Artists & Makers
LEACH
POTTERY
St. Ives, Cornwall
April 2019
Leach Pottery is the studio of British potter Bernard Leach, founded in 1920 by Leach and friend Shoji Hamada, they created a studio that potters have travelled from far and wide to learn their trade. Although modest from the outside the inside of the studio is an amazing space full of textures and pockets of light, which really struck a chord with us.
Leach is not just a museum capturing its rich history but also a working studio today that has a great energy. We wandered around the old workshop marvelling at the space, there were students getting a lesson in firing mixed with tourists who’d wandered in straight off the beach escaping the afternoon showers. We particularly enjoyed the Japanese climbing kiln that is believed to be the first ever built in the western world. Of course we couldn’t leave without checking out the gift shop which has an impressive collection of Leach ceramics created right there in the studio.
“As far back as one goes in time, the works of humanity from prehistoric times have reached us not through stone which crumbles and wears away, or through metal which oxidizes and becomes like powder, but through slabs of pottery, the writing on which is as clear today as it was under the stiletto of the scribe who traced it.”
Quote by Bernard Leach
