An interview with John Chalke, for Dreamers and Doers.
Q:
Talk to us about the history of clay work in Alberta…
A: Commonly Luke Lindoe was the pioneer. The man was also a painter and a prairie person – a man of the land. He was responsible for discovering most of the deposits of clay that we use today. Without him there wouldn’t be any art school up on the hill – with a ceramic dept – there would never have been a UofC art dept. Clay would be unknown in Edmonton – dreamt of but not realized.
Luke went around – up hill down dale – days weeks months. He told me once he would never take water with him but would drink gallons when he got back to the truck. He had an old Mercedes, 25 years old, that he would drive up and down. He literally led me to deposits and he said, for example – all around here the land is completely fractured there are hardly any good deposits of clay here but I know down in Medicine Hat the brick and tile industry really needs red clay. They are going to run out of it in 2 or 3 years and they don’t know that – I’ve looked at their stock piles. He led me up there and he showed me an amazing place with a view – huge rich red gleaming uncovered deposits of clay that would make a potter just dream.
Luke was the man and we owe him
a great deal – I consider myself really lucky to have met him.
He was an ornery s.o.b. – he told you what he thought and I kind of
liked that about him. He didn’t suffer fools gladly and when Barbara and I first
met him he tested us by taking us to Medicine Hat – right through at night –
it was totally dark – and he said you are going to camp out here and we found
out later that he had a house that could have easily put us up.
He went off a road and onto another road and soon we were bumping across
the prairie total darkness – we followed his headlamps
- he was an old man of 79 and he was driving much faster than we could.
His taillights almost disappeared and then he went off another trail and
another trail and eventually stopped and got out – there was the wind and
nothing else – no lights from Medicine Hat – totally dark. He said,
"Well – this is where you are going to camp – this is a good place –
I’ll see you at 6 oclock in the morning." And he turned and went off –and was gone.
We looked at each other - there
was prickly pear everywhere - and
he knew it and I knew it because I wasn’t exactly naďve to the prairie – it
was a test. He always did this with
people I found out afterwards. We
just managed to get an area clear for our tent – just barely – woke up in
the morning with prickly pear right beside your head.
That’s the kind of guy he was
– very brisk very together – and always testing you.
He would say something very quickly and look at you to see if you caught
that one. Then he would look away
– he wasn’t really looking at you in the first place. He was full of piss
and vinegar – down to earth – a kind man really once you got past all the
little foibles he had in line for you.
Prior to Luke – there were people like Katie Ohe, who was a sculptor in clay at that time and then worked in stainless steel after. Walt Drohan – a student of Lukes. People came after and I was one of the people who came in 1968.
The clay was very stiff on the prairies in – people used very stiff clay to make strong straight sided walls of pots and they were very kind of stern looking – weren’t very fluid or gestural. They say I brought a different aesthetic of softer clay to them – slower wheel – everyone had a wheel that went very fast – so fast wheel fast clay stiff clay made a particular kind of pot and I’m told that changed. I built the first wood firing kiln in western Canada that reached high temperature I’m told that too – out at the university.
I met Luke briefly in '68 but not to speak to him- he was intimidating. I met him in a gentler way not by much just by a degree or two – in '74 '75 – and then much more intimately – cause I actually made a video of him for two years, followed him around with a high 8 camera. With funds from Alberta culture – and followed him all over the place – from his kitchen to his painting studio in his VW truck – all over the place. He’d stop now and then and say – this is a great place where they must have made stone materials, the natives. Then he’d pick up a flint and hit it with another flint and nap it in a certain way and within in a minute or two he’d have a beautifully shaped arrow head. That would have been about '93 '94 and after that I slowly lost touch with him.
I recorded him because of his importance. The name of the program was "Potter Painter and Plainsman". Plainsman partly because he was so familiar with the land and because he lent his name to the product which he actually developed which was Plainsman Clay.
