The ceramic creations of Ida MacKay of Mount Stewart, PEI remains some of the most distinctive pottery produced during the 1970's and 1980's on the Island due to her use of an unglazed but highly textured surface. Using various processes she produced work with a natural organic feel.
She studied under both Barry Jeeves and Ron Arvidson at Holland College School of Visual Arts in Charlottetown and participated in workshops with visiting artist, including Les Manning whose stretched-slab techniques were influential on her. Her interest in art and pottery is captured in the landmark book by Gail Crawford, Studio Ceramics in Canada 1920–2005.
Throughout my pursuit of word and image, I met and became friends with some remarkable people. One was Ida MacKay of Mount Stewart, Prince Edward Island, who came to Toronto in the 1930s to pursue psychiatric nursing and, at night, to study pottery-making at Central Technical School. One of her pieces appears in Chapter 1. When war broke out, she enlisted, and, as Lieutenant MacKay, she survived several adventures, including abandoning her torpedoed ship near Gibraltar while en route to Italy to care for Canadian troops. In 1970, when she finished her peacetime career in public health, she returned to clay. No longer interested in wheel work, she enrolled in a workshop in Charlottetown that focused on the stretched-slab technique, conducted by Alberta College of Art instructor . . .Ida used her initials in a vertical format I M M as her potter's mark along with the province "PEI" indicated.
Ida MacKay's six years service as a Canadian Army nurse the during the Second World War is being documented by PEI historian Katherine Dewar, for a forthcoming book scheduled for publication in late 2021. The book is titled We'll Meet Again: P.E.I. Women of the Second World War.
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