 pottery&artworks
featuring
SAM MOLIGIAN
salt glaze potter
a word about our concern for quality P.O. Box 783 North Bay Ontario P1B8J8 janes@ontera.net
milk jugs in the salt kiln |
 
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| About Sam Moligian: | |
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Moligian fell in love with salt glazing the first time he saw the dazzling blues, greens and golds of salt fired pots being unloaded from the student-built kiln at Sheridan College, where he had enrolled and chosen "CERAMICS" as his major study. After graduating he set up a small studio in the Caledon Hills outside Toronto where he built his very own salt kiln and produced a line of fine signature pieces that earned him a good living and an outstanding reputation for well crafted forms with clean stong lines and decorated with the blues, greens and golds of metal oxides in combination with the pebbled surface of salt glaze. With an almost messianic spirit spirit, Moligian set about bringing the world of salt glaze to the potters of Ontario. Having outgrown a dodge half-ton with a cattle trailer housing his salt kiln, he converted a 40 foot trailer into housing , studio and kiln shed. With some financial assistance from Wintario, he purchased a Mack tractor to haul the trailer/studio/home. Moligian taught workshops in the salt glaze technique to students in almost every college in Ontario and some in other provinces. He continued to produce his own work until he froze his axles in North Bay and agreed to collaborate with Jane Agnew in the development of a slip cast line of oxidation fired pottery designed to add simplicity, function and grace to the Canadian kitchen. Sam continues to produce both one-of-a-kind signature pieces and the majority of the pieces in the Jane's Pottery production line |
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Biographical Sketch After graduating from both Sheridan College School of Design and York University with a diploma in ceramics and a BFA respectively, Agnew began a period of eight years of teaching at both the college and university levels. In 1978 she opened a studio and shop adjacent to her home in North Bay. In an effort to put economic impact behind her firm belief that the object maker is the ultimate designer and process controller, she expanded her operation turning the most popular item, the stoneware bag milk jug, into a large volume slip casting operation. Customers who had to wait six weeks for a milk jug were discontented: "one woman actually cried when I told her she would have to wait six weeks for her Jug" Agnew reminisses. Jane's Pottery Factory expanded operations building a fast fire tunnel kiln to reach production schedules of 100 jugs per week.
Although Jane's interest in Fine Art and sculpture in particular has had to take a back seat to a pottery career, the popularity of gardening and accessories for the garden has allowed her to develop a line of fountainry and sculpture to be cast in concrete. Agnew's interest in sculpture has found release in these concrete castings and the "Art Works" side of the company consumes most of her time. "I always wanted to support myself as an artist; really the pottery was supposed to be the income earner." Recently Jane has completed several contract installations and is combining the production art business with one of a kind installations. Dissemination of technical information and skills remains important to Agnew and she has made presentations at several professional conferences and continues to teach part time at Canadore College’s ‘Artsperience’and Sir Sanford Flemming’s, Haliburton School of Fine Art. |
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