Community Clayworks Project

The ceramic community that crowns the C4 Gallery was a collaboration between local ceramic artist Jennifer Wilson and Ottawa residents. Wilson led free clay workshops for participants of all ages at Hintonburg Community Centre, the Lowertown Community Resource Youth Centre and the Winthrop Court Community House. Developing a unified perspective of Ottawa’s unique communities was the conceptual focus and backdrop to teaching age-old ceramic techniques such as bas-relief, scrafitto, mosaic, slab work and hand building.

Participants had the opportunity to practice building houses using pre-rolled slabs, templates, slips and scoring tools as well as sculpting people using coils and plaster moulds. Participants were then given a small tile upon which to build their house, storefront, community building, group of people interacting, or park setting. Working from these completed small lots of land, Wilson composed this larger community focused on characterizing the various diverse communities that exist in Ottawa.