As COVID-19 and its ensuing lockdowns began to spread across North America last spring, Canadian potter and ceramics teacher Isabelle Bisnaire found wheel throwing to be a source of calm and focus. During this period of self-isolation, she created A Stone’s Throw, a series of work that appears to be a meditation on relationships and one's seclusion from them. The series seems to contemplate fractures and emptiness absorbed in quarantine life and the healing and strength we find within our lonely selves, right when we might need it most, and the anticipated reunification with our loved ones.
Using a dark granite clay mix for that handsome color and grain, Bisnaire creates a striking, monotonal faux-repair effect similar to kintsugi for several of the pieces, where the wounds accumulated give the impression of being mended and closed, with grace not just intact but reinforced. The few lighter pieces in the series contrast with the dark granite wonderfully, and seem to bear weight of Bisnaire's sculpted stones and pebbles with poise and hardiness—there is beauty found in the burden.
Despite the rough go our dear planet has had this past year, Bisnaire continues to run her Hamilton, Ontario pottery studio, Play With Clay; currently providing take-home pottery & clay kits for order and pickup while public health restrictions remain active in her area. She mentioned, in the Imgur post where I found her work, that she was considering opening an Etsy shop to sell her pieces, but as of writing this, no such shop yet exists.
A Stone's Throw is a nudge for us all to continue to pull strength from within, and to wear our scars with all the aesthetic knack of Bisnaire's beautiful ceramics.
