Luke Orton Lindoe was a Canadian potter, painter, sculptor, and businessman who did most of his work in Alberta, Canada.
31 Facts About Luke Lindoe
1.
2.
Luke Lindoe had many different jobs, from mineral prospecting, coal mining, and teaching art, to producing potting clay and manufacturing ceramic products such as ashtrays.
3.
Luke Lindoe had many commissions for stone or concrete murals on public buildings.
4.
Luke Orton Lindoe was born on 8 March 1913 in Bashaw, Alberta.
5.
Luke Lindoe attended twenty-eight schools, but never completed grade ten.
6.
In 1933 Luke Lindoe tried to start a farm to the south of Fort St James in British Columbia.
7.
Luke Lindoe put up buildings and bought a few animals.
8.
Luke Lindoe went for help to his father, who was general manager of two mines in Coleman, Alberta.
9.
Luke Lindoe worked as an underground coal miner while studying painting and then sculpture at the Provincial Institute of Technology and Art, now the Alberta College of Art and Design in Calgary.
10.
Luke Lindoe went to Toronto to study sculpture at the Ontario College of Art while his funds lasted, and there became interested in ceramics.
11.
Luke Lindoe married Vivian Lamont in 1940, a fellow student at the Provincial Institute of Technology and Art.
12.
Luke Lindoe moved to Medicine Hat, Alberta in 1941, where he worked for Medicine Hat Potteries.
13.
Luke Lindoe then became a production foreman at Redcliff Potteries.
14.
In 1942 Luke Lindoe found a job as a geological surveyor for Imperial Oil, and spent three years mapping the Whitemud Formation in Cypress Hills.
15.
Luke Lindoe developed a life-long interest in researching the properties of clay.
16.
Luke Lindoe understood the drift of things in the Cypress Hills, he knew where the deposits would end up.
17.
In 1945, Luke Lindoe threw up his job and moved to Salmon Arm, British Columbia to paint full time.
18.
Luke Lindoe returned to Calgary and was an instructor at the Alberta College of Art from 1947 to 1957, where he developed the ceramics department.
19.
Luke Lindoe pushed Walter Dexter into becoming a ceramic artist, and was Dexter's mentor for many years.
20.
The studio opened in 1954, with a 40 cubic feet updraft kiln that Luke Lindoe had built by hand.
21.
Luke Lindoe left the College of Art after a disagreement over its direction in 1957.
22.
Luke Lindoe returned to Medicine Hat in 1957 to enter the brick and tile industry.
23.
Luke Lindoe joined the I-XL company of the Sissons brothers, which had gradually been expanding by taking over other companies.
24.
Luke Lindoe was hired as director of research and mining, an area where I-XL was struggling, and turned the operation around.
25.
Luke Lindoe had been hired on the basis that he understood ceramics, but in fact he was a potter and his expertise was locating clay and its properties.
26.
In 1964 Luke Lindoe left his job at I-XL Industries and used $5,000 cash and $5,000 of credit to launch Plainsman Clays, a company that would supply potter's clay to institutions.
27.
Luke Lindoe began as a one-person operation, although Lindoe got some help when needed from his son and daughter.
28.
Luke Orton Lindoe died in Medicine Hat on 4 December 2000 at the age of 87.
29.
Luke Lindoe had a spare style in his paintings and ceramics.
30.
Luke Lindoe's ceramics were decorated with richly layered abstract patterns.
31.
Luke Lindoe was one of the first ceramic artists in Canada to be commissioned to make murals.