YELLOWKNIFE - Potters with the Yellowknife Guild of Arts and Crafts were working hard at honing their skills this past weekend under the direction of internationally exhibited, award-winning artist Trudy Ellen Golley.

Erin Suliak, right, president of the Yellowknife Guild of Arts and Crafts, gets some pointers from internationally exhibited ceramic artist Trudy Ellen Golley. - Ben Morgan/NNSL photo

The small group of potters was treated to a two-day seminar where Golley instructed her class on a new technique.

By the second day, the local artists were getting their hands dirty molding their new medium into works of art.

"Basically we've taken our clay and introduced toilet paper.

"You cut your block of clay into layers and put the toilet paper between them," said guild president Erin Suliak, adding it's been exciting to learn from Golley because she is a pioneer with this kind of technique.

"We've been really fortunate to have her up here," she said.

Yellowknife potter Jenny Tucker explained the fibres act like the rebars in concrete - it's a more forgiving medium afterward.

The technique allows for a rehydrating of the clay, which provides more freedom to the potter.

Golley is currently a ceramics instructor and the chair of visual arts at Red Deer College.

She was inducted into the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 2002.

It's a challenge to teach classes in such a condensed period of time, since usually in college classes she has the time to spread the information over a longer period of time, said Golley.

"Here I have to give them all the information at once and then we try to incorporate that information into their techniques," she said.

Her trip to Yellowknife was made possible by a grant from the NWT Arts Council.