Susan Day Ceramics climbing walls

I recently came across the amazing work of Ceramist Susan Day. She received her early art education at BealArt in London, Ontario, later the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD) in Halifax, Nova Scotia as well as a residency at the Banff Centre in Banff, Alberta. Susan is a visual artist whose work is predominately constructed of ceramic.  She has an extensive exhibition history and her work has successfully straddled the worlds of contemporary craft and fine art. She is not one to be easily daunted by working on a large scale project, or a large surface for that matter.

Her work originates from personal drawings and ideas and then she uses numerous hand-made stamps to create many variations which accumulate in large numbers, ready to adorn the next walled commission. I love the scratchy delicate honesty in her work.

Fab to see these studio insights on her instagram feed of work in progress.

She has accepted huge scale comissions like the one at the London Clay Art Centre (LCAC) in London, Ontario, Canada. The building now sports one of Susan’s exquisite, large-scale mosaic created to celebrate the country’s 150th birthday in 2017.

A total of 650 individuals from 25 distinct groups participated in workshops related to the mosaic project throughout the spring and summer of 2017. In addition, 80 member-artists of The London Potters Guild (LPG), the charitable organization that owns and operates LCAC, volunteered 880 hours working alongside community members, teaching and encouraging them to tell their stories by building, carving, stamping, and painting images on the clay. Around the area of the Old East Village, Susan has taken on a number of other large scale projects such as the Wayfinding Mosaics..

and the Gateway Mosaics.

The image above is the floor of an elevator in the new London, Ontario Children’s Museum and the beautiful shop front below which is again part of the Old East Village.

Various clay versions of artefacts Susan remembers seeing around her home which her mother used for her health.

Here is a collection of some of her smaller work.

Various interior and exterior projects.

This amazing work is a residential collaboration with Skinner Architects, London, Ontario.

Needless to say that Susan has undertaken so many large scale building projects, that she now owns her own Cherry Picker !! Wonderfully inspirational artwork Susan, I am looking forward to seeing what will come next !

You can learn more about Susan and her working methods via this half hour video.