As a ceramicist, Andrea Copp’s process is rooted in experimentation: her expressive pieces are designed to layer in materials like local stones or shells, and play with texture and tension. Copp was recently named Maker of the Year by Western Living magazine, and we caught up with her from her home studio in Lions Bay.

Why don’t we start with the fact that you were recently named Maker of the Year by Western Living. Congratulations!

It’s incredible. I was having a late lunch at Orto restaurant when I was told. So it was just incredible to be in the folds of a community, because I’m so isolated most the time. Just to be included and to be seen—it feels really heartwarming. 

Tell us a little about your studio—I understand in the summer, you are working out of a boathouse right on the water.

I’m literally on the water’s edge. I’m in partially in the water, and I’m using the material, the rocks, and the whole environment is completely absorbed into what I’m doing. It also depends on what I’m making—if I’m making Golden Hour sculptures, for example, I need it to be a clean environment with the porcelain, so I do those in the North Van studio.

You work in a variety of clays and incorporate pieces from the environment around you. How do you choose the mediums that you’re working with? 

When I was near Manchester, near the Peak District in England, I’d often walk and there are these gorgeous rocks, big boulders—they’re beyond ancient. They’re beyond historic. I really take in the textures of the walls and the land, and I travel a lot. I knew I wanted to include that into my work—I felt like that was part of the look that I wanted. So I started with little cups, because I didn’t want to just make a test tile. I was just inserting, working with different stones, and they all behave differently. Sometimes they crack open and you can find Fool’s Gold inside. It’s quite fun. So I got into smashing up rocks and it just adds a whole layer of texture, bringing landscape into the clay. 

And then how do I choose it? Well, some of it comes to me. Like the piece a Provide right now is inspired by a friend who works with the Doctors Without Borders, who shared experience and stories there in Congo. That kind fell into the piece while I was making it. 

I’m choosing to use porcelain in a new piece right now, which is a table design that I’ve been working on since the beginning of July, which is super epic. It’s a small table that’s made of translucent tiles— it’s mirroring the look of stained-glass windows. I go to the cathedrals and churches, and I really like that look and the way light behaves, whether it’s dark in the church, or how it looks on a sunny day. 

You’ve got a quote on your website that says, “I am the vessel, and I create vessels,” a really powerful statement about identity and practice. Can you dig into what that means to you, and how it shapes your practice?

I see myself as a vessel in that I receive life—its landscapes and experiences through lived stories. What I absorb is poured back out through my hands into the vessels I create. Each work becomes a container of that exchange, both holding and transmitting something beyond me. They are each individual, just as people are unique. They are distinct and shaped by the stories they hold. Sometimes I look at the pieces and I don’t even know who made it. It’s like a receiving and a releasing. 

For your larger vessels, I understand you work in an ancient technique, hand building coil by coil.

With wheel throwing I can do cups and small things, but it’s a whole commitment of perfection and a lot of strength to make anything as big as I do. I could approach my work with a slab, but I feel like when I’m making it coil and coil, the form takes its shape—and I don’t mean to be silly, but all my love, everything goes into it. For it to work, it just has to be a coil. It’s just what I’ve been practicing.

And how did your relationship with Provide begin?

It was around when David was just getting ready to open Provide Gallery. And I had a friend, Brent Comber, who was one of David’s artists. I used to work at my kitchen table, and he liked my work and said he’d introduced me to David. But at that first meeting I sat in his car while he went in to talk to David, and take one of my pieces, Florencia: it’s a big piece I made after spending time in Tofino—Florencia Bay. That’s how that first meeting happened—otherwise, I might still be at my kitchen table. Before Provide, I hadn’t shown anywhere before. I wasn’t really considering myself that way. 

Why do you like working with Provide?

David’s got great style—he makes everything look great, and he’s such an important link in Vancouver to so many designers. He just has the eye for spotting things. He’s really stood by me and persevered through a challenging market, and his support—and the way Provide creates such a thoughtful space that shows my work so well—means a lot. It feels special to be included alongside so many wonderful makers.

At that first meeting, why did you stay in the car?

I was so nervous and uneasy. I wasn’t used to putting myself forward or selling my work at that time. Brent’s personality and his own work is very big. As is the work of Japanese artist Kazunori Hamana—I really admired his work, and so did Brent. And it was Brent who encouraged me to make something big, too. He encouraged me—and it’s about these little pivotal moments, like the editor of Western Living encouraging me to sign up for the Designers of the Year awards, Brent encouraging me in the first place, lots of friends telling me to just keep going. That’s why my piece is called Golden Hour, Distant Mountain Viewing: because I have the distant mountain view over there, but I don’t know how I’m going to get there. I’m just going to knuckle down—to buckle down and just do it.

Discover Andrea Copp's ceramic work at our Provide Design Gallery and online store.

Photography by: Seth Stevenson, Mark Gibbon and courtesy of Andrea Copp.