The Cornwall Blog

I love local pottery, there is something quite wonderful about driving around Cornwall and discovering a maker's sign beside the road. It doesn't have to be pottery, I am intrigued by anything home or hand made. I just love the happenstance of it, I'm naturally nosey I guess, I want to peer in.   There is such a wealth of ceramics in Cornwall, our historic ties go way back. After all we have produced tonnes of China Clay for the world, a key ingredient in porcelain (you can find out more at the Wheal Martyn Museum). Perhaps the best known name in Cornwall might be Leach Pottery, associated with St Ives and that famous light, starting in the 1920s. Then of course there is Cornish Ware - not actually made in Cornwall - but associated with our sea and sky with its bold and bright blue brush strokes. I prefer, however, pottery that has the maker's marks more visible. I like pieces that feel like they could have been forged from the very ground. With glazes that are somewher...

Amy Cooper Lucy Spink There is an exhibition currently showing at Wheal Martyn , running until December the 20th, that seeks to explore the idea of being 'rooted'. Posing the question of what that means in Cornwall, and in particular, looking at what these Cornish artist's emotional response was to the atmosphere and history of china clay. Bridget Macklin  The responses are varied, like Joe Fenwick's ceramic pills inspired by the use of ground China clay found in everything from paracetamol to aircraft engines. There is Paula Downing's ceramic response which borrows from the Cornish landscape, and Reece Ingram's characterful pieces and the lovely textures of Lucy Spink. Reece Ingram  Joe Fenwick Wilson Worth a visit I would say, most definitely. Entrance is included in the normal gallery admission and works are in the Roger Preston Gallery and dotted around the site.  Paula Downing

There is still loads of events on for September, the schools may go back but holidays are still in full swing down here. From the St Ives September festival to the Perranporth World Belly Board Championships , but this month I wanted to focus on the Tin Mine Clay exhibition at Geevor Mine. An interesting place to visit, Geevor Mine unlocks an important part of Cornwall's not so distant history. The exhibition was created by Dominique Fuglistaller, a Penzance sculptor and Alison Cooke, a London ceramist. Running from the 18th July to October 2019, you can see the artworks they created to mark the centennial of two tragic events - the sinking of Victory shaft at Geevor Mine and the Levant mining disaster that claimed 31 lives. These artists have produced a series of ceramics made from the clay found within the mines. A variety of different clays were uncovered, none easy to work with! Prone to collapsing, cracking and melting it posed quite a challenge. T...

With ceramics by Adam Buick and Rowena Brown 25 March to 6 May 2016 Porthminster Autumn by  Emma Jeffryes New Craftsman St Ives open their 2016 season with an exhibition of work by St Ives artist Emma Jeffryes, Jerwood Makers prize winner Adam Buick and ceramic artist Rowena Brown. In recent years Emma Jeffryes has established herself as one of St Ives’ most distinctive and well-loved painters. Her naive paintings of the town’s unique landmarks and vistas draw on a palette of vivid ocean colours and her lively brushwork conveys the vibrant energy of this busy coastal community. Ceramicist Adam Buick, who has shown at New Craftsman since 2010, was one of only five artists selected for the prestigious Jerwood Makers prize in 2013. His beautifully understated, Korean inspired Moon Jars are created from clays, grit and metal ores sourced directly from the land around him and focus on the individual’s subjective experience of landscape. Ceramics by Rowena Brown...

Join us for this FREE Community Event on Saturday 12 March 2016 Come along to the Leach Pottery on Saturday 12 March and help us decorate tiles for a new mural we are creating for Smeatons Pier. The mural will decorate the pier’s newly refurbished sheltered seating area as part of the St Ives regeneration project, and you can be a permanent part of it by creating your own unique design. During the session you will be asked to create a design on paper, before transferring it to your tile and painting it. Finished tiles will be fired at a later date and successful designs will be included as part of the mural project. We are running four one-hour sessions throughout the day. All ages and abilities welcome. Sessions will run from 10-11am, 11.30am – 12.30pm, 1.30 to 2.30pm and 3-4pm. This event is FREE but booking is essential. Maximum two tickets per booking. See our Eventbrite page via www.leachpottery.com or direct at www.eventbrite.co.uk to book your place now. Leach Pot...

