Two significant Canadian awards for artmaking in clay and glass media were recently awarded in Waterloo.
The ceremony at the Canadian Clay & Glass Gallery recognized Christopher Reid Flock as the winner of the 2014 Winifred Shantz Award for Ceramics, which comes with a $10,000 prize. In his work, Flock explores parallels between Japanese and Canadian cultural history, integrating aspects of of traditional Japanese Ikebana arrangements and kimono-wrapping as well as elements of Western industrialization.
This award will allow Flock to undertake an eight-week residency at the Medalta International Artists in Residence Program in Medicine Hat where he plans to increase the scale of his works and explore rapid prototyping technologies.
Cheryl Wilson Smith is the winner of the 2014 RBC Award for Glass, which also comes with a $10,000 prize. Wilson Smith’s delicate, layered and complex kiln-cast works are inspired by the boreal forest and the rocky shores of Red Lake, Ontario, where she lives. Created by translating drawings into countless individual layers of glass frit, her sculptures push the limits of glass while interpreting the northern Ontario light, landscape and wilderness.
Wilson Smith’s award will help her participate in “First Light,” an artist-in-residence program inside the Arctic Circle of Norway, timed to coincide with the first day during which the sun reappears over the horizon line. Working with renowned American glass artists Steve Klein and Richard Parrish and Norwegian artist Daniela Salathe, she will experiment with the addition of colour to her usually monochromatic works.
Runners-up were also named for each of these prizes; each received $1,000. Jody Greenman-Barber of Buena Vista, Saskatchewan, received the second prize for the ceramics award, while Karina Guévin and Cédric Ginart of Ange-Gardien, Quebec, received second prize for the glass award.
These national awards allow early career ceramic and glass artists to undertake a period of independent research, or other activities that will advance their artistic and professional practice at a key moment in their careers. To be eligible, artists must be Canadian citizens or have permanent resident status, must actively practice and exhibit, and must have been practicing for no longer than 10 years.
