Lynn Glover. Photo by Zenith Wolfe.
In July 2023, someone egged the Goat and Rabbit pottery studio.
Formerly a double garage, the studio is tucked to the side of a two-storey home at the end of a driveway, which has been converted into an overgrown courtyard. A stone path snakes through tall grass and around a large ornamental fountain. Entry into the sanctuary is barred by a gate with a rusty slide lock.
Anna Macquistan, a former pottery student and now instructor, leads the way to the front door, passing by four ceramic slugs hiding in the bushes next to a stencil sketch of Bill Murray on a stone slab. Sunny-side ups dot the path along the fountain.
Studio owner Lynn Glover, clad in dark blue overalls and a shirt decorated with her husband’s face, walks through the open doorway connecting the garage to her backyard, holding her dog Rosie under her arm. She smiles widely.
“I’ve been obsessed with eggs lately,” Glover says. “Some of my ceramic eggs are outside, on the studio. Did you see them?”
Glover has called herself a “fartist,” or a “funny artist,” since 2000, and the contents of the studio affirm that: Creepy disembodied faces sit beside large urns she dedicated to dead memes like Damn Daniel, all of them surrounded by countless eggs.
Also on display are some of the 170 cake slices she made at the start of the pandemic in memory of the birthday parties people couldn’t celebrate with their friends and family during lockdowns. She’s become known as the “Cake Lady” at the Ottawa Guild of Potters for these ceramics.
Lynn Glover with her dog Rosie and one of her cake sculptures. Photo by Zenith Wolfe.
“I hate art that you don’t understand because you’re not in on the joke,” Glover says. “I either explicitly write out the joke on the work of art, or I do it in the title so everybody can share the experience of enjoying it.”
The humour contributes to the comfortable atmosphere Glover is trying to generate in the studio. Through comedy, she tells students and other aspiring artists that art doesn’t always have to be so serious.
But the eggs are more than just a funny decoration. Now that she’s in her mid-40s, Glover says she has been thinking about what social roles women are expected to fill once they lose fertility. She says the egg vases symbolize the fact she has plenty to contribute to society other than her ability to give birth.
“The eggs are gone, leaving, diminishing, but I have lots still to give,” she says. “Even just acknowledging that there is a loss of something is a way to reclaim it.”
Eggs cover the walls at Goat and Rabbit pottery studio. Photo by Zenith Wolfe.
Her home studio is one of the many ways she helps others. This includes the young potter Macquistan.
Macquistan was studying at Canterbury High School when Glover, an art teacher since 2002, took notice of her talent. They now run the studio together, spending most of the time cleaning or giggling together while they brainstorm comedic ceramics.
Macquistan’s repertoire mainly includes sculptures of cats, slugs and cat-slug hybrids, with the occasional mug or vase. She says Glover’s studio is the only way she can explore these ideas or pursue pottery as an artistic medium because ceramics studios are usually booked months in advance, and there aren’t a lot of pottery professors in Ottawa.
“Studio prices are also very expensive, and I don’t have the space at my apartment to do pottery, sculpture or firing,” Macquistan says.
As Glover shows off the rest of her studio, she reinforces Macquistan’s point by listing how expensive the heavy equipment can be: wheels, which help “throwers” make clay pots, can go for $2,000; kilns used for firing ceramics are typically $7,000; and since stronger electrical inputs are also needed for kilns, tens of thousands of dollars in renovations can be necessary.
Glover raised most of the necessary funds by charging rent to a construction company that knocked down her garage and used her land to install a neighbouring condominium. She also got some equipment, including a free wheel and a $2,000 kiln, from a friend downsizing her pottery studio. Glover decided to rebuild the garage, where she installed all her equipment, and founded Goat and Rabbit pottery studio in May 2021. It’s named after her sons Billy (Goat), 11, and Peter (Rabbit), 8.
Dead meme urns. Photo by Zenith Wolfe.
But even if a home potter covers all those costs, Glover says they would still have to worry about health issues: “Clay dust is actually very bad for you, health-wise. You’re not just going to do this on the kitchen table. You need to have it in a separate area.” Plenty of Glover and Macquistan’s work involves mopping the floors, wiping down tables and washing tools so they’re not gunked up with dry clay.
Glover wraps up the tour and sits on one of the couches organized in a U-shape across from the clay-working table. Glover and Macquistan have been giving one-on-one lessons for the last few months, but they also started group classes in July for four to six people at a time, since they’re still doing test runs.
Macquistan says these lessons usually take several hours, and the setup is tedious. Most people overestimate their skills at first, Glover warns, so having an inviting and accessible environment is a crucial step in the learning process.
“Try the wheel. That’s the sexy one,” she says with a laugh. “But you get humbled real fast.”
You can visit Goat and Rabbit Pottery online and follow them on Instagram.
