Christine Pedersen
LightNews LightNews
banner
metalisclay.bsky.social
Christine Pedersen
@metalisclay.bsky.social
400 followers 260 following 110 posts
Artist working in clay and metal, or skiving off on my bike, running, baking, gardening. Former career in public health policy, still trying to read all the science. A 🇬🇧 in 🇨🇦YYC.
https://christinepedersen.art
https://christinepedersen.blogspot.com
Posts Replies Media Videos
metalisclay.bsky.social
Landscape vessels in experimental mixes of coloured clays, all scrubbed up and ready to glaze. Doesn't matter how many times I do this to myself, it’s still completely nerve-wracking.

#ceramics #pottersofbluesky #clay #texture #stoneware #porcelain #ceramicvessel #landscapeceramics #ceramicartist
November 11, 2025 at 3:21 AM
metalisclay.bsky.social
Delighted to share that a collection of my ceramic vessels and vases is available from Willock and Sax Gallery in Banff, Alberta, and in their online store.
www.willockandsaxgallery.com/ceramic/chri...
#ceramics #porcelain #handmade #ceramicartist #pottersofbluesky #clayart #functionalware
October 20, 2025 at 4:59 AM
metalisclay.bsky.social
October 4, 2025 at 9:47 PM
metalisclay.bsky.social
Lovely meetup on Rotary park #Calgary for International #coffeeoutside day. Thank you @bikebikeyyc.bsky.social for bringing us together and 🍪, and to the wonderful Sought x Found Coffee Roasters for the high octane refuelling 🚴‍♀️☕️
October 4, 2025 at 9:43 PM
metalisclay.bsky.social
🥧👀 #cherrypie time--finally! Had to get in quick: pig-birds and fat squirrels have scoffed nearly all the Evan’s cherries in the garden. We have three trees, loaded with fruit, and we got one pie. #Gluten-free almond/oat crust FTW, sorry it’s not scratch and sniff 😋
August 20, 2025 at 4:22 AM
metalisclay.bsky.social
More to come on Tiktaalik as I prep a project for the @AlbertaCraftCouncil “Craft in Perspective” show
#I❤️tiktaalik

#scienceinart #artinscience #sciencetalk #tiktaalik #canadian #fossil #archeology #aluminium #metalartist #chasingandrepousse #chasingandrepoussé #yycnow #calgaryevents #metalisclay
May 16, 2025 at 5:33 PM
metalisclay.bsky.social
Unbelievably we scored front row seats--I’ll be plundering my hoard and wearing “One Becomes Many”, a Cornwall-inspired, traditional bronze and amethyst necklace. Made here in Calgary, though sadly I don’t know where the tin originated…
#artinscience #scienceinart #palaeontology #bronze #necklace
The Bow River in Fish Creek Provincial Park, Calgary, Alberta. Wide, moraine blue waters, with tree-lined banks. Photo taken on Eric Harvie Bridge where I stopped to scoff a bar and catch my breath on #longride training day. The holotype specimen, Borealopelta markmitchelli (aka the Suncor nodosaur) is pictured in a glass case, and is now back on show in the “Breakthroughs” display at The Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology. The rear portion of Borealopelta markmitchelli (aka the Suncor nodosaur) is a steel wire-work sculpture by @jeffdeboer.bsky.social, designed to illustrate what the back end of the animal would have looked like. The rear end of the fossil was shovelled out during construction work, before realizing that there was a massive intact fossil. The fossil was featured in depth in National Geographic magazine, the June 2017. @jeffdeboer.bsky.social welding the steel wire tail section for the nodosaur Borealopelta markmitchelli fossil sculpture. The sculpture was commissioned by the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, and it was carefully installed around the fossil. I was so lucky to apprentice with Jeff on this project of a lifetime, learning to weld big metal 🙏 One Becomes Many: a necklace made up of many swirling egg-shaped, linked units, was cast in a traditional bronze alloy of copper and tin, and set with amethysts. It is pictured on a white background. This necklace was inspired growing up in Cornwall amongst all the copper and tin mines, with a childhood spent rock-hunting—finding quartz crystals, and occasional beautiful amethysts and garnets in the gravel spoil created by Cornish china clay (kaolinite) mining. This gravel showed up by the truckload as my grandparents built a new house, and caused me endless grief that I couldn’t sort through it all fast enough before it was buried again. The theme and title of the necklace reference my scientific training, and the gift of replicating molecules. It was such a joy as an adult learner to go back to art school, and unite science and art in so many projects; this is the necklace I always turn to for special occasions--it is bold, and strong, and despite all that metal, it doesn’t feel heavy to wear. Does make me feel like Boudica awaiting her chariot 💪❣️
May 13, 2025 at 10:45 PM
metalisclay.bsky.social
Love how these functional #stoneware #pinchpot samples turned out--left unglazed so that the audience at my talk could really feel the shapes, and see the textures left behind...right down to the creases made by my skin.

