This recognition for studio-based research celebrates the importance of material culture and craft history. It also marks a turning point for creative research at the University of Manitoba.

“Receiving the SSHRC Insight Grant means a lot because it is still challenging for research-creation to receive funding at this level, particularly in Manitoba,” said Nickel. “It wasn’t long ago that creative activity wasn’t widely recognized as a viable category of academic research at UM. Now that we’re starting to see studio faculty successfully competing for SSHRC grants, it shows that old, restrictive attitudes toward what constitutes scholarly research are shifting—and the ceiling is being lifted.”

Nickel’s SSHRC-funded project is both deeply personal and broadly impactful. At its core is a rigorous study of Anabaptist/Haban ceramics, an area often overlooked in art history and contemporary ceramic pedagogy.

“Filling this knowledge gap and creating a body of work informed by the Anabaptist/Haban tradition is what excites me most,” she said. “This branch of ceramics, practiced between the mid-15th and late 19th centuries, connects to my own cultural heritage. That makes it personal and allows me to study my own history while developing new work and bringing greater awareness to the Anabaptist/Haban tradition.”

Among the many technical explorations involved in the project is an ongoing search for the elusive “heavenly blue,” a distinctive glaze colour associated with Haban ceramics that is especially difficult to replicate using contemporary methods.

A selection of hand-built ceramic test forms, developed through surface and glaze experiments exploring the visual language of Haban/Anabaptist ceramics, including the elusive “heavenly blue.”

The multi-faceted initiative will culminate in a major exhibition, a print catalogue, a lecture and workshop series, and the creation of a publicly accessible online resource featuring historical and technical data. Together, these outcomes aim to expand the knowledge and visibility of a tradition that continues to resonate in contemporary ceramic practices.

This summer, Nickel has been working closely with Undergraduate Research Award (URA) recipient and recent 2025 BFA Honours graduate Abtahi Hassan. Together, they’ve been conducting foundational research through both traditional and experimental methods.

“Working on Professor Grace Nickel’s project through the URA has been an incredible experience,” said Abtahi. “The focus on Haban/Anabaptist ceramics, a largely forgotten technique, challenged us to think outside the box to replicate the process and the distinctive colors and surface finishes, especially the marbling.

“Marbling is a technique I’ve explored in my ceramic practice for years, so being able to combine that experience with the historical knowledge we uncovered was encouraging. Collaborating with Grace, whose deep understanding of historical materials and methods is so inspiring, pushed my skills to develop exponentially.

“It was also amazing to experiment with a wide range of tools, like 3D printing, which opened up even more possibilities in my practice.”

Grace Nickel and Abtahi Hassan with an array of surface tests developed through the Undergraduate Research Award program.

For Nickel, the mentorship has been equally rewarding:

“Working with Abtahi Hassan through the URA program has been remarkable. We have both learned a lot, and Abtahi has been indispensable in helping me move through the highly ambitious agenda I set for my studio research and creation this summer.

“His insights, tireless energy, and positive presence have been a gift. Through the program, Abtahi has also had the opportunity to develop his own practice, delving into the potential of 3D digital technologies and experimenting with innovative methods in clay.”

Their work also highlights the impact and potential of the URA program, which supports undergraduate students in hands-on research alongside faculty members. As Abtahi notes, the program is still gaining awareness among fine arts students, something both he and Grace hope to expand through visibility and example.

Four in-progress cameo forms out of twenty-two total being created for an installation piece titled “In Search of Heavenly Blue” developed as part of the SSHRC-funded project.

With this SSHRC-funded project, Nickel is bringing together academic research, historical inquiry, and contemporary creative practice in ways that challenge disciplinary boundaries and create new models for collaborative research in the arts.

Congratulations to both Grace and Abtahi on the current and continued success of their hard work.

____

About SSHRC

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) is the federal research funding agency that promotes and supports research and research training in the humanities and social sciences. Established in 1977, SSHRC plays a vital role in Canada’s research landscape by supporting knowledge creation, fostering innovation, and investing in the next generation of scholars and creative thinkers.

Through a range of grants, fellowships, and scholarships—including the Insight Grant awarded to Professor Nickel—SSHRC enables Canadian researchers to explore pressing social, cultural, and historical questions. SSHRC is part of the Innovation, Science and Economic Development portfolio and also administers national research initiatives on behalf of Canada’s three federal research agencies: the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), and SSHRC.

