Artist Lorraine Eidlitz stands in her studio surrounded by raw clay, bowls ready to be fired and pieces ready for painting. A lot of her work is made to order, forms that she has made many times that she can do in her sleep. But today she will be letting the clay and wheel do the work, wondering herself what will be formed.
“If the potter’s wheel is spinning fast and the clay is good and wet, it will naturally want to spread out,” says Eidlitz from her studio and home outside Bracebridge.
“This is perfect for making plates. If the clay is firmer and the wheel a little slower it is great for making bowls. Sometimes though, when you are feeling strong, it is good just to let the clay move through your fingers and create something unique.”
Eidlitz is passionate about her art. She has been doing it for 30 years and says she has no desire to ever stop.
“I just don’t know where the time has gone,” she smiles. “I’m looking forward to the next 30 years, though. I can’t ever see myself stopping. I get it from my grandmother. She inspired me when I was younger by really getting me to reveal my inner artist. She was a wonderful person. I remember getting her a book on doll making when she was in her 80s.
She instantly started making dolls out of whatever she could find. Her first one was made from a cracker box and some paper.
Creativity can come from the simplest of things.”
The main material Eidlitz works with is clay, from which she creates awe-inspiring bowls, plates and sculptures.
She says people often look at her work and think it is directed at children due to the playful animals often on show. Eidlitz disagrees.
“It is not about appealing to children,” she explains, “it is about discovering the child within. It has touched a lot of people, including helping a young woman who won her battle against cancer. It was spiritually uplifting to hear about this and it is nice to know the work that comes through me can do this to other people.”
Eidlitz started her career in Toronto in 1977. She later moved to Port Carling where she ran a gallery for 12 years before relocating to her Baldwin Road studio eight years ago.
Ten-year stints at The Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition and the One of a Kind Craft Show in Toronto, 16 years with the Muskoka Autumn Studio Tour, a one-woman show at the Del Bello Gallery in Toronto and various awards for collage and printmaking throughout her 18-year association with Muskoka Arts & Crafts have established her reputation in Ontario and throughout the world with collections in Germany, England, Australia, South Korea and Japan.
In 2000, she reopened her gallery on a large wooded property outside Bracebridge under the name Eidlitz Handworks. Stoneware pottery, sculpture, watercolour, printmaking, collage and oil paintings fill the gallery.
In 2003 and 2004 she created, with the help of likeminded artists, PeaceWorks, an art show on a theme of peace. A percentage of sales from the show were donated to both Doctors Without Borders and The Stephen Lewis Foundation in support of Africans living with AIDS.
“I wanted to know what I could give back in life,” she says. “I’m not rich, but I have a lot to give through my art. In my abiding desire for peace, I have come to understand that we can move from the idea that we are ‘only human’ to the concept that we are, in fact, ‘spiritual beings having a human experience’,” she says. “I’d really love to be able to create a heaven right here on earth. It should be a simple thing.
It is about getting to know who we are and putting aside our differences. We need to look at all the positive things we have achieved and build from there. It seems so obvious.”
Eidlitz’ heaven on earth comes from her peaceful setting and her surrounding environment.
“I just love working and living in Muskoka,” she says. “There is just something magical here. Nothing compares to it, apart from the Rockies. It’s the colours, I think. There are such incredible blues from the lakes, greens from the trees and pinks from the Precambrian Shield.”
As well as being inspired by the beauty of Muskoka, Eidlitz carries around inspiration wherever she goes.
“In my life what endures more than anything else is my love of art,” she says. “It’s always with me. I don’t really need to go anywhere else to find inspiration. Wherever I go, it’s there with me.”
Eidlitz says the one thing that gets her down about art is that some people don’t recognize the art that they have inside them.
“People will think art has to look a certain way or be something specific,” she says. “I tell them art can be whatever they want it to be. I encourage people to go home and to just start being creative.
People think you have to have a certain talent to be an artist but it is all about believing and individuality. Art is in all of us.”