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| Wheel Form Vase |
Brother Thomas Bezanson
1929 - 2007 |
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Acquisition Number: 2009.6
Medium: Porcelain
Size: 15 1/4" x 15 1/2" x 6 1/2"
Date: n.d.
A Benedictine Monk - Brother Thomas Bezanson was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1929. He graduated from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1950 and began working in pottery in 1959. In 1959, Brother Thomas entered the Benedictine Monastery, Western Priory, Vermont, where he continued to develop his pottery. In 1968 he graduated from the University of Ottawa, and in 1978 he traveled to Japan to learn from the National Treasure potters. Since 1985, Brother Thomas served as an artist-in-residence at Mount Saint Benedict in Erie, Pennsylvania. Sales from his work were given to the Church.
Over the years, he has developed a wide variety of glaze effects and acknowledged that glaze color has been a significant dimension of his work. “I do not make glazes for the sake of the form, or form for the sake of the glazes. For me, they are distinct processes with their own emotions in me. To work on color and glazes is an ‘upstairs’ experience, intellectual and mind-involving until the color itself emerges from the fires…the process of form is, on the other hand, a ‘downstairs’ experience and has a contemplative content for me, drawing me into silence. What I am pointing out here is that color is important to me, and I believe to the art, but harmony of color, form and function is a further step”.
Brother Thomas passed away in 2007.
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