Star Tribune
Maureen Brockway, well-known potter and teacher, remembered for her inviting lessons
Ingrid Sundstrom remembers the last time she saw her friend and teacher Maureen Brockway, a potter who was well known in the Twin Cities arts community.
It was in 2019 at a national ceramics show in Minneapolis, and Brockway was in high demand.
“There’s thousands of ceramic artists from all over the world that come to this show, and it seemed everywhere she turned, somebody said, ‘Maureen! Maureen! Maureen!’ ” Sundstrom said.
Brockway devoted her life to teaching her craft and exhibited her work at shows around the Twin Cities. Her many friends and former students are remembering her skills and warmth as a teacher since Brockway’s death on July 24 in Denver. She was 85.
Brockway, maiden name McDermaid, was born in Detroit, but her family moved shortly after to White Bear Lake. She graduated from Mahtomedi High School in 1955 and went on to the University of Minnesota, where she majored in art education and Spanish.
At the U, she studied under Warren McKenzie, the internationally known potter. But in Minnesota she was well known for her own pieces, usually made from hard-to-work porcelain clay and characterized by vibrant glazes sprayed with an air gun and intricate patterns of watered-down clay she applied with a syringe.
Brockway co-founded the ceramics department at the Edina Art Center and was co-head in the 1970s and 1980s. She continued to teach students there until moving to Colorado eight years ago, her sister, Peggy Weber said.
Sundstrom said Brockway was a precise and kind teacher who fostered a friendly environment in her classes that earned her many loyal students.
Brad Benn, who now teaches pottery classes himself, took his first session with Brockway and got “stuck” on the craft, he said.
“Besides being my first teacher, she was just a very good friend, and I could go to her with any questions about technique,” Benn said.
Brockway even donated her personal gas-fired kiln to the Edina Art Center before moving out of the state. It previously sat in her backyard and fired her own work, but as Brockway aged, poor eyesight kept her from continuing to throw plates, bowls, mugs and other pieces of ceramic.
Her work was shown repeatedly around the cities, including in the juried show at the Minnesota State Fair, and she was one of the featured artists in the Purple Door Potters, a group that has an annual sale around Thanksgiving, Weber said.
In a 1994 article in Craft Connection, a newspaper put out by the Minnesota Craft Council, Brockway said: “I like working in the medium of clay, making beautiful forms that can be used. … Lately I’m wanting to stretch my forms beyond only the utilitarian, into forms that might be more visually challenging: a higher handle, a smaller spout.”
Brockway was also an avid downhill skier until health issues prevented her from continuing to visit the slopes, Weber said.
She is survived by her husband, Robert Brockway, whom she met in the Twin Cities’ ULLR skiing club.
Brockway is also survived by her daughter Anne Waugaman and son David, sister Peggy Weber and four grandchildren.
A private memorial for family and friends will be held in mid-October.
DULUTH – The Minnesota and Wisconsin transportation departments will make upgrades to the Richard I. Bong Memorial Bridge in the summer of 2025, in preparation for the structure to become the premiere route between this city and Superior during reconstruction of the Blatnik Bridge.
Built in 1961, the Blatnik Bridge carries 33,000 vehicles per day along Interstate 535 and Hwy. 53. It will be entirely rebuilt, starting in 2027, with the help of $1 billion in federal funding announced earlier this year. MnDOT and WisDOT are splitting the remaining costs of the project, about $4 million each.
According to MnDOT, projects on the Bong Bridge will include spot painting, concrete surface repairs to the bridge abutments, concrete sealer on the deck, replacing rubber strip seal membranes on the main span’s joints and replacing light poles on the bridge and its points of entry. It’s expected to take two months, transportation officials said during a recent meeting at the Superior Public Library.
During this time there will be occasional lane closures, detours at the off-ramps, and for about three weeks the sidewalk path alongside the bridge will be closed.
The Bong Bridge, which crosses the St. Louis River, opened to traffic in 1985 and is the lesser-used of the two bridges. Officials said they want to keep maintenance to a minimum on the span during the Blatnik project, which is expected to take four years.
Red Wing will celebrate the grand opening of its first permanent set of pickleball courts next week with an “inaugural play” on the six courts at Colvill Park on the banks of the Mississippi, between a couple of marinas and next to the aquatic center.
Among the first to get to play on the new courts will be David Anderson, who brought pickleball to the local YMCA in 2008, before the nationwide pickleball craze took hold, and Denny Yecke, at 92 the oldest pickleball player in Red Wing.
The inaugural play begins at 11 a.m. Tuesday, with a rain date of the next day. Afterward will be food and celebration at the Colvill Park Courtyard building.
Tim Sletten, the city’s former police chief, discovered America’s fastest-growing sport a decade ago after he retired. With fellow members of the Red Wing Pickleball Group, he’d play indoors at the local YMCA or outdoors at a local school, on courts made for other sports. But they didn’t have a permanent place, so they approached the city about building one.
When a city feasibility study came up with a high cost, about $350,000, Sletten’s group got together to raise money.
The courts are even opening ahead of schedule, originally set for 2025.
REDWOOD FALLS, MINN. – A truck crashing into a school bus left nine with minor injuries Wednesday morning in rural Redwood County, a statement from the Redwood County Sheriff’s office said.
The bus driver, serving the Wabasso Public School District, failed to yield when entering the intersection of County Road 7 and 280th Street, the statement said.
Deputies received word of the crash around 8:15 a.m. and identified the bus driver as Edward Aslesen, 72, of Milroy.
The nine injured passengers on the bus were transported to local hospitals, the statement said.
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