Indisciplined Ceramic Outhouses and Blob-like Glass Bunnies: Four Case Studies on Canadian Prairie Ceramics and Glass
Abstract
The field of craft has been dominated by debates surrounding types of objects and material, how-tos, lists, and genealogies, and today there is an increasing turn towards craft theories which do not necessarily address an object. This study brings the object back into craft discourse. “Indisciplined Ceramic Outhouses and Blob-like Glass Bunnies: Four Case Studies on Canadian Prairie Ceramics and Glass” is an object-inspired study of the work and craft-related practices of Victor Cicansky (Saskatchewan), Ione Thorkelsson (Manitoba), Marty Kaufman (Alberta), Altaglass (Alberta), and Mireille Perron (Alberta).
Part one of this dissertation focuses on Cicansky and part two focuses on glass. The second chapter in each part is a resonant response to the first. Chapter one spans Cicansky’s career. Through selected objects and metaphors, it argues Cicansky has always been and continues to be a materially driven craftsperson. Chapter two begins with an absent object and investigates the contributing role of the domestic towards its absence which in turn reframes the understandings of a number of Cicansky’s early ceramic works. In the third chapter, Roger Caillois’ theory of vertiginous play is used to investigate why studio glass blowing developed when it did on the Prairies. This chapter also questions and problematizes the division between studio- and factory-blown glass. The final chapter examines Perron’s exhibition The Anatomy of a Glass Menagerie: Altaglass (Nickle Galleries, Calgary, AB, 2019) in relation to chapter three’s discussions on vertiginous play and to Koen Vanderstukken’s writings on glass and virtuality.
Jules David Prown’s methodological approach to the study of objects—a hybrid of material culture and art history—grounds this study and each object-inspired chapter. Informed by material culture studies and craft theory, the four chapters each adopt an indisciplined line of inquiry by focusing on specific objects, materials, and processes and their associated imposed limits in the context of the rich history of craft, ceramics, and glass. This study provides a framework for examining Prairie craft that moves beyond biography, genealogy, art history, and how-to descriptions as it is discipline specific and object-inspired.