Bertha Martin
Victoria artist Bertha Martin was a well-educated master potter and independent spirit. Her disinterest in self-promotion was detrimental to her commercial success, so her work gained little recognition. Her ceramic forms ranged from the whimsical to the austere, utilitarian to purely sculptural.
Bertha Martin was born on October 26, 1920 and raised on a farm just outside of Westlock, Alberta. The daughter of homesteaders, Bertha was the second oldest of four siblings, Louisa, Lois, Martin and Eunis. During the war she worked in communications for the air force and trained in Halifax. After the war she married a young Albertan named Andrew Martin who she divorced in 1963.
Martin’s art studies began at the University of Alberta where she received a Bachelor degree in education. Her interest in pottery grew through classes she attended at the Banff Summer School for the Arts. In 1966 she enrolled in M.A. studies at the San Jose State College where she studied with Herbert Harvey Sanders (1909-1988). Martin enjoyed visiting the DeYoung Museum to view the Asian ceramics collection. Influenced by the groundbreaking ceramic work of Peter Voulkos, Martin began working with physically demanding heavy loads of clay and building stacked pottery up to five feet in height. Her graduate thesis titled A ceramic Garden focused on the sculptural forms she produced that mimicked water worn rocks found in and around the beaches of Monterey. These stone-like forms were sold in California to compliment the gardens of wealthy residences.
After completing her Masters, Martin moved to Edmonton for several years where she continued to pursue a career in ceramics and teaching. In 1974 Martin taught ceramics for the classroom workshop at the Banff Center. The Albertan environmentalist and ceramicist Elke Blodgett was one of her students.
Martin was hired in 1974 as a sessional instructor for ceramics in the University of Victoria’s Arts in Education Program where she taught until the early 1980’s. Martin took her class on day trips to Island View Beach to dig clay and students were taught to mix their own glazes. Although Ameco commercial glazes were available at the school, Martin insisted on the use of nontoxic glazes that were used in Japan. Students signed up for kiln watching shifts that often went all night. Her student John Feesey would go on to be an active BC potter.
Martin studied with and was influenced by numerous master potters throughout her lifetime. Herbert Sanders, Shoji Hamada, Bernard Leach, Yu Fujiwara, Hal Riegger, F. Carlton Ball, Maria Martinez, Peter Voulkos and Marguerite Wildenhain all had influence on Martin through both books and workshops. Martin taught pottery workshops in Nanaimo, Mill Bay, Victoria and Banff. She exhibited periodically on Vancouver Island in venues such as the Potters Wheel Gallery, McPherson Library Gallery, School House Gallery, and the Maltwood Art Museum. A small plate by Martin was included in the 2012 exhibition Back to the Land at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria.