Learn more: https://sshrc-crsh.canada.ca/en/competition-results.aspx

The award was presented during A Night of Excellence: Celebrating Manitoba Makers—the MCC’s inaugural awards dinner held on May 8, 2025, at East India Company in Winnipeg. The evening brought together artists, supporters, and community members to honour 15 local craft artists across five categories, celebrating excellence in contemporary craft across the province.

Grace Nickel with award presenter Alan Lacovetsky. Photo: Matt Duboff.

Established to recognize a Manitoba-based craftsperson with an exceptional studio practice, the Archambeau Award honours “a career of achievements, esteemed reputation, and exceptional advancement in their craft area.” Endowed in the names of Robert and Meridel Archambeau, the award pays tribute to ceramicist and former School of Art professor Robert Archambeau, and the support of his partner, Meridel. As a meaningful gesture, the physical certificates were hand-printed by printmaker and School of Art Assistant Professor, Suzie Smith.

“We’re thrilled to celebrate Grace Nickel as the recipient of the 2025 Robert and Meridel Archambeau Award of Distinction,” said Tammy Sutherland, Executive Director of the Manitoba Craft Council. “It feels right that the first person to receive this award be someone who studied with and so admired Bob’s work as well as his legendary work ethic. Grace’s commitment to innovation and technical excellence, her meticulous and considered style, and the strength of her exhibition and teaching career set the kind of high standard we want to honour with this unique award.”

A celebrated ceramic artist, educator, and researcher, Grace Nickel has long been a vital force within Manitoba’s craft community and across Canada. Her porcelain and installation-based work blends traditional craft with contemporary themes, exploring architecture, impermanence, and material resonance. In 2023, she received the Governor General’s Saidye Bronfman Award, one of Canada’s highest honours for visual artists.

“It is a great honour to be the first to receive this award,” said Nickel. “Ceramics wasn’t even on my radar when I entered art school, but Robert’s passion for the medium was infectious. He instilled in us a rigorous work ethic and commitment to high standards—and it was his lifelong love of clay that continues to inspire me.”

Nickel first met Archambeau as a student, later working alongside him as a colleague. “He continued to guide me as both a mentor and a peer,” she shared. “His insights, humour, and larger-than-life presence helped to light my path as a teacher, researcher, and artist.”

She closed her remarks with a personal reflection: “I will close with the words he wrote in a special notebook he gave me, where his inscription reads: ‘For a dear friend: Don’t save this notebook for later. This is later.’ We miss Bob… but his legacy will live on through this award and through his work, which is timeless.”

Nickel also acknowledged the role of the MCC:

“I’m grateful for the continued support of the MCC throughout my career, and I applaud all that they have done for advancing contemporary craft in Manitoba and moving it beyond both physical and conceptual borders.”

Grace Nickel with Bob Archambeau at her first solo exhibition, held at Ace Art in 1987. Image courtesy of the Manitoba Craft Council.

Nickel’s career includes international exhibitions and recognition, with selections for the Mino International Ceramics Competition (Japan), Taiwan Ceramic Biennale, Cheongju International Craft Biennale (Korea), and multiple appearances in NCECA Invitational Exhibitions in the United States. Her public commissions include Donors’ Forest at the Beechwood National Cemetery of Canada, and her work is part of major museum collections in Canada and beyond.

Beyond the studio, as an educator, Nickel has guided and mentored generations of artists at the School of Art. Her teaching emphasizes rigour, conceptual development, and critical inquiry—values that have left a lasting mark on students and peers alike.

This year’s MCC Craft Awards also celebrated Maureen Winnicki Lyons (Judith Ryan Award for Fibre Arts) and Jennifer Johnson (Marilyn Levitt Award for Functional Ceramics), showcasing the strength and diversity of Manitoba’s craft community.

Congratulations, Grace!

The volume includes a preface by Professor Oliver Botar, setting the stage for a diverse array of essays contributed by esteemed faculty members from both institutions. Among the highlights are contributions from additional School of Art faculty:

• Katherine Boyer and Suzanne McLeod, co-authoring with Jarvis Brownlie: “Opapamipiciwak” Those Who Move from Place to Place: A Story Distorted
• David Foster: Mieke Bal’s Travels in Autotheory
• Grace Nickel: Anabaptist Potters: A Historical and Contemporary Legacy

This collection covers topics ranging from cyclical and imposed mobility to artistic interpretations of nomadism, identity, memory, and transnational integration. The volume also includes insightful explorations of nomadism in film, with works by Réka M. Cristian herself and other esteemed contributors.

The Nomadisms volume is freely available in EPUB format here. For those who prefer a physical copy, it can be purchased via Amazon in print-on-demand format here.

