Creating a niche out of clay on the banks of New Brunswick's Chocolate River - and discovering home, away from home.
Judy and David Tait live in Curryville, NB, in the heart of Albert County-"God's country," as most people from here call it. A tree-covered ridge and the 114 highway separate them from the world-famous Hopewell Rocks in the Bay of Fundy. Although the Taits can't see the bay or the Petitcodiac River that drains into it from their home on Albert Mines Road, the so-called Chocolate River figures prominently in Judy's day-to-day vision: she uses mud from its banks to make unique pottery.
Because of its consistency, the clay extracted from the mud is difficult to throw on a conventional pottery wheel, so Judy creates all her pieces by hand, adding texture by pressing leaves, seaweed and other natural materials into the clay as it dries. Each piece is an individual work of art inspired by the beauty of the region, her adopted home-a place many kilometres and many years from her upbringing in the suburbs of Ottawa.
"I grew up in the Glebe area," says Judy who, now in her late 50s, feels like she was always out of place. "My dad was a professor, my mother was a home-ec teacher and I was so different."
Judy's introduction to pottery can be traced back to 1960s' England. At 13, following her father's death, her mother remarried and relocated to Ghana, West Africa, for six years; Judy and her sister were sent to England for schooling.
Judy always knew she would go to art school, though perhaps not in England's West Midlands-an area famous for Wedgwood, Royal Doulton and Staffordshire china. Based in the heart of "the Potteries" region, the Stoke-on-Trent Regional College of Art (since renamed Staffordshire University) she attended typically funnelled its graduates into the local industry. But a production-line future was not for Judy. "It was too restrictive. I just knew I wanted to do everything myself, which was a new concept."
Her dream was bolstered when she returned to Canada in the '70s, and discovered a cottage industry in its infancy. At this point her medium was mainly fabric, her art influenced by vacations to Ghana. She was fascinated by adrika cloth, patterned by pressing pitch-dipped gourds on cloth. Her experience in this area led to a job teaching silk-screening at the New Brunswick College of Craft & Design, in Fredericton. Here she met David, a Saint John native, and now her husband of 24 years.
When David was offered a teaching position at Moncton's New Brunswick Community College in 1981, the couple started house hunting in the outskirts of the hub city. "I wanted to start a studio," says Judy. "I thought I was going to do some big printing, do lengths of fabric of some sort."
When she saw the abandoned Curryville schoolhouse nestled in the woods high on a hilltop, Judy knew immediately she was home.
"It was just beautiful, the location was enchanting," Judy says. "I just fell in love with it."
"The windows were boarded up," David says, laughing. "We never saw the inside and Judy said, 'We'll take it!'"
Used in the late 1800s to early 1900s when Curryville was thriving, the converted schoolhouse served as both studio and home for 18 years, where they raised two boys. While David commuted to his Moncton job teaching sheet-metal work, Judy started a silkscreen printing company called Samphire Casuals, primarily selling T-shirts with prints of local flora and fauna.
But eventually Judy's thoughts returned to her original love. "I thought it would be nice to build an industry around the clay here," she says. Curryville had a strong brick-building history dating back to the mid to late 1800s, and given the fact that both the Mi'kmaq and Acadians were early settlers in the area, the Taits believed the Petitcodiac's "red muck" had probably once had a practical use.
Armed with buckets and shovels, Judy and David spent their weekends digging up mud and experimenting. It took a couple of years before they found a clay that was both easy to work with and could withstand firing at high temperatures.
Judy rolls out the slabs much like a baker, smoothing, shaping and trimming as she goes. She uses deep blue and black glazes to contrast with the natural terracotta colour.
The Albert County Clay Company, which was meant as a side business to Samphire Casuals, has now overtaken her silkscreening venture. The growth of the pottery company precipitated its relocation to the 100-year-old Curryville Community Hall. Once the centre of the community, hosting church suppers and ice cream socials, the building sits at the foot of the hill where the schoolhouse is.
The Taits also moved out of the schoolhouse-now used primarily for screenprinting and as a gift shop-and across the street to a home built on a stunning 200 acres, about 10 minutes from the shore that continues to inspire Judy and provide raw material for her art. "I don't think I would enjoy this so much if it wasn't our own clay," she says. "That is the most significant thing, that we use our clay, from here."
"I wouldn't go back," the transplanted Ottawa-native adds. "I think if I wasn't doing this, I'd be a very unhappy person."
Fundy artisan scene
Albert County, NB, has a thriving creative community-artisans produce everything from pottery to blown glass, stained glass to woodcarvings. The Fundy Studio Tour is a great way to see the area and its art, and perhaps purchase a unique item. Along with potter Wendy Johnson, Judy and David Tait are two of the founding members of this venture, where local artists open their working studios to visitors, offering a glimpse of the process. "We show people the raw clay we start with," David says, "and how it's processed."
The tour kicks off on the Victoria Day weekend; studios are open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., May 17 to 19. Otherwise, they're open throughout the summer by appointment or by chance.
If you don't make it to individual Albert County studios, you can always check out the Fundy Gateway, a new tourism undertaking in Riverview, NB, to showcase the products of Fundy-area artisans. The main retail outlet will be Olivier Soapery, in Bouctouche, NB-where, incidentally, the Taits sell their raw clay (Olivier packages the gray powder as a face mask to draw out impurities).
More information about the Fundy Studio Tour or the Fundy Gateway is available at Visitor Information Centres throughout New Brunswick.
Clay time
"If I tell you the spot, I'll have to kill you," says David, laughing, referring to the exact location of the Taits' clay source, known only to them and the person on whose property the raw material is mined.
David, now retired, continually works to come up with faster and easier ways to get the clay ready "for the boss," as he calls Judy. His resourcefulness is a perfect complement to Judy's creativity-whatever she needs, he finds a way to build it. "When you're a tradesman, you think differently than most people," he says. "You come up with a solution to a problem mechanically, and cheaply."
However, there's one thing David couldn't build: a pug mill. The $3,000 device, used to remove air pockets from the clay, was such a huge investment and took so long for delivery that when it finally arrived, the Taits decided to have a party to celebrate.
"No one knew what a pug mill was," David laughs, "but we were having a party for it anyway!"
The pug mill chews up the clay; the vacuum pump sucks out any air. David then puts the clay through a slab roller to flatten it, making it more manageable for Judy to roll out.
"It's satisfying to take a local thing and turn it into a useful product," David says proudly.
Judy wonders why more local potters don't take advantage of the natural resource, remembering one person who tried but gave up, perhaps because it was too time-consuming. But David knows the real reason. "He doesn't have a husband!" he says.