In 2020 the Leach Pottery begun celebrating 100 years. Established by friends and colleagues Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada in 1920, the Pottery was built with an experimental and progressive spirit that has influenced studio pottery around the world.

Leach 100 celebrated clay and the legacy of the Leach Pottery with a multi-layered programme of community outreach, exhibitions, talks, artistic commissions, and conferences with projects (extended by Covid-19) continuing into 2023.

Responding to Covid

During 2020 and 2021 we adapted to the Covid-19 pandemic and successfully carried out the Leach 100 programme. We transferred some events to digital formats and, working with a wide range of collaborative partners, were able to launch multiple exhibitions and events when lockdown restrictions were lifted.

Partners included: Centre for Ceramic Art (CoCA), British Ceramics Biennial, Crafts Council, Mashiko Residency Centre & Museum of Ceramics, Japanese Embassy, Craft in America, Crafts Study Center, St Ives School of Painting, Sensory Trust, Carefree Cornwall, Porthmoer Studios, Tate St Ives and the Mingei Film Archive.

Aims of Leach 100

The celebrations reinforced the Leach Pottery as a living heritage asset, our status as a central voice in handmade pottery as well as encouraging communities locally and nationally to engage with clay. These intentions were deployed in three strands of activities ‘Take Part!’, ‘Talent Development’ and ‘Inspired Thinking’.

Take Part!

We held a National Raku Party, where small grants were given to 21 groups to run National Raku Parties, we held Clay School Workshops with local Schools and a National School Design Challenge. There were three Schools Design Challenge winners; Bronze, Silver and Gold each rewarded with money for equipment, and either a day or week-long Mini-Apprenticeship at the Leach Pottery. Selected works from all of the Take Part! activities were featured in the exhibition ‘Clay and Community’ in our Cube Gallery. We ran an exchange trip between schools in St Ives and Mashiko in Japan, elements of this took place digitally and we are currently planning the return trip of St Ives students to Mashiko, due to take place in 2023.

Talent Development

Leach100 Commission Artists, Aaron Angell, Steven Claydon, Amy Hughes, Rosanna Martin and Dr David Paton developed new works exploring the relationships between place, landscape, material, legacy and narratives, which were exhibited at the British Ceramics Biennial and later at the Leach Pottery. Our Studio created a range of limited edition items, 100 pieces of each, and in 2022 we will commission a public artwork for St Ives. Hyosum Kim, Nicola Singh and Julia Ellen Lancaster joined us for Artist Residencies. Delayed to 2022 are residencies from Tomoo Hamada and Jeff Oestreich and the Residency in Japan of our Lead Potter Roelof Uys.

Inspired Thinking

We held a Symposium with the COCA, to explore themes of sustainability and how pottery participation through studio and outreach work sustains individual and community wellbeing. In 2022 there will be a conference to follow on from the symposium to explore Ceramic Practice as a ‘Medium of Social and Political Change and Resistance’. In 2023/4 the Leach Pottery is coordinating material for the creation of a ‘Leach Reader’. Comprising key Bernard Leach texts, critical Leach writing and new thinking, the ‘Leach Reader’ will become a pivotal text for Studio Pottery.

Leach 100 Exhibitions

Across 2020 and 2021 over 30 exhibitions celebrated the Leach Pottery legacy and our connections across the pottery world.

At the Leach Pottery

Clay and Community, Century of Connections, John Leach:65 Years a Potter, Annabelle Smith: An Apprenticeship, Hyosun Kim: Journey of a Moon Jar, Leach100 Commission Artists, 100 Years of Leach and Hamada Influence, Leach Studio Potters: 100 Years On, People and Pottery, Tomoo Hamada, Jeff Osterich and Helen Doherty.

Across the UK

100 Years of the Leach Pottery at Oxford Ceramics ,“Making Waves” The Hundred Year Legacy of the Leach Pottery St Ives Ceramics, Pioneers: a Hundred Years of the Leach Pottery Court Barn: a Museum of Craft and Design, Kai Althoff & Bernard Leach Whitechapel Gallery, 100 Years of Leach & Hamada Influence Clay College, Bernard Leach: 100 Years on from St Ives Craft Study Centre, Contemporary Japanese Potters Devon Guild of Craftsmen, Leach, Hamada and the Birth of British Studio Ceramics COCA.

Internationally

Japan

The Story of St. Ives and Mashiko Towns, Beyond East and West, Mashiko & St. Ives 100 Year Celebration: Friendship Over the Sea Mashiko Town, Leach and Hamada at the Shoji Hamada Memorial Mashiko Sankokan Museum Started it in England: Hamada and Leach, in Two Ways at the Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art, Let’s Make Mashiko Paasuchii (Pasty)! in Mashiko Town, Leach in Japan: Unpublished Etchings, Drawings and Letters atMashiko Museum of Ceramic Art

USA

Here/Now: Contemporary Narrative and Form in the Yunomi at Craft in America

Reflections on Leach 100

Through the Leach 100 celebrations we have built new, and strengthened existing relationships, with community groups, galleries, museums, schools, festivals, art and crafts bodies that will sustain and expand our work in the years to come. The collaboration expanded our reach to national and international audiences – we went to our audience, rather than our audience having to come to St Ives.

The result is that we know that we can think bigger, that the Leach legacy is rooted at the pottery in St Ives but its branches stretch far beyond Cornwall and we can capitalize on this in our future work.

The commercial side of the pottery, which supports our charitable works, has benefited from our raised profile. Our limited edition centenary ranges of tableware were incredibly successful and Leach pottery throwing courses have also benefited with 2022 course dates already sold out.

We recently won the Cornwall Heritage Award for Collaboration with the Leach100 project. We would like to thank all of our project partners and collaborators and our staff and volunteers who made these huge achievements possible.

Leach 100 was funded by Arts Council England, Cornwall Council, St Ives Town Council, The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, Garfield Weston Foundation, Sylvia Waddilove and the Art Fund.

The success of Leach 100 means that we will continue to seek beneficial partnerships and work collaboratively in the future. This will help us towards the aims of our proposed development project; increasing income to the area through jobs and visitors, sharing clay in a more accessible wider reaching way and to continue working to protect the legacy of the Leach Pottery as a living heritage asset for the town of St Ives.