Back to the Land: Ceramics from Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands 1970-1985

The back to the land movement emerged out of the counterculture dialogue of the 1970s and was marked by a commitment to the organic and the home-made. The Vancouver Islands were an important center for this movement as evidenced in the explosion of ceramic activity in this region at that time. The thirty-one ceramic artists presented here were among the principal teachers in the region, and many worked from influence and training in three dominant artistic styles: European modernism and the Bauhaus, the Leach/Hamada tradition, and abstract expressionism. Featuring key pieces from public and private collections, this profusely illustrated publication is an important step in reconstructing the ceramic history of this period.