Shelter

Joan McNeil studied architecture in the early sixties at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She practiced architecture for about ten years and began studying ceramics in a casual way during that time. She eventually took a masters degree in Fine Arts at the University of Regina, graduating in 1982. After spending a number of years teaching art and ceramics across Canada, Joan opened a ceramics studio in downtown Toronto in 1995. Since 2007 she has been doing collage and painting full-time in her Toronto studio.

Shelter is a small earthenware sculpture. It’s scale draws the viewer near, and forces him or her to relate to the piece on an personal level. The textural qualities of the clay are embraced by the artist, helping achieve a strong sense of materiality and visually rewarding the person who goes up close to experience the artwork. According to artist Joan McNeill, “I think a pot should have something dark, something light, with contrast supplied by colour, edges, or surface texture. These are essential human qualities as well, and I want my work to express warmth and humanness. I am not too rigorous about achieving perfection; a certain amount of discord or irregularity seems compatible with the nature of clay and doing studio work.” Shelter , as suggested by the name, represents a building upon a high foundation of strata resembling sedimentary rock. It also functions as a vessel, illustrating the artist’s interest in exploring the concepts of interior vs exterior.