My name is Emma Heitzmann, I'm a potter and a sculptor and I currently live in Campbell River BC. I was born in Calgary, Alberta and moved out to Vancouver Island in late 2011.
Working in the ceramic medium is highly elemental, raw earth and water to make it malleable, fire and air to change the material to something that will last until someday it erodes back into its component parts.
I find a great deal of inspiration and interest in the natural world around me and have been learning a great deal about the flora and fungi of the area I live in since I moved from Calgary. Bringing some of the passion I have for the natural world into the work I create has become a main area of focus for a number of years now. I feel that there are nearly endless possibilities that flow from our forests and oceans into my work.
I make work that both mimics and represents several species of mushroom, that dances with bees, and that offers daily practice of prayer and noticing.
Bees are essential to our food sources, they brighten our lives with the help of the flowers the pollinate, and they make me smile. I wish to honor their hives and their honey with my work and bring some of their cheer into our homes, into our lives.
I find them fascinating, hidden gems in our forests and fields. Taking a walk in fall or spring through the mossy, fern filled forests I open my eyes to the unusual, the unexpected, the tiny and start to see something new. Stumbling onto a chanterelle glowing gold in a patch of sunlight, realizing the road I walk upon is covered with thousands of tiny orange cup fungus or noticing a log that has sprouted a hundred delicate fans from its entire surface. That experience of noticing is what I strive to bring to my work. Take a walk in the woods with mushroom vision on and I promise you’ll see things you never have before!
I set myself a challenge in the fall of 2015 to create functional vessels matching six different species of mushrooms and fungus that grow in our Pacific Northwest rainforests. My first attempts were of stem and cap mushrooms- Golden Chanterelles, brilliantly purple Amethyst Deceivers, and bright orange Witches Hats. How do you create a form that is functional from these shapes? My initial strategy was to take the form apart; the stem became a handle, the cap and gills attached to the sides and bottoms as decorative elements in a mug form. Glazing is a challenge and alchemy all of its own. Although my initial shapes and forms captured some essence of what I wanted, I devoted to many rounds of testing in an attempt to match the color and surface texture of my target species. Although I spent a great deal of time working towards the right shade of chanterelle gold, I ended up with a vibrant orange matt and semi matt glaze instead. I applied this glaze to several species including the orange peel fungus and the scaly vase chanterelle forms (note: not an edible species). Both of these species have cuplike or goblet like shapes in some stages of their growth, so I was able to make the appropriate forms with very little modification at all.