Local Potter Wheeling Away for Craft Sale

Fredericton, NB- Ceilidh Craig is a second-year pottery student at the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design. Craig spends six to eight hours each day in the college’s cavernous pottery studio, turning lumps of clay into ceramic art. Normally her pieces are passed along to her teachers to be graded and returned to her, but this time of year, there’s more.

Every year, NBCCD puts on a craft sale for the public. This sale allows the emerging artists studying at the college to show their wares off to the people of the community, as well as put a bit of money in their pockets.

“It’s great for students who haven’t yet set up their own business, per se,” says Craig. “A lot of the younger students have a tough time getting set up to make money, so the craft sale gives them the type of exposure they might need to get going.”

Although many of the students at the college explore entrepreneurship alongside their studies, many either lack the time or the confidence to venture out on their own. With a school-sanctioned event like the craft sale, many of these students can set up a booth, print a business card, and attract the attention of the art community.

For Craig, the craft sale is an opportunity to unload the surplus product she generates in classes. For this year’s sale, she has produced dozens of mugs, bowls, plates, spinning tops, and tiles. The majority of this product, she says, is just “random stuff that I made and didn’t submit.” From an art enthusiast’s perspective, this ‘random stuff’ might just be the perfect Christmas gift, or finishing touch to a kitchen or bookshelf.

If pottery isn’t your taste, or if you just want something else, the college also has studios dedicated to metalwork and jewelry, textiles, woodwork, Indigenous art, and painting/drawing.

Fredericton is a city with a vibrant and historical art culture, and that culture is carried on through the courses taught at the Craft College. All students who enroll at the college take a one-year foundation program, throughout which they sample each of the available disciplines. Following the completion of the foundation program, they are free to choose a medium to continue with. The foundation program allows students who may have a rough idea of where they would like to go the opportunity to either reinforce or refute their plan, based on working experience in a variety of arts.

Events like the annual craft sale allow the students to see the fruits of their labor become the objects of others’ desire. Whether specializing, or just feeling things out, the students all agree, it feels good to sell their art.