Out in the backwoods of Florenceville New Brunswick, Yolande Clark lives with her

husband, Lee Horus Clark and their son Horus and daughter Treva, creating ceramic pieces

together. Yolande was always pursuing the creative arts. She grew up in Vancouver,

volunteering her time towards community gardens and the Folk Music Festival. In high

school she played the piano then attended Arts Umbrella for visual and performing arts. She

later began to study writing, publishing, and editing at The Simon Fraser University in 2001.

From there she studied, for a short period of time, graphic design and digital photography at

the Focal Point Visual Arts Learning Centre. In 1999 to 2005 she studied Fine Arts at the

University of British Columbia also continuing her passion for English Literature and

Creative Writing. In 2005 she apprenticed Lee Horus Clark, in New Brunswich for three

years for woodfiring, and now since has been with him.

How Yolande, an artist or anyone, fits into the 21st century is by living in the moment.

Following the intuition that guides her to find the spirit within the clay, and following it

through the processes that then gives these creations a life all of their own. Another attribute

to belonging to the 21st century is being connected. She has blogs, websites and various

social networks on the internet creating communities for sharing images, techniques and

ideas. She also has a down-to-Earth to approach, communicating face-to-face for a valued

connection, and learning experience, assisting in a local gallery and participating in artist

talks in Eastern Canada and Europe.

Furthermore, having the virtual world ready at your fingertips doesn’t ensure success,

clarity or enlightenment. A belief of hers begins with focusing on what is important, finding
your own center is the experience itself, nurturing it for growth, finding your centre enables

you to sow the seeds of passion. As a mother and an artist she has incorporated her passions

into her everyday life, focusing on the actualities such as organizing cords of wood,

contributing to raising a family, working out kiln firing problems, progressing in her writing

and publications, while selling ceramic work and paintings. She gives ceramic workshops

and classes to individuals and small groups, she also edits publications for small businesses

and independent writers.

Her path to spirituality is to emerge herself within the complexities in the time-

honoured tradition of woodfiring using a long 27 foot anangama kiln, named the “Little River

Anagama”, which they fire twice a year. Anagama is japanese term for cave kiln, and recently

her and her husband have rebuilt the chimney for theirs. Her passion for such an intense and

dedicated product relies heavily on the japanese aesthetic of wab-sabi, which means beauty

within the imperfection of nature. Wanting to enhance the spirituality of firing a kiln, and

often this includes the burning tamarack and pine, is the intuitive approach her and her

husband take for the four to twelve days it takes to fire it; as of lately, firing a kiln which has

been newly incorporated into her life, the bourrigama, which could take as little as five days

to fire.

Yolande loads all of her work into the kiln leaving the natural clay body exposed, it is

the process of the ash melting at high temperatures naturally forming a glaze that intrigues

her, although, sometimes she uses a shino glaze. Using her refined senses in favor over the

devices such as cones and pyrometers to evaluate the flame, heat, smoke and the smell, giving
her the full awareness of the life inside and outside of the kiln. This heightened awareness lets

her know when she has to stoke the flame, differing about every 3-6 minutes, and she and her

husband do this for 24 hours during the five to twelve days of the firing process. Giving into

physical pressure, the fire, the sunrise to create ash and embers, all of the nuances responsible

for the rebirth of the ceramic forms.

In an anagama kiln, a wood burning kiln, the temperature can raise up to 1400 c, and

it produces fly ash, dark flecks of ashes carried through the air inside the kiln, also

unpredictable salts, which change rapidly under various temperatures. These substances

settle on the pieces, and since the kiln is set on an incline, the end results are various, due to

how the ash settles on the pieces, which can produce a combination of surface details when

it’s between flame and clay body. The melting ash produces a natural glaze, fluctuating

between rough, smooth or glossy, and thicknesses as well.

Having the ability to bring back the essence of the time-honoured tradition of

woodfiring in our current culture is remarkable, fending for yourself in a mainstream world is

important to any artist who sells their work for a living, and she enjoys how her work comes

out completely its own, another importance to successful work.