Mark Kelner

Well, I guess it all started in grade four, but I do remember finger painting and drawing well before that.

Our teacher would take the class to a separate room where we would draw and paint for a period.

I remember everybody going back to class, except me.

I was to stay for one more period. My grade 7 and 8 art teachers also recommended to my parents that they send me to Art School.

So off to Central Technical School I went. Studying Art History, Anatomy, Still-Life, Life Drawing, Lettering and Illustration.

I had some great teachers while there: Doris McCarthy, Virginia Luz, Charles Goldhammer, and Audie Hosie.

I submitted my portfolio upon entering the Ontario College of Art and I received advanced standing and entered into my second year.

During my second and third years I studied Advertising and Painting, they later changed that to Communications and Design and an Illustrator is what I wanted to be!

OCA had some of the best Illustrators in Toronto at the time: Huntley Brown, Tom Hodgson, and Gerald Lazare.

My fourth year was a little different with a new president from England, specialization was out!

That is how I found clay. My fourth year was spent learning how to throw, mix glazes, load kilns but mainly throwing with instruction from potter, teacher, David Long and Joan Bobbs.

Supporting myself through my three years of College was done by working at City Hall Square in Toronto as a Rink Guard in the winter and working as an apprentice Glazier for Canadian Pittsburgh Industries through the summer.

After graduation and finding out about Tobermory, I was brought up to join Circle Arts Gallery and Co-op by Sue and Al Smutylo, returning to Toronto every fall to work at the College as their clay technician.

I left the technician job in 1981 to be in Tobermory year 'round.

My work can be purchased at a number of locations throughout Grey-Bruce, besides the Artists' Co-op, there is the Bruce Peninsula Society of Artists in Lion's Head, Stone Rose outside Wiarton and the Golden Gallery in Tobermory, or just come by for a visit at my home. I'm two miles south of Tobermory on Warner Bay Road.

1st photo:
Tan glaze bottle
cone 9 oxidation.

2nd photo:
Light blue glaze bottle
cone 10 reduction.

3rd photo:
Dark blue glaze teapot
cone 9 oxidation.

4th photo:
Wine goblets, dark blue glaze
cone 9 oxidation.

5th photo:
Casserole, dark blue glaze
cone 9 oxidation.

Contact information —
Goose Creek Pottery
#28 Warner Bay Road
RR # 1
Tobermory ON
N0H 2R0
ph. (519) 596 2331