About Mary

"Beauty is a wondrous and mysterious presence in my life, filling me with surges of overwhelming joy and delight. The fluency that has grown from a deep knowing and connection to my work has an awesome power to bring forth the radiance of each vessel I make. Beauty is everywhere in the act of creation and it is humbling to be encompassed by it."

Artist Statement

I create endlessly. When I started my creative career, I thought I would be a functional potter and had no idea that I was an artist, this came as a complete surprise to me. I work at my art pretty much all the time and am constantly being flooded with new ideas and artistic paths I want to explore. Some might say I am obsessive about my work, but that single-minded focus has led me to where I am today, a successful artist.

I was born in Fredericton, New Brunswick in 1959 and moved with my family to British Columbia in 1966. I am a self-taught exploratory potter and have never done anything else for a living. I like to joke about this and often say to my customers that this is why I am so bruised, I learned at the school of hard knocks!

In the past I exhibited worldwide, but these days I find my focus has switched to finding ways to help support up and coming potters. The Legacy Project is all about that, however, it doesn’t start till I am no longer potting and I want to help now. The more I thought about it, the more I came to realize that the best way I could help would be through an apprenticeship program. In Canada there are no apprenticeships for potters that I know of, so I created the Legacy Project Apprentice Program. This, traditional, 2-year program is designed to take a young potter with basic throwing skills and then, through the repetition of creating my tableware forms, turn them into a studio potter. I no longer have the time to produce tableware for the gallery, that job has now shifted to the apprentices. I am happy to report that they do a pretty good job of keeping the shelves stocked.

Whether you are buying my art pieces or some of the tableware created here you can know that, through your purchases, you are helping the potters of today and tomorrow.

I, the apprentice and my two little dogs, look forward to meeting you when you visit the pottery.

Till then, Potterly yours, Mary

Publications

Selected Exhibitions: Solo

2016 Primordial Beauty: New Explorations in Glass and Slip Casting, Winchester Galleries, Victoria, BC.
2015 Unearthing Beauty, Gallery of BC Ceramics, Vancouver, BC.
2014 Beautiful Vessels to Enrich and Inspire, Circle Craft, Vancouver, BC.
2014 Mary Fox: Forms and Vessels, Winchester Galleries, Victoria, BC.
2011 Classic Forms Revisited, Gallery of BC Ceramics, Vancouver, BC.
2005 Beauty of Form Enhanced, Gallery of BC Ceramics, Vancouver, BC.
2000 Treasured Vessels, Portfolio Gallery, Vancouver, BC.
1997 Fine Form, Gallery of BC Ceramics, Vancouver, BC.

Selected Exhibitions: International and Touring

2018 Living with Clay: California Ceramics Collections, Nicholas & Lee Begovich Gallery, Fullerton, CA.
2016 Crawling: The Amusing Skin, Ceramic & Colours Award Exhibition, Special Mention, Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche, Faenza, Italy.
2011 Vasefinder International 2011, online, vasefinder.com.
2007–2009 Elemental Connections: An Exhibition of Sustainable Craft, Ontario Crafts Council, Toronto, ON; Feature Gallery, Alberta Craft Council, Edmonton, AB; Saskatchewan Craft Council, Saskatoon, SK.
2006 New Growth: Synthesizing Clay, Fired Up! Group Show, Fortieth Annual NCECA Conference, Portland, Oregon.
2005–2006 Creation in the Palm, BC to Tajimi, Japan, Tajimi, Japan; In the Palm of a Hand: BC to Tajimi, Japan, Gallery of BC Ceramics, Vancouver, BC.
2003 The Shape Between Continuity and Innovation, Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche, Faenza, Italy. Entry selected for permanent collection.
2002 Sidney Meyer Fund International Ceramics Award Exhibition, Shepparton Art Gallery, Shepparton, Australia.
1989 9th Annual Northwest International Art Competition Exhibit, Bellingham, WA, USA.