#madeinaskutt #pinchypinchy #textureinclay #ceramics #madebyhand
Natural stoneware tea bowl, made by pinching clay. The clay is still raw in this image. About 3.5" tall, with a rounded bowl shape at the base and sides that gently slope in towards the rim. The top has slight interruptions, these arise as natural textures in the clay arrive at the top of the tea bowl, and become an integral part of the structure of the vessel. These details were deliberately not smoothed out from the clay as I worked, so that the clay records both process and my choices, while exerting its own identity and nature into the piece. Also visible in the picture—some surface areas of the raw clay have dried paler. This is due to efflorescence, the result of natural soluble salts in the clay rising to the surface as the clay dries. This soluble material creates a little bonus glassy glaze on the surface, or sometimes a blush on the clay when it is fired. Fired buff stoneware plates and bowls, with one glazed bowl at the front. Natural Alberta stoneware, with swirling, wave-like brushed black underglaze under a milky matte white glaze. Bowl is the perfect size for soup or oatmeal and fruit.
April 29, 2025 at 7:42 PM
metalisclay.bsky.social
A couple of blues.
My pinching process gives both of us--me, and the clay--time to develop our stories.

#upsalablue #porcelain #contemporaryporcelain #SIO2 #artiststudio #ceramics #womensart #pinchpots #contemporaryancient #handmade #calgary #slowdown #slowart
Seven inches tall, newly made pinched porcelain vessel. Standing on a narrow foot that seems to disappear. The form is a bright sky or cobalt blue that will become even more intense after firing. The surface is deeply textured, due to the unique pinching technique that Christine Pedersen has developed over her last 25 years of pinching clay. This technique means that each piece is always unique--the texture emerges from the clay, as the artist encourages the clay to tell its story. Pinching process underway: looking down into a half-made blue porcelain vessel, resting gently in the artist's hand. Its' interior is beautifully smooth, though the exterior is intensely textured. Another highly textured blue vessel is in the background waiting for its turn to be worked on.
April 16, 2025 at 5:49 PM
metalisclay.bsky.social
Come hang with the Maker’s Dozen jewellers at #AlbertaCraftCouncil Calgary gallery: opening reception on April 26th, 2-4 pm, at cSpace, in Marda Loop ✨

"Strong Bonds" -Concrete & Graffiti Series
#makersdozenyyc #handmade #silver #jewelry #jewellery #canadianjewellery #womensart #yyc #artshow
"Strong Bonds" sterling silver post earrings, glowing against on a black background. The earrings feature uniquely textured silver circles, made by hammering the metal onto the concrete sidewalk outside the artist's home. The textured silver also looks like the surface of a distant planet; the upper and lower circles are connected by 14 karat gold-filled chain, so that the lower circles will gently move with the wearer. Alberta Craft Council media release for the MAKERS' DOZEN Earring Edition show: April 19 - June 21, 2025 Reception: Saturday, April 26, 2025 | 2 - 4pm Alberta Craft Gallery SPACE in Marda loop 1721 - 29 Avenue SW, Suite #280, Calgary, AB Street Parking available | Free Everyone welcome The Makers' Dozen collective connects 13 jewellery artists from Southern Alberta, each contributing their unique vision, techniques, and craftsmanship to a shared creative space. Makers' Dozen - Earring Edition highlights not only the stunning final pieces but also the artists themselves and their creative processes. Featuring 65 pairs of earrings, it invites visitors to explore a diversity of approaches, ranging from traditional goldsmithing and intricate beading to experimental metalwork. Makers' Dozen collective: Ashleigh Amber Moore, Barb Temple, Bramble Lee Pryde, Christine Pedersen, Cherry Deacon, Devon Clark, Jennea Frischke, Kari Woo, Melissa Pedersen, Melissa Victor, Sarah Whalen Lunn, Shona Rae, Stephanie Elderfield www.albertacraft.ab.ca Alberta Foundation for the Arts Edmonton Arts Council The City of Edmonton City of Calgary Alberta Government calgary arts development
April 13, 2025 at 3:35 AM
metalisclay.bsky.social
It’s really tough figuring out what goes in and what to leave out of an artist talk, I mean, I’ve basically got 25 years of homework to review since I was a studio member at North Mount Pleasant Arts Centre. Strap in! 💥😆
.
#ceramics #canadianceramics #pinchpots #artisttalk #yyc #yycartist #vase
Pictured: screenshot from the slides for my talk—many handmade pinched ceramic vases, filled with flowers. I'm trying to cram as many pretty flowers in vases onto one slide as possible, just for the joy of them! All photos taken in my yellow dining room as a backdrop. Lots of bread--I'm carb-loading for strength tomorrow! Gluten-free vegan sourdough batons, and a tray of raisin ginger sticky buns. Also made my honey a wholemeal sourdough, with my GF starter and some strong spring red wheat bread flour--he says it's delicious, tastes like proper Hovis. I am so happy for him, and equally gutted that I can't stuff a big hunk of it into my face!
March 28, 2025 at 2:35 AM
metalisclay.bsky.social
🎶Intermission: small wood-fired pourer with a lovely ash-mossy shoulder. First bisque firing of 2025 underway, been a long wait for some days just above zero C. No pics of what went in the kiln—fingers crossed they survive…😅

