Pottery CV/Statement (for ARLIS/NA) -- Michael May

I first saw someone throwing pots in 1976 at a shopping mall in London, Ontario. These of course are "magic moments" -- watching someone skilled throw pots. After getting my MLS at the University of Western Ontario I returned to Edmonton as Music Cataloguer at the University of Alberta, and promptly chose pottery as the all-consuming avocation. And all-consuming it was: for about 12 years weekends, vacations, and many evenings would find me in one studio or another.

The need for a personal studio resulting in my buying a house, with basement space for throwing and kiln rooms, and a gallery. Eventually however the combination of all those years spent toiling away indoors (mostly by myself), and a re-discovery of the Great Outdoors and other humanoids on the planet, resulted in pottery being replaced by backpacking and mountaineering. More recently music and photography have also crept back into my life. In 1998 the need for special plants for a series of still life photographs led to my taking up gardening, and the realization that I could very well make some nice pots for the garden landscape -- taking me Back to the Basement!

The pot offered for silent auction was made in the summer of 2000. I have a particular passion for handles, which can add a wonderful sense of grace to a pot. The cord through the lugs and the hole in the bottom (not shown in the photograph) make this wee gem appropriate for a small, trailing plant. (The general caution for earthenware pots is that they should not freeze. However I've had three similar pots in my backyard this past winter, and they've all survived … let us hope I'll soon be able to say the same for my rhododendrons!).

My career as a librarian has followed my pottery activity: When an opportunity arose in the mid-80s I boldly entered the office of the acting head of the Humanities and Socials Sciences Library with a box of pots, covered her desk with them and then asked if she'd be interested in having a new collections librarian for Art and Design. ARLIS/NA members would logically guess that on this day -- the sale was made! Several years of art history classes followed, including a summer school course in Impressionist art at the American College in Paris. Today I'm a full-time collections/reference librarian (Art and Design, Classics, Digital Images).