Jennifer Drysdale

“My current work concentrates on the exploration of wood firing.  While making each piece, I try to imagine how a passing flame of melting ash might trace itself on the form.  Firing a wood kiln requires hours of labour and I delight in the camaraderie of the team as we prepare and stoke the fire.  After the kiln is fed its last piece of wood, several days pass before the pots within it are cool enough to be unloaded.  I wait with eager anticipation for the opening of the kiln after each firing.”

Jen has “had her hands in clay” since her first pottery class in 1991. For many years since, she made functional stoneware pottery oxidation-fired to cone 6. She has gained a reputation in the Ottawa area as a very proficient potter with a great sense of design and, indeed, ‘feel for clay’.

She lives in Carp, Ontario and is currently a pottery teacher and studio technician with the City of Ottawa.

In October 2013, Jen participated in an intensive wood-firing workshop with legendary Canadian Potter Tony Clennell at Pinecroft Centre for the Arts in Aylmer, Ontario. She says, “I fell in love with the process and the results that this type of atmospheric firing offered.”

Jen was selected as one of ten mid-career potters to be mentored by Tony Clennell throughout 2015. Her enthusiasm for the process and her prolific output has added to the wonderful changes in her work. “Having this opportunity with Tony as a mentor alongside a fabulous group of great makers has influenced my work a great deal.”