#ceramics #pottersofbluesky #woodfired #pinchpot #vessel #plainsmanclay
Grape-fruit sized pouring vessel, with textured surface cause by hand-pinching the speckled stoneware clay. Toasty brown near the base with yellows and grey near the shoulder, yellow ash droplets on grey, and a pale robin's egg blue glaze inside. Close-up on the shoulder of the pinched stoneware pourer, with flecks of yellowy-brown ash droplets that have deposited onto the clay in the wood-kiln. Clay is toast brown, though yellow with grey carbon-trapping, with a lovely pale blue inside.
March 19, 2025 at 4:13 PM
metalisclay.bsky.social
Excited to share I’ll be presenting an artist talk on March 28, 7pm, at my clay alma mater--the lovely North Mount Pleasant Art Centre, in Calgary. Hope to see you there!
.
#artisttalk #ceramics #materiality #yycart #yycartist #handbuilding #pinchpots #canadianceramics #christinepedersenceramics
Poster for an artist talk by Christine Pedersen, on March 28, 2025, at North Mount Pleasant Art Centre in Calgary, Canada. Title is "Pinch, Push, and Flow: Finding a Voice in Clay Through Form and Texture, With a Little Destruction Along The Way". Image shows a collage of porcelain forms in her signature style, with deeply textured and refined modelled surfaces. At the back of the group is a chased bronze circular form representing her studies at AUA in the Jewellery + Metals program. Quote: "I started clay classes at North Mount in 1996, a year after I emigrated from England to Canada—it was that education and community that helped me develop the skills to set up my home studio. I’ll be diving into my process, doing some demos, and generally obsessing about all things clay (with a bit of metal sneaking in)". Hope to see you there!
March 10, 2025 at 5:00 PM
metalisclay.bsky.social
S l o w job--adding teensy bits of clay to create the modelled rim on a blue and white porcelain vessel (see last post). Inspired by the UN’s 2025 International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation.
#glaciers2025 #contemporaryporcelain #ceramics #ceramicvessel #albertaartist #canadianceramics
March 5, 2025 at 5:58 PM
metalisclay.bsky.social
#WIP #Process isn't always pretty: one of the sculptural ceramics hiding under a heap of plastic in the last post. Full discussion in the ALT text.

#ceramics #art #sculpture #artist #artistatwork #artinprogress #Artworkflow #artiststudio #hands #clay #Creativeprocess #pottersofbluesky
For every picture of finished ceramic, resting in perfect light, there are hundreds more taken while some piece was struggling to come to life. The images speak to some other kind of thing—unknown as yet, a shape that’s unresolved and hard to understand, on the brink of losing the battle against gravity. I’m weeks into slowly coaxing this vessel into being, it’s a bit like nursing an invalid: I have to keep checking to see when I can work again, based on the clay regaining strength, sharing in a process of building and re-building. Pieces like this make me feel like I’m completely on the edge as I’m making: The method is high risk. The material is working to explain the concept. I have to use materials intuitively based on the look I want to achieve, usually not sticking to what the manufacturer recommends as the best use. I don’t know precisely what the look will be when I get to “finished”, I’m working some details out on the fly, based on what the materials say I can do. For most of the process, I only have a partial sense that the piece could be successfully brought to “done”. Maybe that’s all part of the attraction?
February 18, 2025 at 6:19 PM
metalisclay.bsky.social
My very tiny clay studio, in full flowy mess (more in the ALT text). That's the clay end--somehow metal-work happens in there too but not at the same time because only one pair of hands (annoyingly).

