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Pottering in Cornwall - the Leach Pottery

A recent holiday trip  to  St Ives - meant I could at last visit the Leach Pottery. This was  25 years after I had first tried visiting as a student when it was closed. I think it was just after Leach's wife, Janet, had died, so I remember feeling really disappointed.  To finally get there after so long, since my halycon  student days, was somewhat of an emotional experience. Leach is not someone who has particularly influenced my style of work, I guess I pitch somewhere within  mid century- modernism, (I was always a Rie- Coper  fan back at Uni)- but you cannot deny he is a giant of pottery- with a tremendous legacy.

A few years back I developed some problems with high blood pressure and it caused me to pause and reflect and  re evaluate my own work. You tend to work within a specific narrow field, to shut out "other" stuff- perhaps I was a bit arrogant, stubborn even - but I was prone to dismiss the grand- father of British Studio Pottery as just "old brown pots!" How wrong can you be...

While re-cuperating from my period of  illness I found myself drawn to studying videos of Japanese and Korean potters- and saw these great crafts people in a whole new light. The quiet calm stillness of the pots and their muted glaze palette, the sculptural sureity of form, the meditative aspect of the kickwheel suddenly became fascinating viewing! I was drawn back  to looking at Leach and Hamada,  and the potters that draw on their legacy right up to the present day, people  like Jim Malone, Phil Rogers and Nic Collins and so on.  I really do appreciate the way these guys work and the traditions they continue to pursue. It somehow seemed a whole lot more honest...


 It's amazing to see the Pottery revived as a modern working facility and a great museum too displaying work by Leach and his circle- as well as contemporary potters. It embraces  not only it's historic past but it's future too...Personally speaking it was  a bit of a  moving experience, and I felt I had a whole new appreciation of this great master potter. I am probably not about to start wood firing , grow a beard and go "full hard core" -  although why not? But I am sure in some sense- on some level- it has made an impact on me already. I'm excited to have visited and can't wait to get back to work myself.

Highlights of the Leach Pottery



 Me and the kids
 Tamsyn Trevorrow
 Leach bottle 
 Hamada
 Bernard Leach vases
 Kintsugi dish by David Leach
 Japanese contemporary pottery
 Leach bowl?



 Leach's fireplace where he liked to dispense his wisdom on pots









 Adjoining modern workshop and museum with Japanese gravel garden 
 Contemporary ware

 The great Jack Doherty's pots
 Pots by Leach's wife Janet


 Superb pottery by Phil Rogers

Splendid Phil Rogers vase


Bernard Leach Pottery on video

 https://vimeo.com/46967527

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Location: St Ives, UK

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