Going Beyond Traditional Sources: Sustainable Clay

For this project, Nickel and her students avoided commercial mining and the use of factory-produced clays, opting instead for clay sourced from the nearby Southwood Circle construction site. This local earthenware came with several environmental benefits. By tapping into resources already on hand, the project sidestepped the environmental impact of long-distance transportation, keeping the carbon footprint low while significantly reducing costs. This red earthenware clay was naturally suited for low-temperature firing, making it a perfect match for the Low-Fire Ceramics class while conserving energy.

Energy-Efficient Firing Techniques

The project’s commitment to sustainability went further through once-firing, a technique that avoided the typical two-step firing process, resulting in even less energy usage. Each step was thoughtfully designed to reduce environmental impact, from the selection of materials to the final firing process, demonstrating that local and accessible resources could meet students’ artistic needs while supporting broader sustainability goals.

Professor Grace Nickel onsite at the Southwood Circle construction site harvesting local clay in August 2024 for her Fall semester Low-Fire Ceramics course.

A Malleable and Collaborative Process

The clay itself was noted for its remarkable plasticity and malleability—qualities that made it an ideal material for student projects. Through collaboration with Southwood Circle construction, Nickel was granted access to abundant, high-quality clay, underscoring the potential for community partnerships in sustainable art practices. She documented the full journey from sourcing to firing, illustrating the process and challenges of working with local clay as students transformed it into unique pieces that reflected both their artistry and a commitment to sustainability.

Honoring Process and Place

As the Local Clay project evolved, students in the Low-Fire Ceramics class learned not only the techniques of working with natural materials but also the responsibilities that came with them. Their work became a testament to what was possible when art met environmental awareness, positioning the Local Clay project as a powerful example of sustainable practice within the art community at UM.

Student reflections capture the essence of this journey

Wendy Peck shared, “When you use clay gathered and processed where you are working, you connect with your location in a magical, tactile way. In addition to the assigned projects, I am creating a mug with the U of M clay to forever mark the years I spent pursuing my dream. It doesn’t get more local than this.”

Anaies Mehrabian, another student, commented on the profound connection with nature that working with local clay fosters: “As a ceramic student, I am captivated by the profound connection between working with local clay and the essence of Mother Nature. Utilizing local clay has deepened my understanding, as I’ve engaged not only with the material itself but also with its creation process. The unpredictable nature of my pieces made with local clay empowers me to embrace the journey, allowing the clay to reveal its unique beauty and enhance my artistic vision in its own remarkable way.”

Work by MFA student Netsanet Shawl, created during the project, showcasing natural textures and colours unique to the local material.

MFA student Netsanet Shawl expressed, “Gathering and working with local clay has been incredibly inspiring. It has opened my eyes to the richness of our environment. It’s interesting to see how the colors and textures of the clay influence our creative processes. This project makes us appreciate the materials we often take for granted. The natural colors and textures of the clay give each piece a distinct character, reminding me of the connection between the Earth and the art.”

Noah Yaschyshyn described the process of transforming raw material into art: “We started with a bucket of material from the construction site on University Crescent. We broke it down, added water, wedged it, and made tests with the raw clay. It’s more intimate of a process than working with commercial clay; it made me think about my relationship to the material, where it came from, and why that’s important to me and my practice. I find ceramics to be community-oriented; we share the studio space, knowledge, ideas. We’re highly conscious of how our actions affect others, and that goes down to how they affect the environment as well. We’re working hard and thinking creatively and cooperatively. I think we’re setting a good example.”

The renowned ceramics artist was raised on a farm about three and a half miles outside of town and grew up in the community, going to elementary school there before attending high school at Garden Valley Collegiate (GVC) in Winkler.

To read the full article, please visit Pembina Valley Online

Eruptions

Exhibition EXTENDED until April 8, 2022

Gallery 1C03 writes:

Eruptions is an exhibition of new and recent work by established Winnipeg artist Grace Nickel in which she collects, studies, transforms and memorializes felled trees and forest fragments in porcelain. Nickel applies an archaeobotanical lens to her investigations, referencing the past and present with regard to the life cycle of living organisms and to varied forms and functions of ceramics production. Nickel’s work also considers how the micro struggle for survival reflects the macro crises in which we find ourselves today, with climate change and resulting environmental catastrophes top of mind.

Nickel’s virtuosic incorporation of diverse ceramic techniques is displayed in Eruptions alongside forward-facing experiments which demonstrate the transformative potential of the medium. Through experimentation in 3D-printing with her collaborator, Michael Zajac, delicate porcelain plumes that burst forth from Eruptions are re-envisioned as other-worldly inkjet prints. Central to the exhibition are limb-like Pyres resembling tree trunks which support miniature forms that reference funerary rituals and provision for the afterlife. Root-like lifelines emerge and stretch skyward suggesting networks of support and the possibility of passage to a new life. An apt creative response to the present time, Eruptions evokes messages of fragility and grief but also hope and resilience.

