{me}

Pleased to meet you.  I'm Shannon.

I grew up in southern Ontario, tidy and shy.  After receiving a B.A. in Native Studies from Trent University, I moved to Yellowknife, NT where I spent winter nights tickling the aurora borealis, and summer days portaging my canoe through the forests of biting flies. 


In 2009, I graduated from the Kootenay School of Arts in Nelson, BC where I live, waking each day to the view of Elephant Mountain.  I consider myself a writer disguised as a potter -- a dictionary and fettling knife always at hand.


I took a typewriter apart so that I could press the keys into the flesh of the clay, recording my thoughts and observations onto contemporary functional porcelain pots.  My dishes are in fact lessons, kindnesses, tattletales and laughs.  And what I'm finding is that the pots I write stir something in the people who use them.  It's almost as if we've witnessed something together, like we share a great secret.  The words are a reaching out;  a minute's worth of conversation between us.

For more conversation or to arrange a studio visit, please send me a note at Q@sQmerritt.com.  I'd love to tell you why I wrote what I did on your pot and I'd be delighted to hear about your ideas for a celebratory custom piece!


Best,
Shannon Q Merritt
{aka Shannon Blige}