April 2026

After using the xDX Research Space to map ceramics in the collection, I discovered that many of them were made in Medicine Hat, Alberta. To delve into the history of Medicine Hat’s ceramics production, I research one specific object: the Medicine Hat Potteries’ criss-cross design salad plate.

This plate captures a key development in Canadian design: the blending of craft and industry. The plate's black lines are irregular and asymmetrical, suggesting a hand-painted quality. This irregularity conveys the presence of the maker, making the plate appear rooted in a handcrafted tradition. Yet this impression is misleading. This plate was produced using modern, industrial methods.

The fact that the integrates both craft and industry is significant. In the early 20^th century, these approaches were seen as fundamentally opposed.ⁱ Craft traditions emphasized individuality, ornament, and a direct relationship between the maker and the made.ⁱⁱ In contrast, industrial design prioritized efficiency, uniformity, and modernity, often distancing the object from its creator.ⁱⁱⁱ  

The emergence of the ceramics industry in Medicine Hat helps explain how this divide was bridged. Prior to the 20th century, Canada lacked the means to affordably produce ceramics and relied on imports from the United Kingdom, where the Arts and Crafts tradition was strong.^iv An abundance of red clay and natural gas wells to power industrial manufacturing along with connection by the Canadian pacific Railway to large urban markets made Medicine Hat the perfect location for the Canadian ceramics industry to flourish.^v Within the first two decades of the 20^th century, modern industrial practices allowed Medicine Hat to become the centre for ceramics manufacturing in Canada, reducing reliance on British imports.^vi Medicine Hat Potteries, Medalta Potteries, and the Alberta Clay Products Company all thrived in Medicine Hat.^vii

Within this industrial context, the persistence of craft aesthetics becomes significant. Canadians were accustomed to the craft aesthetics of British ceramics, and in the 1930s, a broader craft revival emerged in Canada in response to mass industrialization.^viii This plate reflects how industrial producers adopted the visual language of the handicrafts, such as irregularity, asymmetry, and decorative expressiveness, to appeal to craft values. As such, this plate is not simply a functional object, but evidence of a transitional moment in Canadian design, where industry and craft worked hand-in-hand.

However, examining the other side of the plate tells a different story. Beneath the narrative of craft and industry working together lies a more unsettling reality: a history shaped by colonial extractivism and appropriation.

The logo on the bottom of the plate features the name of the company in a semicircular shape, interrupted by a feather attached to a hat from which a braid pertrudes. This is a simplified depiction of an indigenous chief. In the first half of the twentieth century, many Canadian artists, designers and scholars positioned craft alongside so-called “primitive” design, arguing that both rejected the rigidity of the academic arts. This framework, based in cultural racism, was used to justify the appropriation of Indigenous imagery for settler use. This logo also uses Indigenous imagery to symbolize place, connecting Indigenous presence to Medicine Hat’s land. However, Medicine Hat Potteries was complicit in the appropriation of Indigenous territory. The industrial activities that sustained the manufacturer violated Indigenous land and the ways of life inherently tied to it.   The land on which Medicine Hat in located is home to Blackfoot, Cree, Assiniboine and Métis Peoples.^ix Under Treaties 4 and 7, Indigenous peoples were displaced from this land and relocated to reserves to allow for the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway.^x The transportation networks, natural gas and clay deposits that were key to the success of Medicine Hat Potteries are inseparable from the colonial dispossession of Indigenous land. Industrial activity not only altered the landscape but also undermined Indigenous livelihoods that depended on it. In an era of aggressive assimilation, restricting access to land was a direct attack on Indigenous ways of life.  
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Today, this area is a designated historical site, known as “The Historic Clay District.”^xi This designation reflects a clear bias towards colonial and extractivist values: the land is protected for its industrial legacy rather than its significance to Indigenous peoples.^xii  

This legacy of colonial extractivism continues today in new forms. Current debates surrounding the Ring of Fire mines in Northern Ontario echo dynamics seen in Medicine Hat nearly a century ago.^xiii Indigenous communities are still forced to defend their land and livelihoods against ongoing pressures of resource extraction.  

Teresa Keuleman, Undergraduate RA, Carleton University