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3.5 DEPTH X 3 INCHES TALL X 3 INCHES WIDE
Erica Deichmann was born in Wisconsin of Danish parents. She met her husband-to-be, Kjeld, in western Canada. Together as a young married couple in the early 1930s, they settled in New Brunswick, a brave choice in an era of Depression, made even more courageous by a decision to pursue careers together in the art of pottery. For two years, Kjeld and Erica Deichmann studied pottery and pottery glazing in Denmark before returning to their tiny farm in Moss Glen on the Kingston Peninsula, with the sweep of the Kennebecasis before them. They fired up their first home-made kiln in 1935: hope had triumphed over improbability.
The pottery they made together became the perfect blending of two creative instincts. The shapes were his - bold, innovative, future-looking; the glazes were hers - experimental, brightly provocative, searching. They attracted attention. Other artists came to see and to talk, a unique cultural centre blossomed. Tourists came to browse, admire, and to buy and governments began to pay attention. The Deichmann pottery was modern and dynamic, some said; perhaps Danish modern, thought others. They exhibited at the Paris World Fair in 1937; the Glasgow Exhibition, the New York World's Fair. Their pieces appeared in leading galleries in Canada, the United States, in Europe. They began doing lecture-demonstrations in other provinces, in New England, at the Rockefeller Center in New York. By the 1950s, they had achieved national and international recognition for their work, periodicals wrote about Modernism in the Maritimes, and the National Film Board told their story on film. Awards flowed: best pottery, best glazes, the Canadian National Exhibition, the Canadian Handicrafts Guild. And in the years following Kjeld's death in 1963, Erica continued to be honored for their work with membership in the Royal Canadian Academy and the Order of Canada.
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