An illustrated publication for Eruptions, with a contextual response written by ceramics artist and writer Heidi McKenzie, is forthcoming. 

Grace Nickel is an artist and educator living in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Her studio practice focuses on sculptural ceramics and installation. She has won awards in international competitions including the Mino International Ceramics Competition in Japan and the Taiwan Ceramics Biennale and has had numerous solo exhibitions in Canada including at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, the Winnipeg Art Gallery in Manitoba, the Moose Jaw Museum & Art Gallery in Saskatchewan, and the Art Gallery of Burlington in Ontario. Her work has been widely collected and is included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Ceramic Art in Gifu, Japan, the New Taipei City Yingge Ceramics Museum, Taiwan, and the Fule International Ceramic Art Museums project in Fuping, China. Her work has been selected for the Cheongju International Craft Biennale in Korea, and for several NCECA Annual Exhibitions (Philadelphia, Portland). Grace Nickel has completed numerous residencies including at the Pottery Workshop in Jingdezhen, China and the Banff Centre for the Arts in Alberta. She held the position of Adjunct Research Fellow at the Curtin University of Technology in Western Australia and has travelled abroad extensively to present lectures, including recent invitations from the Clayarch Gimhae Museum and AK Ceramics Centre in South Korea, and the Australian Ceramics Triennale in Hobart, Tasmania. Nickel received her BFA from the University of Manitoba and MFA from NSCAD University. She is a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts and currently teaches as Associate Professor at the University of Manitoba School of Art.

VISIT THE EXHIBITION

Eruptions will be open for viewing at Gallery 1C03 on weekdays between 12:00 and 4:00 pm from February 17 until March 25, 2022 (closed Louis Riel Day). All visitors must pre-register for an appointment at least 24 hours in advance of their intended visit time here.

AFFILIATED ONLINE EVENT

Artist talk by Grace Nickel

Presented with Manitoba Craft Council
February 3, 2022, at 7:00 pm CT

Watch Event recording

Artists’ Statement

Grace Nickel and Michael Zajac

In these collaborations, Grace Nickel and Michael Zajac combined traditional materials and methods with new technologies, creating an evolving and reiterative language. Grace Nickel makes clay works, Michael Zajac reinterprets them by digital means, and collaborative decisions lead to new permutations. For example, Grace Nickel’s large, columnar forms have their surface captured using peripheral photography and are rolled out as images on ceramic decals. The process becomes circular as these decals are then applied to new ceramic forms, as on the bases of Eruptions No. 7and 8, and the surfaces of these three-dimensional objects are photographically espaliered, resulting in yet another set of new images. In another collaboration, Michael used digital photogrammetry to capture the detailed three-dimensional forms of the ceramic plumes from Grace’s Eruptions series to create ethereal images, Plume Array and Erbium Plume, and also 3D-print interpretations of the clay forms in bronze. 

The digitally derived images and objects provide foils for the earthbound quality of the clay forms and their fired permanence and vulnerability. What would have been difficult or even impossible to accomplish with clay becomes doable through digital means, as seen in Bronze Plume No. 1. The jointly created works that meld traditional with emerging technologies lead to variety, contrast, and the reimagining of idea and form, and set up an ongoing dialogue of diversity and unity between the collective works and the collaborators.

Featured work:

Permutations 1

Grace Nickel and Michael Zajac

Eruption No. 7 and No. 8, 2019

Porcelain with rare earth oxides, stains, terra sigillata, glaze, and ceramic decals made from digital peripheral photographs

Grace Nickel and Michael Zajac

Plume Array, 2019

Inkjet prints

Permutations 2

Grace Nickel and Michael Zajac

Bronze Plume No. 1, 2019

3D-printed steel and bronze

Grace Nickel and Michael Zajac

Erbium Plume, 2019

Inkjet print

Arbor Vitae is a body of work resulting from an intensive two years of research including artist’s residencies in Jingdezhen, China, exploring fabric formwork at the Centre for Architectural Structures and Technology, and experimenting with fabrication technologies at AssentWorks in Winnipeg.

What: Arbor Vitae
When: January 18 to March 15, 2015
Where: Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery, 25 Caroline St. N, Waterloo, Ontario

Opening reception Sunday, January 18, 2015, 2:00 p.m.