Enduring and Enigmatic, The Work of Thomas Kakinuma
2025 Author, Enduring and Enigmatic, The Work of Thomas Kakinuma, Sassamatt Publishing.
Thomas Kakinuma’s story runs parallel to the mayhem of global events unfolding the tumultuous 20th Century. He arrived in Vancouver in 1937 at the onset of the Sino-Japanese war. As WWII broke out, he moved across the continent to attend art colleges in Toronto, then New York, and, with the advent of McCarthyism, he returned to Vancouver in 1950. From that time his humanistic and assessable ceramic practice has remained in the public and the curatorial lines of vision.
Bill Rennie – His Realms and Havens
2025 Author, Bill Rennie – His Realms and Havens, Architectural Marvels in Clay, Sassamatt Publishing.
Bill Rennie was a Vancouver based artist/ Activist whose practice spanned from 1976 until his death in 2015. He was a multifaceted character whose elaborate ceramic architectural constructs speak both to his aesthetic ad his activist objectives. He was a defender of the arts and a voluble and effective advocate for gender rights. His social contributions and his remarkable architectural sculptures remain unsung. This book is intended to share his story across Canada and beyond.
Collectors and Collections, Ceramics Return to the Vancouver Art Gallery
2025 Collectors and Collections, Ceramics Return to the Vancouver Art Gallery, Ceramics Now Magazine, Romania, Nov. 2025.
John Lawrence’s maverick immersion into the cultural ecosystem of his neighbourhood and his city contributes enormously to a greater appreciation of what the material arts tell us about ourselves and our history. His dedication to learning about the ceramics of British Columbia has infected others and through the acts of collection, and of knowledge-gathering, Lawrence has initiated what we hope will be an amendment in the status and situation of the ceramic and material arts of British Columbia.
Written In Clay
2025 Essay, “A Home for Objects”, Written In Clay, 2025
In 2024, editors Stephanie Rebick and Michael Prokopow of “The Place of Objects, the John David Lawrence Collection” catalogue for Written In Clay, the 2025 exhibition at Vancouver Art Gallery, invited colleagues of John Lawrence to write about what interested them in his collection. I chose to write about how his mindful practice of collection has provided and protected invaluable information in identifying BC ceramicists and their work, and laid the foundation for the BC Ceramic Mark Registry.
https://craftarchive.ca/s/bccmr/page/homeHosted by the Craft Council of BC.
FUSION MAGAZINE 2024
2024 “The Who, the Why, the What,” FUSION MAGAZINE Vol 48, number 3
Selected as a featured established artist to write about the people, the reasons, and the objects that have influenced my practice, rather than process.
https://heyzine.com/flip-book/ef5a656274.html
New Ceramics 2021
2020 “Imaging and Imagining the Inheritance of Colonialism, the work of Heidi Mackenzie”, New Ceramics Magazine, Germany, 2021.
Heidi McKenzie invited me to write an article about her familial photographs on ceramic forms, identifying the systemic racism and colonial attitudes around immigration that her family first encountered in the Caribbean and then in Canada.
New Ceramics, June 2021 Sloan
Seasalt, Lizards and Clay
2020 “Seasalt Lizards and Clay, My Ceramics from the Mediterranean to the Rockies”, Santo Mignosa’s memoir, Granville Island Publishing.
Santo invited me to write the Foreword, covering our long acquaintance and describing his contributions to BC ceramics.
The Art of Thomas Kakinuma
2018 “The Art of Thomas Kakinuma”, catalogue.
Essays by myself, Dr. Carol E. Mayer, Allan Collier and Stephanie Renaud. Photographed by the late Ken Mayer.
Curators Kiriko Watanabe and the late Darrin Morrison of the West Vancouver Museum were alerted to the Kakinuma article, knew of several collectors, and facilitated a large retrospective of Kakinuma’s work in January 2018. The first showing of his work since 1969 at the VAG.
Thomas Kakinuma, 1908-1982
2017 “Thomas Kakinuma, 1908-1982”
A treatise on Kakinuma, upon invitation from Barry Morrison, editor/ publisher of the website Studio Ceramics Canada.
https://studioceramicscanada.com. Great assistance from Canadian Library archives.
Up on the Roof, Bernard Leach and the Equestrian Tile Tradition
2017/2018 “Up on the Roof, Bernard Leach and the Equestrian Tile Tradition”, Debra Sloan and Peter Smith, 2nd edition, 2018 (first edition 2017), Sassamatt Publications
A treatise on the tradition and the rare equestrian ceramics roof tiles found in the West Country, and Bernard Leach’s connections to contemporary examples.
Seeking the Nuance
2017 / 2009 “Seeking the Nuance”, Glenn Lewis, Phyllis Schwartz, Debra Sloan, 2nd Edition 2017, first edition 2009, Sassamatt Publishing.
A treatise on glazes from the Leach pottery tradition used by Glenn Lewis (Leach apprentice, 1961-63) while teaching ceramics at UBC in the 1970s, and also refers to the subsequent influences imported by the six apprentices from BC who studied with Leach, from BC 1958 – 1977.
Contemporary Ceramics of British Columbia
2014 “Contemporary Ceramics of British Columbia”, Ceramics Now Association Magazine, Romania, Issue #3
First presented at the 1st Cluj International Ceramic Conference in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. I was invited by Vasi Hirdo, editor, to write a survey of the distinct contemporary ceramicists in BC.
A Special Place
2010 “A Special Place, International Ceramics Studio”, Technical Magazine, Issue #31, Australia USA
Article about the ICS / NCS in Kecskemet, Hungary. Its history as the earliest studio ceramics residency in Europe, 1976, and from behind the Iron Curtain, and its role as a facilitator for advancing ceramics. Written after a 3-month residency.
A Dogged Process
Review, Debra Sloan Creates Life-Size Dogs, CeramicsTECHNICAL, No. 27, 2008, Debra Sloan
Debra Sloan creates life-size dogs
Perception of Craft/Design/Fine Art
2005 “Perception of Craft/Design/Fine Art”, Metal Arts Guild of Canada Mag. Vol.20 #1
An early speculative treatise about perception and values placed on the material arts versus what has been referred to as the fine arts.
The Potters Guild of BC: Origins of a Ceramic Culture
The First Fifty Years – 1955-2005
Fusion Magazine, Volume #29 #3 2005
Written and submitted by Heather Cairns and Debra Sloan
Origins of a Ceramic Culture:
The First Fifty Years of the BC Potters Guild 1955 – 2005
August 2005
By Debra Sloan
2nd Edition, Up on the Roof
The Role of Equestrian Ridge Tiles as Historical Narrative, by Debra Sloan and Peter Smith.
Up on the Roof explores traditional equestrian clay ridge tiles that from the middle ages adorned rooflines in Britain and Europe. The practice died out by the early 1800s in the UK and now those last and rare remnants are found mainly in West Country museums. Up on the Roof recounts how Bernard Leach and fellow members of the Old Cornwall Society revived the rendition in the 1920s. love the last decades memories faded once again, until, in 2014, the Leach Pottery instigated research and response. The effect of the tiles, architectural adornment, clarifies the role of art in the public realm, where it install interaction and engage