Artist Statement
Sculpture, figuration, illustration and pottery swim together very freely in my practice. I’m interested in natural history, questions about fiction, perception, storytelling, and character. I see my pots like books - an object intended for a certain purpose, both public and private, often shared, entering a temporarily intimate space with a single reader or user. Pots and plots are talismans for needs being met, for connection and communication.
Atmospheric firing means I think about molecules and air flow and combustion in the same head that thinks about comic strips and bad moods and music I loved as a teenager. Can I make pots that nod to the beautiful, roiling history of pottery but also talk about the iron that colours the glaze? Mighty, noble porcelain starts as a sticky sort of mud and there’s delight in making forms that force that confession.
There’s maybe a certain indignity in pottery - a transparency - we look at a cup and know exactly all of its business. Sometimes I feel this in myself, that I’m as transparent as a jellyfish, that all my troubles and feelings and guts and memories are acutely visible, that others can look right through me. I think the impulse to turn a narrative image into an object is related to this feeling; not a remedy but acknowledgement and commitment and enrichment. A vessel says, I can’t change for you - I am what I am. But let me tell you a story; give me some flowers to hold.
Bio
Amelia Butcher is a visual artist based in British Columbia with a sculptural and drawing practice centered in clay.
She graduated from Emily Carr University in 2013 and is a founding member of the Dusty Babes Collective. From 2015-2021 she lived and worked out of their communal studio, built by the late great Don Hutchinson, in Surrey, BC. She has exhibited widely and instructs classes and workshops in ceramics, sculpture and comic-making for all ages. She is a former board member of the BC Potters Guild and currently works out of a studio in the Mergatroid Building in Vancouver, the unceded, ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
Sculpture, figuration, illustration and pottery swim together very freely in my practice. I’m interested in natural history, questions about fiction, perception, storytelling, and character. I see my pots like books - an object intended for a certain purpose, both public and private, often shared, entering a temporarily intimate space with a single reader or user. Pots and plots are talismans for needs being met, for connection and communication.
Atmospheric firing means I think about molecules and air flow and combustion in the same head that thinks about comic strips and bad moods and music I loved as a teenager. Can I make pots that nod to the beautiful, roiling history of pottery but also talk about the iron that colours the glaze? Mighty, noble porcelain starts as a sticky sort of mud and there’s delight in making forms that force that confession.
There’s maybe a certain indignity in pottery - a transparency - we look at a cup and know exactly all of its business. Sometimes I feel this in myself, that I’m as transparent as a jellyfish, that all my troubles and feelings and guts and memories are acutely visible, that others can look right through me. I think the impulse to turn a narrative image into an object is related to this feeling; not a remedy but acknowledgement and commitment and enrichment. A vessel says, I can’t change for you - I am what I am. But let me tell you a story; give me some flowers to hold.
Bio
Amelia Butcher is a visual artist based in British Columbia with a sculptural and drawing practice centered in clay.
She graduated from Emily Carr University in 2013 and is a founding member of the Dusty Babes Collective. From 2015-2021 she lived and worked out of their communal studio, built by the late great Don Hutchinson, in Surrey, BC. She has exhibited widely and instructs classes and workshops in ceramics, sculpture and comic-making for all ages. She is a former board member of the BC Potters Guild and currently works out of a studio in the Mergatroid Building in Vancouver, the unceded, ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
Dusty Babes Collective, ongoing since 2013. We exhibit together, we soda fire, we create interactive projects and hosted events in our beloved shared studio space
(Don Hutchinson's old studio in Surrey, BC.) Since the studio was demolished we have scattered across the Lower Mainland but host a Soda Pop Up in Tony's yard every year. 2024 we were the invitational group residency at Medalta. Get in touch if you have an idea or a question!
(Don Hutchinson's old studio in Surrey, BC.) Since the studio was demolished we have scattered across the Lower Mainland but host a Soda Pop Up in Tony's yard every year. 2024 we were the invitational group residency at Medalta. Get in touch if you have an idea or a question!