Amelia Butcher, 𝘊𝘶𝘱 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘚𝘢𝘶𝘤𝘦𝘳, 2026

"This cup is stoneware, thrown on the potter’s wheel. The saucer is a pinch pot - the atom of pottery - inverted, it becomes a plinth. I never get tired of cups. Even the simplest ceramic cup is a crossroad, an object at the meeting point between heat, geology, time, my hands and the user, place, mineral, solid and liquid, labour and rest. The object’s form holds the memory of the wet clay and the maker’s fingerprints, record of the transformation of iron, the kiln’s combustion, but also our memory of what a cup is, 1000 cups of coffee, lip to lip."
 — Amelia Butcher 

Amelia Butcher's generous donation of the limited edition "Cup and Saucer" was fired in the British Columbia's Potters Guild community kiln where she volunteers. Butcher uses a personal dictionary of lifeforms and objects as surface drawings that are symbols of connection and collectivism: worms connecting the surface world with the underground, detritivores bringing decomposition to new life and slime molds transitioning seamlessly between individual and collective forms, to nets, bobby pins and nails as hardware to hold it all together. The drawings are personal, intentional, and are inscribed by scratching into a stiff shino glaze, making them sculptural rather than an image. 

Sculpture, figuration, illustration and pottery swim together, bringing Butchers' interest in natural history, fiction, perception, storytelling, and character to her work.  Butcher transforms her pots into books and narratives – bringing an object intended for a certain purpose, both public and private, often shared, entering a temporarily intimate space with a single reader or user.  

"Pots and plots are talismans for needs being met, for connection and communication." - Amelia Butcher 

Amelia Butcher is a visual artist based in British Columbia with a sculptural and drawing practice centered in clay.  Graduated from Emily Carr University in 2013, Butcher is a founding member of the Dusty Babes Collective, subsequently living and working out of their communal studio, built by the late great Don Hutchinson, until 2021. Butchers' work has exhibited widely and has made a profound impact on the community through her work in arts education as an instructor of classes and workshops in ceramics, sculpture and comic-making for all ages. Butcher currently works out of the Mergatroid Building in Vancouver, the unceded, ancestral territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓ əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

Website: Amelia Butcher
Photography by Rachel Topham Photography