Rick Hamelin at the wheel.
Master potter Rick Hamelin presents Spouting Off! Teapots from Around the World, a pottery demonstration, at the Holmes Public Library, 470 Plymouth St., Route 106, Halifax, on Saturday, May 9, at 11 a.m.
Watch as these teapots take shape and hear the history of their form and function: the English “Brown Betty”, an Asian teapot made from one piece of clay, a Lebanese two-walled tea pot, and a unique, mythological-form tea pot.
Hamelin has been potting since 1976 and is committed to learning about the historical Redware potters after learning of the Colonial and Early American industries in his native Central Massachusetts.
Pied Potter Hamelin can be taken linguistically apart and understood as a “Colorful Potter from a Small Town”.
Pied means multicolored, potter is his trade, and Hamelin translates as “one from a small town.”
Hamelin makes redware pottery that is hand-thrown on the wheel and after a drying period, his wares are bisques. Following bisquing, they are covered with a lead-free glaze of his own formation, then fired again. An antiquing finish is applied to the unglazed surfaces as a final step.
The running cat paw prints on the reverse of all the Kulina Folk Art and Pied Potter Hamelin plates and platters began by one of his cats leaping onto the slab of clay. He had found an old brick with a dog’s paw print on it and thought it to be a unique way to make an association between our work.
Hamelin has taught and worked in museums and currently lectures and demonstrates pottery throughout New England.
This presentation by the Pied Potter, Rick Hamelin, is supported by a grant from the Halifax Cultural Council, a local agency funded by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.
The pottery demonstration will be followed by a light tea to close out our week-long Books in Bloom event and to recognize our library volunteers!