It has been a busy year here at the Leach Pottery. We have seen more local people join us for workshops, a new pottery apprentice join our studio, the recruitment of seven additional roles and work beginning on our new Learning and Production Centre. Here are a few of our highlights from 2024:
The Learning & Participation team
A heartfelt thanks to all the participants and potters who have joined us this year for workshops and courses! We have welcomed 3,775 participants onto the programme and it has been wonderful to see so many hands work with clay – from touching clay for the first time to addressing dripping teapot spouts!
Make with Leach
With thanks to National Lottery Heritage Project, 2024 has seen the start of a four-year programme called Make with Leach. Make with Leach is a collection of activities and workshops engaging local people with clay, the story and collection of the Leach Pottery. We have been fortunate to work in partnership with local organisations such as the Stennack Surgery and their Social Prescribing programme, Treyla, Promas Carers, Barnardo’s Young Carers, the St Ives Schools of Painting and their youth programme, the Sensory Trust and the Wednesday Wanderers along with other wonderful local charities and schools. To see the positive impact that engaging with clay can have for so many people is a privilege.
Leach on Wheels!
This year we have embraced leading workshops offsite at our partnership organisations more regularly with many of the Adult Programme workshops taking place at Newlyn School of Art. This move has highlighted the strengths of the programme, small workshop sizes, the ethos of Leach, excellent tutors and curious learners.
Many of our community and schools workshops have taken place offsite too – at our partnership organisations and schools.
We have seen the development of a collection of new courses welcomed into the programme this year; two Handles in Focus, Jugs, and Plates & Bottles, and continuation of both our Standard and Specialist courses and evening workshops.
New Courses
What lies ahead for the Learning & Participation programme in 2025?
- Deepening our work with partnership organisations and evolving new community links
- Sustaining our creative workshops for our longstanding partnerships and offering more free workshops to the local community, schools and families
- Exploring new ways of creating through co-production between community groups and potters
- Introducing new year-long courses for Adults including the Potter’s Year and Potter’s Beginners
- Moving our programme into the new studios and filling those spaces with making
Shop and Commercial team
We have been overwhelmed by the positive response to the presentation of our Standard Ware. We thank everyone who throughout the year has supported us by buying standard ware and individual makers’ work, as well as books, T-shirts, handmade aprons and everything else in between.
We held two seconds sales in the year: one over the Easter Bank Holiday – which was the last one in the Beagle Cross garden before building works began. The second was over the August Bank Holiday weekend, held in the Old Workshop and Museum Garden. Both were really well-attended and remain hugely popular.
We have showcased dozens of potters, including work from our team of studio potters. Potters of the Week included Emily Myers, Chris Keenan, Jeremy Leach and John Webb. In the lead up to Christmas we featured potters from the studio; the last two have been near sell-outs for Production Potter Britta James and Lead Potter Roelof Uys.
We ended the year with a fantastic collaboration to showcase our range for Christmas. This season we were delighted to collaborate with Milieu Studios to photograph our Standard Ware at their beautiful, light-filled gallery in St Ives. Milieu is a contemporary art gallery with artist-led, curated, seasonal exhibitions and features some of the UK’s most well-regarded artists and craftsmen. Find out more about Milieu’s future plans at milieustudios.co.uk
The Production Studio
The Studio has continued to create our ever popular Standard Ware range, as demand continues to grow. We welcomed Callum Cowie as our 2024 Apprentice; Callum is local to St Ives and his family has a long association with the Leach Pottery – his great-great grandfather and great-grandfather worked with Bernard Leach. His great-grandgather can be seen in our archive footage in the Museum.
In the summer we celebrated Ellie Woods’ Apprenticeship, as she graduated from her three-year Leach Pottery training with a near sell-out solo exhibition in the Shop Gallery and online. In September we opened Leach Studio: A Potters’ Challenge in the Entrance Gallery; featuring our six studio potters – Callum Cowie, Matt Foster, Britta James, Roelof Uys, Amy Wilson and Ellie Woods – and work they’ve produced in response to chosen objects from the Museum.
Exhibitions in 2024
We presented a number of exhibitions across 2024 which began with Colour & Movement in the Entrance Gallery. This spring group show featured the work of Dylan Bowen, Heather Gibson, Dawn Hajittofi, Jennifer Hall and Tarragon Smith. This was followed a stand-out solo exhibition by our Honorary Potter John Bedding: 60 Years On, a bold display of both John’s Illustrated and Copper Glazed Pot series.
We launched Students Over A Century: Roots & Branches in the Cube Gallery, a historic exhibition telling the story of a small number of the students who have passed through the Leach Pottery from 1923 up to now. This runs into 2025 if you’d like to catch it (though please check opening on the exhibition page before visiting).
This sees us through to the end of the year, and we’d like to express thanks to those who have purchased work from our commercial exhibitions; supporting living artists, and those who have found enjoyment in looking at pots displayed across our site.
We’ve enjoyed welcoming a great many number of visitors; thanks to all who come and support us, from our near neighbours in Cornwall, to those who make the journey to visit us from across the country and overseas.
Capital Project: our two-year transformation
ABOVE: Computer–generated image of new Learning and Production Centre at the Leach Pottery
The transformation of the Leach Pottery project got underway onsite during 2024, with the demolition of the Beagle Cross building to make way for a Learning and Production Centre due to open in the autumn of 2025. Our thanks go out to all of our supporters – including local people and organisations who have helped shape the project so far, this includes our funders St Ives Town Deal, the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Arts Council England.
The demolition marks the first part of the project which will see improvements to the whole of our site, helping us to expand our learning programme for local people and employ more people. The improvements are:
- A new Learning and Production Centre to provide more classes and bespoke workshops, increase pottery production and training opportunities
- A new reception and café building
- Refurbish and extend the existing museum to include an introductory gallery, hands-on activities, exhibits and a trail
- Revamp the existing shop in the listed Pottery Cottage
- Create a temporary gallery for shows of contemporary pottery for sale
- Improved facilities for visiting artists
You can keep up to date on our Capital Project on the Live updates page on our website.
See you in 2025!
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