Learn from Potter Sarah Pike
Sarah Pike is a full-time studio potter from Fernie, BC, celebrated for her functional slab-built pottery and stamp and texture tools. She studied ceramics at Alberta College of Art and Design, University of Colorado, and the University of Minnesota. Sarah is a proud member of the Canadian ceramic collective, Make & Do.
This artist talk is free and open to the community.
Read about Sarah
Bio
Sarah Pike is a full-time potter, living and making functional slab-built wares in Fernie, BC, Canada, the traditional territory of the Ktunaxa. She studied ceramics at Alberta College of Art and Design, University of Colorado, and the University of Minnesota. Sarah is a proud member of the Canadian ceramic collective, Make & Do. Sarah is very interested in making stamps and texture tools and pressing them into soft clay. Lately, she is obsessing over the ogee curve and how it tessellates across a form. Her natural habitat is her studio, but if she isn’t making pots, she is probably out exploring the mountains around her home by ski or bike. She is generally thinking about snacks.
Sarah’s pottery is inspired by many things, including the landscape around her home, the rich history of pottery, but also by antique tinware, textured metal, interesting fabric patterns, and the old things you might find in barns.
Artist Statement
As potters, we have a practiced sense of touch. We know that squishy space between our thumb and fingers well. We sense the clay’s softness in that space; its thickness; its plasticity. We feel a break in curve or change of plane and intuitively add volume or release pressure. The haptics fire messages to our brains. The visual, like the wept to the haptic warp, weaves intuitive and formal messages into the process: the beautiful familiar visuotactile interaction. We lift the form and feel its weight. We make adjustments based on multi-sensory perceptions. Once fired, fingers explore shape and surface. Lips sip the rim. The multi-sensory conversation continues: a haptic feedback connection between maker and user. Our current reality oscillates between technology and the natural realm. Tech companies implement haptics into our devices, revealing how important this feedback is to our sense of connection: haptic responses make our interactions with technology more human. A handshake, a kiss on the cheek, a touch on the shoulder, a warm embrace, our hands on a handmade object. Synapses between us.