrative, reflects an interest…. Read More
Sydnie Johnson
Sydnie is an educator and ceramicist living on the unceded territory of the T’Sou-ke Nation in Sooke, B.C. She obtained a BEd at the University of Victoria focusing on ceramics and geography. During her studies, she discovered the beauty of plant cells under a microscope and began to carve cellular structures into clay. She is…. Read More
Carolyn Purden
Carolyn makes functional stoneware pottery – plates, bowls, mugs, serving dishes. At first focusing primarily on form, as her art has progressed she has become increasingly attracted to the magical effects that can be achieved by combining glazes on a single piece. Instagram: cpurden.ant
Rebecca McClure
Rebecca is a ceramic artist living in Victoria, BC, Canada, the traditional territory of the lək̓ʷəŋən People. With a lifelong passion for art, she began working with clay in 1991. Although she holds degrees in the fields of psychology and education, she has taken numerous arts and ceramics courses through both post-secondary institutions and community arts…. Read More
Derek Kasper
Derek Kasper was first introduced to ceramics and art via a romance with a potter at the University of Regina back in the early 1970’s. His passion for making things soon branched out into artistic woodworking and then into building, which turned into a career. On returning to Victoria in 1989 his long dormant passion…. Read More
Ester Strijbos
Ester creates pieces that are heavily influenced by her European background and by her outdoor lifestyle where she enjoys spending time near the ocean, forest, and the silence of nature. Over the years, she has developed her decoration techniques, focusing on Graphic Clay: screen printing photo’s, drawings and text onto clay with under and over…. Read More
Nancy Fraser
Nancy left home to travel in Europe at 19. Through Canadian friends she met two potters, one from New York and one from New Zealand, who were living and working in a 500 year old farm house in Tuscany. They invited her to stay with them and learn to throw pottery. What an amazing experience!…. Read More
Roger Champagne
Clay was one of the mediums I used when teaching children art and my personal interest developed from there. I use the wheel and also enjoy hand building. My work is white stoneware, fired in my studio in an electric kiln, usually to cone 6. I enjoy carving designs and applying shapes to my bowls,…. Read More
Rachel Coward
I have always been interested in Art and classical shapes, and had the opportunity to pursue my search when we moved to Victoria in 1992, and I left my first career as a nurse to become a potter. I discovered clay at a local community center pottery studio, and have since taken many pottery courses…. Read More
Ester Galac
After moving to Victoria from Croatia with her family in 1988, Ester discovered her passion for pottery. She discovered the clay studio at Cedar Hill Rec. Centre, where in 1999 she took a class by Meira Mathison, and learned about Metchosin International Summer School of the Arts, where each summer thereafter she would enjoy courses…. Read More
Meira Mathison
Meira has maintained her studio, Dancerwood Pottery in Victoria, for over 29 years while conducted clay workshops throughout Canada, the USA and Mexico. She is noted for her high-fired altered porcelain and distinctive surface treatment. Her work can be found at the BC Gallery in Vancouver plus a number of galleries in the USA. Since…. Read More
Muriel Sibley
“Introduced to clay at an early age, I have danced with it for more than fifty years! During times of varied occupations, including child–rearing, sawmilling and truck driving, writing and social activism, clay has been a constant partner. The necessary rhythms of making, drying, firing, glazing and firing again help give structure and balance to…. Read More
Priska Stabel
After 12 years in a laboratory I left my academic career in plant molecular biology in search for life beyond science. I began with paper making and pottery first in England then Germany and moved to Canada in 1999. I continued to learn pottery with Muriel Sibley at Winter Creek Pottery, where I still work…. Read More
Nancy Wall
Nancy’s classes began at Cedar Hill Rec. Centre where she helped found a drop-in club for intermediate potters. In 1997 she purchased a wheel and then a kiln, allowing her more opportunities to create pottery at home. Soon afterwards she joined the Garden City Potters group and was a founding member of the South Vancouver…. Read More