Michele Macdonald: Dynamic Ceramic Glaze Artist

Michele Macdonald’s curiosity of colour and form adds unique dynamism to her glaze-making.

Three colorful decorative vases with intricate cutout designs, featuring gradients of pink, blue, and green, displayed against a backdrop of abstract art.

“My ceramic work is wheel thrown and my glazes and slips are developed and made in my home studio,”Macdonald says. “The surface images are created with hand painting stained slips with a paper resists, then a matte glaze often with a wax resist and a glossy glaze on the interior.”

A decorative ceramic bowl with intricate cut-out designs, featuring shades of blue and white, displayed alongside colorful glass objects.

After Fine Arts at OCAD, Macdonald explored, going from “painter; colourizing movies; furniture builder/designer; prop builder, sculptor, designer; woodworker; graphic designer and back to painter.”

Two colorful decorative vases with abstract designs and a framed artwork of various butterflies arranged in a heart shape.

Then in 2010, Macdonald walked into a clayworks centre and “all my creative past experience came together into one medium.”

A ceramic plate featuring a colorful abstract design with green, blue, pink, and orange shapes resembling leaves and petals. — Prairie Platter

Her work includes the popular, multicoloured, sculptural pieces at the beginning of this post, along with her Prairie Series of cups and plates, and other additional works.