Low Down Articles
Artist Profiles - Maureen Marcotte
Article 40 of 73
From the book Artists of the Gatineau Hill by Catherine Joyce. This article first appeared in the "Artist Profiles" column in the November 8, 2006 issue of the The Low Down to Hull and Back News.
Reprinted with permission. Search complete list of Low Down Articles.
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The Music of Fine Porcelain
For over thirty years Maureen Marcotte has been crafting pottery of exquisite colour and depth with a patterning of motifs reminiscent of the classical music she loves. Themes and variations recur. Objects of beauty become testaments to the past, to the reverence that she feels for tradition.
Her work has evolved in a slow, cumulative and organic progression, rooted in her life with David McKenzie, also a potter, their children and the Galerie McKenzie Marcotte they have created together in Wakefield.
Maureen's pottery bears the imprint of a thoughtful, meditative approach to life. Nothing is rushed and yet possibilities always beckon.
"You can only push porcelain so far. I love the constraints of the clay and of the colours that emerge with certain glazes. They provide a framework within which I can create - much like musical structures constrain yet free a composer. I experiment within these limits, delighted by the surprising accidents that can lead me in new directions."
The rich blues, the delicate greens, the wine and vermillion that breathe through layers of leaf and line - in geometric, almost hieroglyphic patterning - create a signature effect. No one could mistake a Marcotte vase or bowl. Inspired by textile design, by Fair Isle knitting patterns, Persian carpets or the decorative genius of the Arts and Crafts Movement, Maureen first began her distinctive line of pottery by experimenting with batik. Then, while her children were small, she explored with them the wonders of decorating Easter eggs in the Ukrainian tradition. It was a small step to transfer the technique of layering wax and colour onto pottery. From there the challenge began.
"It is all trial and error. It can take me eight hours to paint a bowl once I have settled upon a design, whether it is linear or circular. Yet each time the work feels new to me for you can never control the process or be totally consistent. You must be present and deeply connected. And then something happens. That is the mystery of hand-crafted pottery.
Maureen acknowledges that this human quality is harder and harder to come by with everyone shopping at big box stores. "People forget that beauty brings peace. When you pour peace into yom work you create the effect of something very old and timeless. The object becomes a source of comfort. It enriches your life. That quality can never be massproduced."
From her Fine Arts degree at Ottawa U (1975), through the years that she and David sold their pottery at local craft fairs and through galleries in Montreal and Toronto, Maureen has lived by her pottery. In the 1980s the Armoire des Artisans in Wakefield, a co-operative with eight other artists, provided a showcase for their work. Then, in 2000, after years on the Studio Tour, Maureen and David decided to open a gallery at their home. Like all aspects of their life, it has grown organically, offering a place to exhibit the work of other artists as well as their own.
There is a pattern here, rooted in tradition and in keeping with the values of family, community service and art - variations on a theme of dedication. "I see the different strands of my life as a polyphony where everything intertwines. I get to play and be inventive within the limits I have set myself."