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POTTERS
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Th FOWN) A very personal book review by Keith Rice-Jones

Thrown: British Columbia's Apprentices of
Bernard Leach and their Contemporaries

Editors: Naomi Sawada, Jana Tyner and
Scott Watson. Essays by: Glenn Allison,
Gwyn Hanssen Pigott, Michael Henry, Tam
Irving, Charmian Johnson, Glenn Lewis, Lee
Plested, Herbert Read, John Reeve, Naomi
Sawada, Doris Shadbolt, lan Steele, Nora
Vaillant, Scott Watson, and Soetsu Yanagi.

Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, 2011
304 pages, colour, hard-cover

CDN $60

ISBN: 978-0-88865-803-6

hrown: Influences and Intentions of

West Coast Ceramics was a significant

exhibition in 2004 at the Morris
and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, UBC. The
book, Thrown: British Columbias Apprentices
of Bernard Leach and their Contemporaries, as
well as documenting the exhibition, through a
series of essays and letters, provides compelling
insight into a critical and important time in
B.C. ceramics. As Tam Irving in his personal
reminiscences says, “We were too engaged
to be concerned about a place in history”
(p. 126). Certainly, this rich and informative
book anchors so much about this yeasty and
formative time.

The book is immediately inviting. Giving
recognition to the importance and value of
the rhythms of the studio, the cover depicts
a torn cover of a kiln log; it is a bit like a silky
and shiny version of something on the shelf
of my own workshop. A series of evocative
photographs take us into the book and an
insightful preface by Scott Watson.

In the early 70s, not a fraction of the
information for potters was available that
there is today. As for so many others, Leach’s

www.geeenbarn.com

9548 192 Street,
Surrey, B.C. VAN 3R9
Phone: 604.888.3411
Fax: 604.888.4247

ean Darn

POTTERS SUPPLY LTD.

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Saturday 9-1

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A Potters Book was essential reading for me.
Beyond practical information that remains
as germane as it was then, it provided a
philosophical basis for work and working, and
it also proposed making pots as part of a whole
self-sufficient lifestyle. My own copy is full of
underlining and margin notes, especially in
the chapter “Towards a Standard.” As was
the case for all the people in the book, there
was no course that gave me all the answers.
We learned from a process of trial and error,
from successes and failures and gleaning
information wherever it could be found. I
was a permanent fixture in Hiro Urakami’s
House of Ceramics, never seemingly getting
enough pots. I bought my first pot there—
a John Reeve jug.

Reading the book, I found I was amazed
by all the direct and indirect connections
I had to the people and events of this little
corner of history, for, like Tam Irving at the
time, I was just getting on with life. We are
all doing that, but these pages are filled with
passionate and articulate commentary by
and about these people, their work, and on
all the issues with which potters and indeed
all craft people struggle. A useful gauge of a
book for me is to note how many passages I
want to read out loud to share! The section
of letters (pp. 211-237) was particularly vital
as it gives a window into the direct thinking
and discussions taking place at the time.
Whether it is John Reeve questioning his own
and others integrity of purpose (even Bernard
Leach and Harry Davis!) or Gwyn Hanssen-
Pigott’s socialist polemic to Henry Rothschild,
owner of Primavera Gallery in Cambridge,
England, included in a letter to Warren
MacKenzie on the proletarian pot, the letters
are interwoven with details of personal and
daily life. The sense of reality is compelling
and what makes the history so relevant. It is
a pity that letters like this are rarely written
these days; I do not think that our emails
and short sound bytes will have the same
resonance for future generations. In his essay,
“Search for Integrity,” Scott Watson, one of
the co-curators of Thrown explores the starting
point of the Leach influence and legacy, the
philosophical dimensions of craft, the ethical
pot and the art pot as part of the Art/Craft
debate with broad and far reaching references.
He concludes with an all-embracing positive

Contd on Page 7, \deas echo

Potters Guild of BC Newsletter - August 2011

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