Featured Potter - Natalie Swift
Natalie Swift picked up pottery in 2022 when she and her friend, Krista Jager, wanted an excuse to spend more time in Quesnel. Taking private pottery lessons with Ian Grant and David Bianchi from Gold Pan Pottery was the perfect fit and now she’s hooked! Soon after they completed their lessons, both Natalie and Krista became members of the Cariboo Potters’ Guild.
Visual art has been close to Natalie’s heart from the time she was a child, as noticed by many in her hometown of Peterborough, Ontario. When her highschool art teacher encouraged her to study art in university, Natalie’s now long-gone highschool boyfriend had already turned her attention to studying natural resources. When she broke the news to her teacher, Natalie consoled her with promises of bringing painting supplies with her into the woods, like Tom Thompson or the Group of Seven!
Considering her love of the natural world, Natalie enjoys using earthy colours in her work. Lately, she’s been using either brown mid-fire clay with blue, green, and white glazes or simple pieces made of speckled mid-fire clay. She’s also fond of featuring waves on her pieces – a nod to her passion for paddle sports. In fact, Natalie uses her pottery as a means of supporting local paddlers by dedicating a portion of her “Puddle Boarding Co” pottery sale profits to the “SUP in the Puddle” paddleboard group.
As a new potter, Natalie has been focused on building her technical skills on the wheel and experimenting with new techniques. She’s also very interested in harvesting and processing local clay, but hasn’t quite gotten to actually doing it yet!