Belisle Pottery in Virgil offering workshop in new year

After living a nomadic lifestyle since reaching adulthood, 35-year-old artist Valerie Belisle is laying down roots in Niagara-on-the-Lake clay. And she’s hoping to soon be using some of that local clay in her original creations.

Belisle Pottery is her new studio space, or ‘atelier,’ in the former Kindergarten room at the old Virgil Public School. She moved in on Sept. 1 and is now ready to welcome aspiring potters for intimate and interactive workshops. 

It’s a major leap of faith for the Ottawa native, who has spent her working life mostly as a sommelier in fine dining establishments. Her education took her to France, Spain and Italy, and she has worked on both coasts of Canada. Her most recent stint was on the Patio at Westcott Vineyards in nearby Jordan working with chefs Ricky and Olivia this summer.  

While working at Restaurant Candide in Montreal in 2017, Belisle was looking for an outlet that would help her relax after putting in a hard day’s work in the fast-paced, high-stress environment. Having consulted with ceramicists, who would design original pieces for use in restaurants where Belisle had plied her trade, she approached Basma Osama, of Ceramik B studio, for some lessons.

“From the moment I touched clay, I loved it right away,” says Belisle. “Pottery became my healthy obsession. It made me so happy doing it. When I touch clay, I feel like there’s something therapeutic. It brings a certain peace that I don’t achieve any other way.”

Osama, says the trilingual (English, French, Spanish) Belisle, was an amazing teacher and a phenomenal woman. She sparked Belisle’s interest and desire in pottery, inspiring her to research the art through books and videos in an attempt to learn as much as she could. 

Her next stop was in Newfoundland, where she landed a gig at Raymond’s Restaurant, once named one of Canada’s top dining establishments. Wanting, or more precisely, needing, to continue her new relationship with clay, she connected with Jason Holley and Maaike Charron at CUP Studio, who became her next mentors. 

“They had a different approach,” says Belisle. “They taught me to love my pieces. They even gave me the key to their studio so I could show up any time after work. And they encouraged me to sell my work for the first time.”

Those sales were all in support of a charitable drive to help a neonatal intensive care unit at a Newfoundland hospital. Belisle refers to those sales as her thank-you gift to her hosts in the province. 

From there she was off to Toronto, where she eagerly set out to find artists to work with, and then spent a short time in Vancouver with artist Janaki Larsen. A contract offer from Pearl Morissette brought her to Niagara in 2019. She quickly made new friends and continued to pursue her pottery passion.

“With all the travelling I’ve done, I’ve always made whatever city I was working in my community, my home,” says Belisle. “It’s always so important. When you’re far away from home, you need friends, a community, or else it’s hard.”

With her contract in Jordan reaching its conclusion in fall 2021, Belisle pondered her future. 

“I was considering what to do, where to go next,” she laughs, “and Niagara kept pulling me back in. I’m a vagabond, I love to travel and connect with people in every community that I encounter. But Niagara began to hold my attention. There’s something in the air that makes this feel like the right place to grow roots.”

She started looking for a suitable pottery space, deciding not to run things out of her rented rural home in NOTL. She began to host private hospitality events, offering tastings and taking on catering and oyster shucking events in the meantime.

When she finally found the space in Virgil, she knew things were falling into place for a reason. 

Stepping into Belisle Pottery, one is struck by its brightness and sense of order. It’s easy to see how Belisle herself, as well as others, could find peace in the spacious surroundings. 

On one side, next to a bank of large windows, sits a brand new custom kiln. A rack full of her work sits beside it, the pieces waiting to be fired. On the other side sit her pottery wheels (she has two) and a slab roller. 

Visitors are encouraged to choose a record to spin on her vintage turntable, her selection heavy on traditional jazz and classical music. On most days, Belisle is accompanied by Sol, her German Shepherd-mix constant companion. Belisle  pours a cup of herbal tea and serves it in one of her own creations, a handleless mug glazed in earthy tones.

“Through my travels I always take drone shots of different landscapes,” she explains about her inspiration. “I then study the landscapes and try to figure out the exact colour that I find in the photos. To me, it’s like an homage to the communities that have welcomed me. In Newfoundland, I was inspired by the colours of a beach in Salmon Cove.”

She is still discovering the colours that inspire her in NOTL, but it’s already clear that the local landscape is speaking to her.

“It’s the clay,” says Belisle. “I would love to work with Brock University, to collaborate on gathering soil samples. And I’d love to work with the area’s farmers, too. I want to have Niagara in the clay. And the glazes are minerals, so I would love to have Niagara in the colours, too.”

Her studio is just that, a studio, without any retail activity happening out of it. She does sell mugs, plates and dog bowls, as well as some smaller decorative pieces, through her website at valbelisle.com. And a friend from her hospitality days who is soon opening a butcher shop in St. Catharines has agreed to sell her designs.

But most importantly, she’s begun to build a community, and in January will begin to offer classes to one or two
people at a time. Workshops can be booked via her website, and a gift certificate might make a great last minute
addition to a stocking. 

Belisle adds that it’s a great activity for couples, and jokes that any attempts to imitate Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore’s famous scene from the movie Ghost are seriously
encouraged. 

Though she’s no longer working full-time in the restaurant industry, Belisle continues to pursue that passion on a part-time basis. And she plans on combining her two passions. The experienced shucker would like to be able to offer beverage and oyster tasting
sessions along with pottery classes some time in the future. 

Having been mentored so readily by artists during her many travels, Belisle is ready to pay that gesture back to others here in Niagara. And she hopes she can inspire others to discover what she did about the benefits of working with pottery. 

For Belisle, pottery is about being present with herself and her clients, slowing down and going back to simple craft with care.

“People forget the importance of going back to basics,” she says. “You can’t rush clay. You have to wait until it’s dry, until the kiln is ready. There’s just a tempo that does not allow you to go faster than that.”