We are greeted every morning, in large red numbers, with a reminder of how many days are left until the opening of the Canadian Museum on November 5th. We are working hard and are being inspired by the presence of this well-intentioned encouragement. The factory workers continue to be of great assistance, and as we are working in the studio which is attached to the factory, with one of the endlessly long tunnel kilns sitting just outside my door (I counted at least 100 burners, but gave up before I finished), this truly is a merging of art and industry. Although the factory is huge, we are surprised at how much hand work is still involved in creating the roof tile — every single tile, of thousands made each day, is cleaned up by women who sit on small stools in the factory and work very fast, with great agility, refining each piece.
We all gasped this morning when three carts of huge extruded clay cylinders were wheeled into the studio by ten men. This is “extrusion heaven”. We’ve discovered at least three massive extruders that make tiles, bricks, decorative cornices, forms for openwork ceramic screens, etc.
