The audio file for this article was produced by the Ceramic Arts Network staff and not read by the author.
Janice Cormier’s sculptural works are deceptive in their quiet simplicity, drawing the viewer into a reverie of strolling along a rugged seacoast at low tide, or wandering along the sunny arcades and stairways of an unnamed city.
Janice Cormier’s sculptural vessels and wall pieces are made from unglazed red clay and foraged materials from Canada’s east coast, connecting her work to the land of her Acadian roots. She first encountered clay in the landscape of her New Brunswick childhood, growing up in a small town that is planted atop an ancient clay deposit. The sediment-rich Petitcodiac River winds alongside the town, flowing into the Bay of Fundy further south. Its smooth clay banks are completely exposed at low tide. “As a kid, I’d imagine what it would feel like to jump into that mud. I knew better, though; the tides rise quickly there!” She adds, “I find it amusing and a little poetic that I grew up surrounded by clay, long before I became a ceramic artist.” Cormier heads back there each summer to visit family and to collect modest amounts of materials and clay to use in her ceramics back in Montreal.
Cormier’s practice asks questions around human emotion, nature, and our sense of place. Working intuitively is an important part of her approach. Often, her sculptures emerge in response to a feeling or a memory. While she might pause during the process to consider how to translate those sensations through surface texture or form, she says she primarily allows the clay to guide her. The meaning of a piece might only reveal itself once the piece is complete. Not all her work unfolds this way, but many of her ideas do begin this way.
California Roaming
In her twenties, during a period of loss and grief, she took a handbuilding course. She already drew and painted, but something clicked in that first ceramics class. “The material spoke to me from a very deep place,” she says. “Shaping clay with my hands felt grounding and healing. To this day, clay remains a tactile language to make sense of the world.”
As a mental health facilitator who holds an MA in Educational Studies, ceramics was something she did as a pastime. However, during a three-year stay in California while her spouse completed a postdoctoral fellowship, she found herself at loose ends while she waited for her work visa. It was a rare opportunity to dedicate herself fully to ceramics.
She joined the Black Bean Ceramic Art Center (2009– 2017) in San Jose, founded by Will Johnson and Ruben Reyes. In that enriching environment, she had access to generous mentors while working alongside new and established ceramic artists. She took workshops from artists she admired, such as Michael Gustavson and Susannah Israel, and gave herself permission to try new techniques and fully embrace her artistic practice.
Cormier’s artistic growth was influenced by California’s landscapes—both natural, like Death Valley or the redwood forests, and urban, such as the steep stairways and greenery-filled paths of San Francisco’s hilly neighborhoods. While Cormier’s family next moved to Montreal in 2014, she confides that “parts of the Northern California landscape reminded me of Atlantic Canada. Living there evoked a feeling of ‘being home’.”
Vessels as Repository for Emotion
In the early years of the pandemic, Cormier began creating sculptural vessels that symbolize holding space for emotions like grief and compassion in times of vulnerability and struggle. Their flowing shapes, with surfaces methodically scraped with ribs and Surforms, and rubbed with crushed minerals and wild clay slips, offer the viewer a moment of quiet contemplation.
Drawn to arched walkways, doorways, and staircases— structures that may hint at hidden courtyards or spaces beyond view—she also began making sculptural vessels that thoughtfully incorporate these elements. While this might bring Escher or Piranesi to mind, they are more about existing between states of existence or periods of time. “I like how arches and stairs frame and interact with empty space. The Japanese have a concept called ‘Ma’ that refers to the “space between,” which holds presence and potential within its emptiness. In these vessels, the negative space beneath an arch or above a staircase becomes just as significant as the structure itself.”
Up the Wall
Cormier is working on two collections of mural pieces, respectively called A Memory of Tides and Fossilis.
In these, she’s influenced by the rugged coastal landscapes of Atlantic Canada, with their powerful tides, eroding rocks, and shifting sands. Clay, rock formations, and fossils are a record of the Earth’s stories, she explains, just as people carry their own narratives. Her sculptures address the relationship between the natural world and the experiences and stories that shape us, and how we, too, leave traces behind.
Cormier’s work often carries personal meaning, but she rarely reveals the full story behind a piece. She’s more interested in hearing what others experience when they encounter it. “A dear friend who grew up in Greece once told me that one of my sculptural vessels reminded her of a Greek island house, with stairs leading to a secret garden filled with amárantos— everlasting flowers. That stayed with me. No matter the artist’s intention for a piece, people will resonate with the work based on their own experiences.”
To quote Anaïs Nin, “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
Cormier’s works are available at Vessels & Sticks, Tacit Collective (Canada), Elysian Collective (USA), and One Gallery (Romania). Her pieces have been shown at venues like the Metropolitan Cathedral of Iași (Romania, 2025) and Red Lodge Clay Center (US, 2024). She also accepts commissions for residential and hospitality projects.
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The audio file for this article was produced by the Ceramic Arts Network staff and not read by the author.