Selected Exhibitions: Group

2019 Unstoppable: The Women’s Exhibition, Winchester Galleries, Victoria, BC.
2018 Anatomy of a Collector, Tom Thomson Gallery, Owen Sound, ON.
2016 Saltspring Island Ceramic Awards Exhibition, Saltspring Island, BC.
2014 20/20, Winchester Galleries, Victoria, BC.
2014 Fired Up! Celebrating 30 Years, Gallery of BC Ceramics, Vancouver, BC, March 6–30, 2014.
2013 New Works, Winchester Galleries, Victoria, BC.
2013 Turning 40: The Art of Ceramics at Circle Craft, Circle Craft, Vancouver, BC.
2012 Back to the Land: Ceramics from Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands 1970–1985, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria, BC.
2011 Matter of Clay III, Jonathon Bancroft-Snell Gallery, London, ON.
2009 What the Rain Brings: Fired Up! Contemporary Works in Clay, Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery, Waterloo, ON.
2008 Contemporary Craft in BC: Excellence within Diversity, Crafts Association of BC and Vancouver Museum, Vancouver, BC.
2008 Fox & Norgate, Wallace Galleries, Calgary, AB.
2007 Surfaces, Jonathon Bancroft-Snell Gallery, London, ON, March 8–29, 2007.
2006 A Matter of Clay II: Repeats and Occasional Pots, Jonathon Bancroft-Snell Gallery, London, ON.
2006 OBJECToronto: An Art Exposition of Contemporary Craft and Design, Harbinger Gallery, Gladstone Hotel, Toronto, ON.
2005 Circle Craft Scholarship Recipients, Pendulum Gallery, Vancouver, BC.
2005 TransFormations: Ceramics 2005, Celebrating the Potters Guild of BC at 50, Burnaby Art Gallery, Burnaby, BC.
2003 Genius Loci, Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery, Waterloo, ON.
2003 We Are Circle Craft! Celebrating Our First 30 Years, Pendulum Gallery, Vancouver, BC.
2000 ARTS 2000, Gallery Stratford, Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, Stratford, ON.
1998 Made by Hand, Silver Edition 1998, Canadian Craft Museum, concurrent exhibitions in Vancouver and Victoria, Crafts Association of BC.
1997 APEC Ikebana Exhibit, Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre, Vancouver, BC.
1996 Classic Vessels and Adornments (with Marianne Brown), Circle Craft Gallery, Vancouver, BC, 1996.
1989 Exhibit (with Maggie Tchir and the Orceas Basket Weavers), The Gallery Shop, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria, BC.
1988 Exhibit (with Jan MacLeod), Circle Craft Gallery, Vancouver, BC.
1988 Exhibit, Crafthouse Gallery, Vancouver, BC.
1988 Exhibit, Market House Gallery, Annapolis, NS.
1988 Raku (with Gordon Reisig and Robin Righton), Gallery of BC Ceramics, Vancouver, BC.
1986 Vault of Dreams (with Miles Lowry), Out of Hand Gallery, Victoria, BC.

Publications featuring work

Carr, Dianne, and Nancy Janoviček. Back to the Land: Ceramics from Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands, 1970-1985. Victoria, BC: Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, 2012. Exhibition catalogue.

Crafts Association of British Columbia. Made by Hand, Silver Edition 1998. Vancouver, BC: Crafts Association of BC, 1998. Exhibition catalogue.

Crawford, Gail. Studio Ceramics in Canada. Fredericton, NB: Goose Lane Editions, 2005.

Doherty, Linda, ed. Made of Clay: Ceramics of British Columbia. With text by Carol E. Mayer. Vancouver, BC: Potters Guild of BC, 1998.

Gustafson, Paula, ed. Craft Perception and Practice: A Canadian Discourse, Volume 2. Vancouver, BC: Ronsdale Press, 2005. Cover photograph.

Jacobs, Richard. Searching for Beauty: Letters from a Collector to a Studio Potter. Tythegston, Wales, UK: Kestrel Books Ltd, 2007.

Jefferson, Cathi, and Meira Mathison. “Fired Up!” Contemporary Works in Clay. Vancouver, BC: Fired Up! Publications, 2009. Twenty-fifth anniversary catalogue.

Hopper, Robin. The Ceramic Spectrum: A Simplified Approach to Glaze and Color Development, second edition. By Robin Hopper. Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 2001.

—. Making Marks: Discovering the Ceramic Surface. Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 2004.

Mayer, Carol E. TransFormations: Ceramics 2005. Burnaby, BC: Burnaby Art Gallery, 2005. Potters Guild of BC exhibition catalogue.