By ELIZABETH NOLAN
For Salt Spring Arts
The creative force behind Mayne Island Clay Works makes an exciting launch on Salt Spring this month when ceramic artists Kim Korol and Kristine Webber open Phenomenologies, the first event in Artcraft’s 2024 Showcase season.
Opening along with Artcraft at Mahon Hall on Friday, June 14, the exhibit features select pieces of ceramic works generated over a six-month period using iterative cycles of making, mutual critique and personal reflection. Taking their cue from a term used in social sciences, Phenomenologies explores the ways in which two artists may influence each other’s work both intentionally and unconsciously when working in the same space — how they respond to each other’s work, opinions and ideas.
“Phenomenology is all based on experience and the influence of those experiences on what you do next, your attitudes and your expression of those experiences. So it felt like a really good word: How our experiences with our making and with each other then influences the next making — and how that then influences the next making,” Webber explained.
The two women first met after Korol moved to Mayne around five and half years ago, and an immediate connection was forged. They decided to create a joint business and shared studio outside their homes in 2021, and together received a Canada Council for the Arts grant that same year to complete a six-foot diameter tile mural titled Porosity, which was exhibited in the Mayne Island Japanese Memorial Gardens. But it was their pattern of working alongside each other as independent artists on seemingly separate journeys that invited the philosophical theme behind the show.
Known for delicate, small vessels, Webber’s new work pushes the boundaries of what clay can do and what it can represent, such as a series of technically challenging knot sculptures.
“I think working with Kim has given me permission to explore different ways of working with clay. I don’t feel limited to making functional work. So it’s just like this brain explosion of potential and permission to explore different things,” Webber said.
As for Korol, she said, “I like making very large vessels and big things and Kristine really makes me pay attention to the form and colour and why I would use certain colours. I think she makes me pay more attention to it, which has been really good.”
Asked whether clay turned out to be a good material for expressing their philosophical theme concept, Korol confirmed it is.
“Clay is an excellent medium for this process because you can make clay into anything. There are an unlimited number of ways to use clay, from how you decorate clay to what you make with it. We could make big things and small things and functional things and torn up things and broken things … so it really pushed us with our creativity.”
The exhibit is therefore a window into the specific creative process of two ceramic artists, but as they explain, it also “invites the viewer to consider the important role of supportive connections and safe spaces in enabling us to flourish as artists and humans.”
“I think for me personally the work that I have made for the show is about finding my voice. And it’s about the internal struggles, as to what humans go through,” Korol said. “It’s been an interesting personal journey for me this winter and I think that really is reflected in the work I made. And so it’s like expressing the inner workings of human beings; the way our minds work and don’t work and the stresses and anxiety.”
“You’ll see a lot of very vulnerable work,” Webber added. “And similarly, I think an underlying theme in all of the things that I have been working on is connectivity in relationships.”
A joint opening reception for Phenomenologies and Artcraft 2024 is set for 6 to 8 p.m. on June 14. An artists’ talk will take place at the hall on Sunday, June 16 starting at 2 p.m. The show will continue daily during Artcraft hours through July 8.