Just as her artwork fuses together recycled glass and stone, Peterborough artist Christy Haldane believes art in itself can be a fusion of both admirable fine art and interactive, functional craftwork.
This Saturday (November 4), her glass-and-stone creations will be on display at the fall open house at Lakefield’s The English Potter & Co. There, Haldane will be joined by the other local artisans whose work is featured at the store, including Emerance Baker (Stoney Lake Textiles), Gail West (The English Potter), and Jim Riches (FriendLilySHOP).
From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., the open house will include refreshments, sewing, and pottery demonstrations, and the chance to win a gift basket. Though labelled a fall open house, it’s sure to feel more like a winter festivity, given the flutters of snow on the ground and the thoughts of custom Christmas gifts in the back of shoppers’ minds.
“We’re hoping that people come out and talk to us about commission work and begin to think about getting unique gifts made in our own styles,” explains Haldane.
Though Haldane has been a part of The English Potter since May, she spreads herself across the Kawarthas, living in Peterborough and working from her studio space in Douro, which she shares with Garrett Gilbart (Burn Island).
There, she crafts her one-of-a-kind sculptural installations, functional pieces like vases and bookends, and custom “Memory Stones” curated from a stone provided by a client. Her work can be found in galleries and shops across Ontario, including in Toronto, Ottawa, Port Dover, Prince Edward County, Port Perry, and beyond.
Haldane was studying furniture design at Sheridan College when she says she got “sucked in” to hot glass (glass blowing) as a medium, which eventually led her to experiment with the kiln that she uses now.
“It’s an old medium, but not in the artistic sense,” Haldane says. “It was interesting to me to get into using a material that’s not commonly used in fine arts and being able to straddle the craft world and the art world.”
With this background in craft and design, Haldane was taught to make “useful” items, but was drawn to the capacity the medium had for both sculptural and functional pieces, and in the different ways to “approach” the material. Fortunately, throughout her career, she’s noticed a growing interest in glass work and more acceptance of craft as art.
“I find craft as a medium, since I’ve been in school, has become more accepted in the mainstream art gallery,” Haldane notes. “I think people want to be able to feel, touch, and experience it. And I think with the craft mediums, people can relate to them and understand it.”
In 2000, when Haldane went to study at the Canberra Art School in Australia, she began to think less about the distinction between art and craft and more about bridging the gap between functional items and contemporary art that is more centred around concept.
“It was always this question you have to answer,” she says. “Whereas I went to Australia and I felt like they were telling me, ‘Who cares? Let’s just make’.”
With this freedom, it was during her time in Australia she become more experimental in approaching glass work, intentionally thinking about using recycled glass and ways to repurpose found material. She continues to use repurposed window glass in her work today.
“Once you’ve started using those recycled materials and glass materials, it’s really hard to go back,” she explains. “I don’t want to produce any more plastic — even concrete is really bad for the environment — so I’m trying to just make my practice as sustainable as I can.”
Like the evolution of craft as art, conversations around environmentally conscious practices have also become more commonplace throughout the course of Haldane’s career, and now many friends and neighbours will give her their discarded glass and bottles to repurpose.
“Window glass can’t be recycled like other glass, so that’s why I really gravitate to it,” Haldane points out, adding that glass production is another massive industry and it would take a lot of energy to extract what she would need out of the earth.
Committed to purposeful purchasing, Haldane feels it important to do what she can to repurpose what already is being discarded in the world and thinks that’s a key piece to think about when purchasing from an artisan.
“That’s the nice thing about craft — you’re working with the local artist or artisan and there’s thought put into it,” the artist explains. “You talk to them, you get to tell them your story, and they produce something that fits in, and it becomes a heirloom or a story in itself. I think we really need to start thinking about the want and the need of our lives more — and you need art.”
As a maker, Haldane has believed in the power of a small item made with purpose since she was young and growing up on Lake Erie. She collected all the little materials that she could find, like shattered glass, fossils, and stones.
This continues to gave an impact on her work today, as she says a lot of her work is about “memories and recollection,” especially when it comes to her custom Memory Stones.
“I liked that idea of having objects that actually have significance through your life,” she notes. “It’s all about incorporating the rocks to have memory of a place, of a moment.”
Currently, Haldane is experimenting with fusing recycled bottled glass, adding more colour to her structures.
Along with being present at the fall open house at The English Potter on Saturday, Haldane and her artwork can be found during Ladies Night Out in Lakefield being held over six Tuesday and Thursday evenings in November (as of the date of this story, all evenings are sold out except for November 28 and 30).
To browse and purchase Haldane’s sculptures, visit www.christyhaldane.com and, to stay up to date on events and fairs, follow her on Facebook.
The original version of this story has been updated with a correction about the dates for Ladies Night Out in Lakefield.
