The North-West Ceramics Foundation is pleased to announce the publishing of a new book on an important BC potter, with a foreword by our very own Debra Sloan.
Sea Salt, Lizards and Clay: My Ceramics from the Mediterranean to the Rockies
by Santo Mignosa, foreword by Debra Sloan
Granville Island Publishing, 2021
ISBN: 9781989467329(softcover). $25.95 CAD, $20.95 USD. Available via your local bookstore.
The autobiography Sea Salt, Lizards and Clay by the renowned Italian-Canadian ceramic artist Santo Mignosa covers the career of this rigorous technician and gifted modernist sculptor. Mignosa studied in Florence, Italy, and immigrated to Canada in 1957. In 1972, received his MFA from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred, New York. Mignosa brought formal art training from both Continental and American traditions in drawing, representational and abstract figurative art, ceramic murals, and large-scale ceramic sculpture to BC. His training in ceramics and wheel-throwing took place at the UBC Ceramic Hut in the late 1950s under his mentor Olea Davis, the founder of the Potters Guild of BC (1955). In the 1960s, he taught at the Kootenay School of Art alongside Zeljko Kujundzic and, later, Walter Dexter. During the 1970s and 80s, he taught ceramics at the University of Calgary. As the Canadian representative of the International Ceramics Academy (ICA), Mignosa assisted the ICA and the Alberta Potters Association, at that time under the presidency of Les Manning, to host the 1973 ICA International Exhibition in Calgary. In the 1990s, he returned to BC, where he continues to practice and teach. Over the span of his long career, his work and teaching have been recognized and awarded nationally and internationally. Mignosa has made a significant and fascinating contribution to ceramic culture in BC.