#pottersofbluesky #ceramics #texture #studiomess #Fridayfun #stoneware #vase #rawclay #texture
Wide image of a small grey room, an old office chair is in the middle--no one sitting on it--because the artist is standing up to photograph the 10 sandy stoneware pinch pots she is currently making, which is utter madness because the clay dries out so fast, and the heating is going full blast because it's -20C outside in Alberta, Canada. Loads of dry cleaner plastic covers porcelain sculpture that will take months to dry. It's barely organized chaos. Six inch tall pinched sandy stoneware vase, made from one pound of clay. Lots of surface texture, and a broken uneven rim that documents how the clay responded to the making process.
February 7, 2025 at 7:13 PM
metalisclay.bsky.social
Unpack pots right where you need to work on photography 🙄 --then move all the pots so everyone can get their moment in the spotlight. Older work, documenting/writing ahead of an upcoming talk.

#potshot #ceramics #pottersofbluesky #woodfired #woodfiredceramics #womenwhowoodfire #handbuilt #pinchpots
Pinched vase/vessel, with undulating landscape rim. Acorn shape--narrow foot swells to level shoulder, with uneven gestural rim reminiscent of hills and trees. BMix clay with pale green celadon glaze showing the deeply textured surface. Woodfired to cone 9/10, bare clay has a gentle peach blushes. Potshot, woodfired bowls vessels, bowls and dishes all over my photography area. Lots of colours--torqoise, green, brown, carbon-trapped grey.
February 4, 2025 at 5:10 PM
metalisclay.bsky.social
Once upon a time I did quite a bit of wood-firing. It was bliss. I felt like my pots (and I) really benefited from atmospheric firings. Pulling out pots to update photography--might also be some muffled sobbing.

#ceramics #woodfire #womenwhowoodfire #handbuilt #vessel #wufar
Woodfired, rectangular flask vessel with deeply carved surface lines, in flowing curves--like over-laid muscles. Sloping sides rise from rectangular base to a narrow neck. Colour is dark grey due to carbon-trapping in naked clay surface. There is a freckling of mossy green ash blobs on the shoulders, and all-over scatter of surface crystals, presumed due to reduction cooling in that firing. Made with a dark-burning stoneware clay body.
January 31, 2025 at 6:44 PM
metalisclay.bsky.social
Musing about photographing ceramics, whilst sat on my numb butt writing applications. I learn so much about a piece by looking at it through the lens, in every kind of light.

#art #pottersofbluesky #porcelain #studioceramics #pinchpots #clay #ceramics #sculpture #sculpturalceramics
Title: Three (Of a Kind). Tall white porcelain vessel; three joined, curving, rounded forms rise and sway, with three curved and modelled openings near the top of each form. Sitting on a Douglas Fir block, light flooding inside shows up the curved forms in the interior. Side-lighting highlights the remains of gentle finger marks in the smooth, matte surface. The same porcelain vessel, photographed in bright white studio light. Title: Three (Of a Kind). Tall white porcelain vessel; three joined, curving, rounded forms rise and sway, with three curved and modelled openings near the top of each form. All-around lighting removes some of the information about the minimal finger marks remaining in the smooth, matte surface.
January 27, 2025 at 6:22 PM
metalisclay.bsky.social
Testing...learning how long a studio/phone video can be to limbo under the 50 Mb limit. Editing in iMovie, can't compress. This is 44s 🤞😬 (Tall footed porcelain vessel from an earlier post).
#pottersofbluesky #porcelain #ceramics #pinchpots #clay #pottery #handmade #artist #makervideo
January 25, 2025 at 9:29 PM
metalisclay.bsky.social
Hey #Calgary #Alberta #clay folks--my friend Pamma is presenting tonight at North Mount Pleasant Art Centre. See you there???

#pottersofbluesky
January 24, 2025 at 5:42 PM
metalisclay.bsky.social
I pinch clay. Pieces can be weeks in the making, coaxing and cultivating intense surface texture, revealing the inner life of the clay. #crunchy #porcelain #pinchpots #clay #bisque #oxidation #cone10 #canadianceramics
January 23, 2025 at 11:10 PM
metalisclay.bsky.social
Hello 2025! Slowly coming out of hibernation, glued to the laptop writing applications, next piece of porcelain drafted in my head, soooooo ready to get back in the studio 😋
January 23, 2025 at 10:17 PM
metalisclay.bsky.social
✋💎 💫 Infinity loops: big, bold, loop earrings, always changing with you ✨

Available. Closing reception for the @makersdozen_yyc earring show from 1-4pm on Saturday November 30th @sparrow.artspace. Hope to see you there!

#silver #handmadejewelry #yyc #artist
November 29, 2024 at 6:08 AM
metalisclay.bsky.social
✋💎 drinks@5! —the best email in any office work-day. These new earrings epitomize my dress code: you can get away with anything if you add a well-cut jacket, and glam earrings. Always kept a spare pair in my desk, right next to the painkillers and chocolate🍸💊🍫💖
#handmadejewelry #earrings #glam
November 27, 2024 at 4:53 AM