Barry Krzywicki | Group of porcelain sake cups on a tray The Leach Pottery begin their 2016 schedule with a varied exhibition of contemporary pots selected by John Bedding, a one time student of Bernard Leach, ex Leach potter and current Joint Acting Director of the Pottery. The works of individual studio potters are highly unique. Each have different strengths to their work: some makers adhere strongly to tradition; some, through the repetition of familiar shapes and glazes, make pieces which evidence their expert craftsmanship; others have an inquiring mind and are strong on innovation and experimentation; still others have a strong sense of design, creating works that are clean, sharp and precise. As a well-known collector and authority on contemporary ceramics, John has chosen works which define these varied qualities and demonstrate the breadth of skill and creativity to be found in pottery today. The exhibition includes traditional stoneware by Phil Rogers and John Jelf...

  From the 28 November 2015 to 16 January 2016 the renowned St Ives ceramic studio Leach Pottery are hosting an exhibition. Douglas Fitch and Hannah McAndrew present A Love Affair with Clay, these established potters have lectured in Japan and the USA and are presenting their new work. Now partners in marriage as well as ceramics, much to the delight of the pottery community, you can see their shared influences of English pottery. They share their time between Hannah’s studio in a quiet corner of rural Galloway, Scotland, and Douglas’s studio in mid Devon. Hannah loves pots that have a purpose and Douglas decorates his with appliqué decoration or sgrafitto, using traditional slips made from local materials. Founded in 1920 by Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada, the Leach Pottery, St Ives, is among the most respected and influential potteries in the world. Over the last hundred years it has forged the shape of Studio Pottery in the UK and beyond. So for somethi...

Britta Wengeler plate The 2014 Ceramics Trail Cornwall, which coincides with the St Ives September Festival, running from the 13th to 27th of September 2014. Coinciding with this year’s St Ives September Festival is the second Ceramics Trail Cornwall, which brings together twenty four professional potters and ceramic artists as part of a fortnight-long 'open studios' circuit. Visitors to the September Festival will be encouraged to visit the many talented potters based in the town of St Ives and to venture out into the surrounding towns and countryside to explore other pottery venues and some of the smaller, independent ceramic studios of West Cornwall. Linda Styles pot The potters and ceramic artists involved in the trail cover a very wide range of practices, styles and techniques ranging from traditional wood-firing, soda-firing and reduction firing through to the application of digital technologies.The trail will be promoted through a specially designed trail m...

The Leach Pottery St Ives presents an exhibition of more than 80 pots by West Cornwall based potter Peter Swanson. An independent studio potter for the last four decades, Swanson is entirely self-taught and his distinctive and highly accomplished works have established him as one of the UK’s most respected contemporary potters. This exhibition marks 40 years since he moved from Hampshire to Cornwall to open a family run pottery at Penbeagle, St Ives in 1974. Swanson works in stoneware and porcelain using locally sourced clays and produces his own ash glazes from various natural materials such as oak, beech, lavender and granite dust. With a style inspired by Leach and set very much in the Anglo-Oriental tradition, he has travelled extensively in Japan and Korea, absorbing ideas that have greatly enriched his working practice, and has most recently visited wood-firing potters working in Australia’s NSW. In this brand new collection of work S...

Beginning their 2014 exhibition schedule, Leach Pottery St Ives present and exhibition of work by British potter Mike Dodd showing from the 15th February to the 30th March 2014. A largely self-taught artist whose work has received widespread critical acclaim, Dodd studied Natural Sciences at Cambridge and a one year ceramics course at Hammersmith College of Art before setting up his first studio in Sussex in 1968. In 1975, along with friend and potter Peter Schofield, he founded the Cider House Pottery at West Cornwall’s Godolphin estate, where they built a small wood-fired climbing kiln, and later constructed and worked with a traditional Thai kiln. Dodd remained in Cornwall until 1980, when he travelled to the central jungles of Peru to build a wood-fired Anagama kiln for an Amuesha Community, in a project funded by Oxfam and Survival International. He now works from his studio near Glastonbury in Somerset. Producing work that has been referred to as ‘pottery without ego’, ...

First Ever Cornwall Ceramics Trail Launches to coincide with the St Ives September Festival 2013. The history of ceramics in Cornwall is of great importance to the art history of both this region and the wider world, and attracts students, academics and cultural visitors from across the UK and internationally. Alongside established public venues such as the Leach Pottery St Ives and a wealth of private ceramics galleries, the county supports a broad community of independent ceramicists working from private studios. Timed to coincide with the St Ives September Festival 2013, from Saturday 14th to Saturday 28th September this year the first ever Ceramics Trail Cornwall will see potters and ceramicists opening up their working studios to the public. Throughout the event fans of contemporary Cornish pottery will have a unique opportunity to meet and engage with ceramicists, see them at work in their pottery studios and purchase works direct. French born potter Michel François, who...