Janice Cormier’s sculptural works are deceptive in their quiet simplicity, drawing the viewer into a reverie of strolling along a rugged seacoast at low tide, or wandering along the sunny arcades and stairways of an unnamed city.
Janice Cormier’s sculptural vessels and wall pieces are made from unglazed red clay and foraged materials from Canada’s east coast, connecting her work to the land of her Acadian roots. She first encountered clay in the landscape of her New Brunswick childhood, growing up in a small town that is planted atop an ancient clay deposit. The sediment-rich Petitcodiac River winds alongside the town, flowing into the Bay of Fundy further south. Its smooth clay banks are completely exposed at low tide. “As a kid, I’d imagine what it would feel like to jump into that mud. I knew better, though; the tides rise quickly there!” She adds, “I find it amusing and a little poetic that I grew up surrounded by clay, long before I became a ceramic artist.” Cormier heads back there each summer to visit family and to collect modest amounts of materials and clay to use in her ceramics back in Montreal.
Cormier’s practice asks questions around human emotion, nature, and our sense of place. Working intuitively is an important part of her approach. Often, her sculptures emerge in response to a feeling or a memory. While she might pause during the process to consider how to translate those sensations through surface texture or form, she says she primarily allows the clay to guide her. The meaning of a piece might only reveal itself once the piece is complete. Not all her work unfolds this way, but many of her ideas do begin this way.
California Roaming
In her twenties, during a period of loss and grief, she took a handbuilding course. She already drew and painted, but something clicked in that first ceramics class. “The material spoke to me from a very deep place,” she says. “Shaping clay with my hands felt grounding and healing. To this day, clay remains a tactile language to make sense of the world.”
As a mental health facilitator who holds an MA in Educational Studies, ceramics was something she did as a pastime. However, during a three-year stay in California while her spouse completed a postdoctoral fellowship, she found herself at loose ends while she waited for her work visa. It was a rare opportunity to dedicate herself fully to ceramics.
She joined the Black Bean Ceramic Art Center (2009– 2017) in San Jose, founded by Will Johnson and Ruben Reyes. In that enriching environment, she had access to generous mentors while working alongside new and established ceramic artists. She took workshops from artists she admired, such as Michael Gustavson and Susannah Israel, and gave herself permission to try new techniques and fully embrace her artistic practice.
Cormier’s artistic growth was influenced by California’s landscapes—both natural, like Death Valley or the redwood forests, and urban, such as the steep stairways and greenery-filled paths of San Francisco’s hilly neighborhoods. While Cormier’s family next moved to Montreal in 2014, she confides that “parts of the Northern California landscape reminded me of Atlantic Canada. Living there evoked a feeling of ‘being home’.”
Vessels as Repository for Emotion
In the early years of the pandemic, Cormier began creating sculptural vessels that symbolize holding space for emotions like grief and compassion in times of vulnerability and struggle. Their flowing shapes, with surfaces methodically scraped with ribs and Surforms, and rubbed with crushed minerals and wild clay slips, offer the viewer a moment of quiet contemplation.
Drawn to arched walkways, doorways, and staircases— structures that may hint at hidden courtyards or spaces beyond view—she also began making sculptural vessels that thoughtfully incorporate these elements. While this might bring Escher or Piranesi to mind, they are more about existing between states of existence or periods of time. “I like how arches and stairs frame and interact with empty space. The Japanese have a concept called ‘Ma’ that refers to the “space between,” which holds presence and potential within its emptiness. In these vessels, the negative space beneath an arch or above a staircase becomes just as significant as the structure itself.”
Up the Wall
Cormier is working on two collections of mural pieces, respectively called A Memory of Tides and Fossilis.
In these, she’s influenced by the rugged coastal landscapes of Atlantic Canada, with their powerful tides, eroding rocks, and shifting sands. Clay, rock formations, and fossils are a record of the Earth’s stories, she explains, just as people carry their own narratives. Her sculptures address the relationship between the natural world and the experiences and stories that shape us, and how we, too, leave traces behind.
Cormier’s work often carries personal meaning, but she rarely reveals the full story behind a piece. She’s more interested in hearing what others experience when they encounter it. “A dear friend who grew up in Greece once told me that one of my sculptural vessels reminded her of a Greek island house, with stairs leading to a secret garden filled with amárantos— everlasting flowers. That stayed with me. No matter the artist’s intention for a piece, people will resonate with the work based on their own experiences.”
To quote Anaïs Nin, “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
Cormier’s works are available at Vessels & Sticks, Tacit Collective (Canada), Elysian Collective (USA), and One Gallery (Romania). Her pieces have been shown at venues like the Metropolitan Cathedral of Iași (Romania, 2025) and Red Lodge Clay Center (US, 2024). She also accepts commissions for residential and hospitality projects.
Instagram: @janice.cormier_ceramics
www.janicecormier.com
the author Lysanne Larose is a Canadian ceramic artist making semi-abstract sculptural works in Montreal. See more on Instagram @LatelierLarose.
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