100 years ago today (28 August 2020), the youngest of Bernard and Muriel Leach's children were born. Twins Jessamine and Betty made their appearance only 4 days after the Leach family relocated to England after a long boat trip from Japan. Below is an account of their lives written by Jessamine's son, David Kendall, along … Continue reading The Hidden Twin Daughters
To celebrate and honour 100 years of the Leach Pottery, Lead Potter Roelof Uys is crafting a new Limited Edition range of 1200 pieces of tableware. The first 100 Limited Edition Yunomi are now available to buy exclusively through the Leach Pottery website. Below, Roelof explains why he has chosen the humble but elegant yunomi to launch the … Continue reading Leach Pottery Limited Edition Centenary Range Launches with the Yunomi
Author: Rachel Viney, Historical Story Researcher at the Leach Pottery Past and present meet – in some surprising ways – in this account of the sea voyage that brought Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada to Britain 100 years ago In June 1920, the cargo-passenger steamer NYK Kamo Maru set sail from the Japanese port of … Continue reading A Voyage from East to West: Leach and Hamada’s Journey to England, June 1920
Hello - I hope this finds you safe and well. As you may know, in March we made the difficult decision to close our doors in order to slow the spread of COVID-19, and protect our staff and visitors. 3 months on and this continues to be a very strange and worrying situation for everyone, … Continue reading Update from the Director: June 2020
Author: Rachel Viney, Historical Story Researcher at the Leach Pottery Bernard Leach’s encounter with raku in Japan in 1911 changed his life and had a profound influence on the direction of pottery making in the UK. About raku Raku’s origins date back to sixteenth-century Japan and the art of the tea ceremony. Although many types … Continue reading Bernard Leach and raku
Having been closed for just over a month, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all personally for your support for the Leach Pottery. You – our community both locally and internationally – give us the confidence to drive forward our ambitions for the Leach Pottery and our future. We want to … Continue reading Update from the Director 27.4.2020
In line with the Leach 100 years celebrations in 2020, the Wednesday Wanderers are working on a project of their own. Who are the Wednesday Wanderers? The Wednesday Wanderers are a group of people in the St Ives area who live with memory-loss issues and dementia. They and their carers meet up each week to … Continue reading Wednesday Wanderers: Leach 100 Project
Here, Helen Lee provides some fascinating insights into being a volunteer with the Leach Pottery, working alongside the Sensory Trust and our Wednesday Wanderers group - a creative ceramics project for people with dementia and their carers. This voluntary work helped Helen combine her love of ceramics with her background in psychotherapy to reach some … Continue reading Making A Teabowl: A Sensory Journey
With sadness, we began to hear the news of Warren’s death at the very start of this year receiving messages from potters and his devotees, and seeing obituaries in respected publications alongside boundless expressions of loss on social media. One thing’s for sure: Warren is missed. This post looks at Warren’s relationship with the Leach … Continue reading Warren MacKenzie: A Tribute
I catch up with poet Katrina Naomi halfway through her residency to learn more about her self-confessed love of pottery and her sense of the Leach Pottery.
