Description Nita DesBarres

...It would have been as early as 1914 that Nita started to take the five arts courses at Mount Allison in Sackville.  The regular course included instruction in drawing, painting, design, metal work including jewelry, weaving, wood carving, leather work and pottery.

After she completed that course she studied engraving in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  Having acquired that skill she was employed by Birks in Halifax as engraver and jewelry designer.  She was the first woman engraver in Canada we believe.  That was during the 1920s. 

Later she did weaving in New York for a short time and later went back to Mount Allison to learn more about pottery.

For some years she worked at the Warp & Woof shop in Chester, Nova Scotia and latter managed a shop there. In both places she had a loom and did weaving.  She was there when was was declared in 1939. 

During the was she worked at the ship yard in Pictou in charge of the women, a foreman.   Toward the end of that time she bought the little house on Denoon Street.

After the war she concentrated on weaving for several years, gradually doing more pottery until she did only that.  Seh devised her own glazes and prepared the clay from the time it came from Lantz, NS until it was ready to use.  All her designs were her own.  Each piece a singular thing even if it was a similar design to another.  She took infinite care, patience and time in whatever she did.  Her aim was to make beautiful things as perfectly as she could

Ruth McKinnon has a technical knowledge of Nitas pottery that we haven't.

She gave away a lot of her pottery.  She sold some to individuals and to shops.  For awhile she displayed some at Pictou Lodge in its hey day.  She exhibited at exhibitions of crafts in Nova Scotia, where she had a wheel and made things to demonstrate.  The picture you have was taken on such an occassion. ( See 01-568-2)

When Many people came to her house to see her pottery and perhaps to buy she decided to set up a shop in her basement near where she wheel and kiln were.  We can't remember just when that was, late 1940 perhaps.  Somebody in Pictou might know.

(This letter goes on to share personal memories the auther shared with Nita)