JUDY BLAKE / LINCOLN, NB

As a young artist, Judy Blake encountered the burnished, unglazed pottery of the Southwest Native Americans and the Mata Ortiz of Northern Mexico. She became completely captivated by the sensual beauty and surface qualities of those timeless vessels and the unpredictable firing processes used to create them. Since that time, Judy has worked to emulate these fascinating surfaces by using fire to breathe life into her work. She is inspired by her love of natural beauty and with each piece she finds a subtle balance between strength of form and sense of presence.

Judy experiments extensively with unglazed surface treatments using alternative firing techniques such as sawdust-firing, naked raku and saggar-firing. She is one of a small number of Canadians and the only ceramic artist in the Maritimes using these techniques. She has had an opportunity to influence many students as a teacher in the Ceramics Studio at the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design from 1998 to 2012 and continues to do so. Judy Blake maintains a studio practice in Lincoln, New Brunswick.