From the Archives - Hibou Rouge in Salmon Arm, BC

This profile on Hibou Rouge Ceramics was originally posted on the website LOCALnagan.com which I used to manage. Although it is now closed down, some of the articles were visited frequently. I thought I would put up one of those here:

Tracy Eliason waves me over to her ceramic design studio across the willow-lined backyard of her Salmon Arm home. The rain has only just stopped, and some backyard chickens peek nervously from their coop. Having discovered her work on Instagram, I was eager to meet the maker behind the soft, elegant pottery.

The studio is narrow but lit with a couple large windows that let in the morning sunlight. After introductions, Tracy gets to work sawing a three pound slab of clay off the top of a plastic clad block the size of a car battery. She neatly divides them in two and weighs each one. Content with the size of each, she begins the process of wedging the clay. “This softens the clay up and gets out any air bubbles,” she says. The clay makes a percussive th-wump as it is smacked down on the canvas covered table. I ask if there are any plans for the two greyish lumps she is rhythmically kneading. “No, although I will do orders, I like to just put a piece of clay on the wheel and see what happens!”

Having left Salmon Arm after high school, Tracy studied art at UBC in Vancouver. In her self designed program she studied pottery, painting, printmaking, theatre, Spanish, and Children’s Literature. “My family called it my Arts and Crafts degree.” Pottery stuck and she continued her education, learning under Sam Kwan at Capilano College and throwing clay at a waterfront studio. She lived in Barcelona on the same street Pablo Picasso was born before moving back into her childhood home with her husband and children. Being a yoga teacher, she ran a studio out of her home. After five years of busy yoga an increasingly less time to spend with her kids, Tracy decided to close the yoga business and rekindle her passion for ceramics. With help from her husband and father, the studio was built. Sitting down in front of the potters wheel she realized that it had almost been ten years since she had touched the tools of her trade.

“I thought it would be like riding a bike, but the first mugs that I made, these are them!” She points at two misshapen mugs on a top shelf. “It was a little devastating but I kept the mugs to remind myself,” she laughs.

The two mugs sit in sharp contrast against the smooth, organic shapes that line the raw pine shelving around the studio. The colour shifts are subtile, favouring the natural creams of the clay and the soft white of the porcelain. The softness of the rounded forms give the illusion that even the darker glazed pieces have a slight glow. There is a deliberate restraint in her work. “I just really wanted to play with shape and form, and the colour seemed irrelevant.” The pieces stand well on their own, yet together magnify the overall impression of beauty, like stones in a creek.

Tracy explains that in each step of making a clay vessel, whether in forming or attaching a handle to the mug, in drying or firing, flaws can ruin the outcome of the finished product. That is why she has spent over has spent the first ten minutes of our conversation pounding and kneading the unseen air bubbles out of the clay. An undetected air bubble can drastically affect the balance of the clay on the wheel, making it impossible to form the beautifully symmetrical vases I see around me. In addition, a bubble in the clay can explode when heated in the kiln, destroying the product completely. If the drying process is rushed, cracks can appear. With all the things that can affect the outcome it is fitting when Tracy says that she is just trying to keep them alive until the end.

Tracy begins centring the clay on the wheel, then wetting her hands she begins the shaping. Centring the clay is a skill that did not come easy. “It is a fine balance between control and softness. My yoga practice helps me: if I can’t centre the clay, it is probably because I’ve forgotten to breathe.” She enjoys the slow process of working the clay and is careful not to rush. Her position shifts as the clay grows, elbows anchored to sides. The form of a mug rises spontaneously from the wheel. Content with the overall shape she trims and smooths the mug using a variety of natural tools: a wooden knife, a strip of leather, a thin blade of metal.

The mug is complete on the wheel as Tracy goes about cleaning her hands with a sponge. She tells me that her hands suffer. Gel nails are not an option for a potter. The metal blade she uses to shape also becomes razor sharp with the turning of the gritty clay.

The second piece of clay is decided to be a moon vase. This is more tricky than the first mug. It is a perfectly round, thin-walled vase with a tiny circular hole at the top giving it the appearance of a dried sea-urchin. The moon vase slowly takes shape. Grey clay coats her hands as she gently pressures the walls of the vase inward.

As she works, Tracy tells me about the choice of the name of her studio. The inspiration came when her young daughter, a French-immersion student, drew a tiny red owl in a stand of poplars. The combination of her daughter’s pronunciation of the French phrase and the minimalist aesthetic of the child’s drawing drew Tracy to the name. When she discovered that Pablo Picasso had made a big plate with a red owl the name just seemed to be perfect.

With the vase complete it will now have to dry for two days before it is ready to be fired in the kiln. Tracy shows me a collection of mugs that have dried and are ready to be put in the kiln. From the wheel to the end product, the mugs will have shrunk twelve percent. She recalls a set of dinner plates she made that turned out to be salad plates.

After the first firing, the mugs are washed and ready to be glazed. Ready-made glaze can be bought and even though it is her “least favourite part”. Tracy prefers to mix all of her glaze from scratch. It is a lengthy business. A number of test chips with varying colours sit atop the glazing table. When each glaze is mixed, Tracy dips a test chip into it for reference, then stores the glaze in plastic buckets under the table.

“Usually I throw for two hours, have a break, then throw for another hour. Then with an hour of clean-up at the end.” Tracy mentions that Instagram has been a blessing and a curse. She compares her day to some who claim six or seven hour days and feels the pressure to put in longer hours. On the upside, she has seen pictures of people enjoying her mugs and the joy it brings them. “I really try to imbue joy into every piece I do,” she tells me as she reaches out to touch a porcelain vase. She gazes fondly at the work of her hands, “Oh I love this, it is sort of my favourite.”

Tracy in front of her studio in Salmon Arm, BC