Introducing our third apprentice

Hello! My name is Cherry Macintosh, and I am beyond grateful and honoured to say I am Mary Fox’s next apprentice. 

I’ve been doing pottery officially for a few years at this point, and I plan to continue for the rest of my life. It’s a passion I fell madly in love with in my high school ceramics class in Alberta, where I am now. My family moved a few times in my childhood from Ontario, to California, to British Columbia, back to Ontario and finally to Alberta. I can safely say that when my family ended up here, I hated it. I was vastly offended that my parents would choose a town on the prairies without any rivers or lakes flowing through. I missed the trees and my little hideaways I found during our previous years, especially the clay deposit I had found in the river near my house in the dense forest.

 When I started my first full year of high school, grade ten, (I homeschooled for a couple of years prior) I entered into the ceramics course offered to my year. It felt like everything clicked into place and as I learned more about my medium and grew my skills along with it I began to appreciate our little town so much more. Everything around me was inspirational, like working with clay heightened my senses to what was physically and energetically going on around me. Crows played when winds were rough, diving and chattering to each other. Ladybugs would hitch rides on my book bag, even the sweet skittish deer would say hello while on their trek through the neighbourhoods from time to time. I came to feel so connected to the life around me that I now try to incorporate that life and that flow of energy into everything I make. Every piece (even the ugly ones) is a part of my soul facing outwards to the world. 

I met Mary in August of this year on a trip to Vancouver Island with my mum and sister. We walked into the gallery and the Creation Room and as I had no words my mother definitely did, in the form of  “I think my eyes are inverting trying to take it all in!” Mary laughed and halted her potting to come to talk to us (mostly me as my mother nodded and smiled lost in the potting lingo) for close to an hour giving me advice on anything and everything. It made my entire year! As she told us about The Legacy Project and her apprenticeship program I made a mental note of, “Since the apprentice for 2026-2027 has been chosen, I am SO applying for the next round!”

 Lo and behold, September twentieth Mary posts on instagram that the person chosen had circumstances change and applications were back open! I immediately wrote the cover letter, took photos of my dinner set that I had finished that day, and sent it off. I fully expected it to take a couple days and even then I was expecting a ‘Thank you for applying, try again next time!’ response since I’m not even a legal adult until the end of October this year. Instead I got a response the very next day with a plan to call on Tuesday. Then on Tuesday, Mary calls and asks how I’d be getting out to the Island and what my accommodations would be, welcome to the pottery! WHAT!! Even more than that, she wants me to go out in October instead of January and called me a mini her! Mary ended the call saying that she’ll let me go so I can run around squealing like a gopher, since that’s what she would do and that’s just what I did. I was in such shock I cried like a baby as such an intense flow of emotions hitting all at once. I’ve said for four years, since first setting foot on Vancouver Island that I would live there and now it’s really happening. I am figuring out all the logistics and oh my goodness, I’m moving out of my family home. I have to pack! And finish orders! And see everyone before I go! Through all of the chaos of the to do list, I was so so excited to even be considered let alone accepted. 

Now I’m driving out in early October with my parents and my little sister. I’m sorting like crazy and gathering essentials. I just finished up throwing the orders left, and shouting the news from the rooftops! 

Overall I’m so thankful and excited to enter into this new journey, and learn from the incredible human that is Mary Fox. 

Thank you, thank you, forever and eternally grateful, 

Cherry Macintosh.