John Leach, Potter

my name is John leach I was born in 1939 in what is known as the pottery cottage at my grandfather's house in sad Ives Cornwall and so you moved to Somerset since then moved to Somerset after a five-year apprenticeship in 1964 so we've been here what's that like that's fully sub Mews it's not right yeah 20-some years yes you've had quite a bit of experiences Potter then well I've been a Potter for 50 something yeah yes yeah so I've never done anything else and there's I guess that's kind of like a freelance trade you're your own boss in a way then like what's a like but um I I think it's wonderful and a great privilege today to be able to make something you want to make that is of part of a service to people who appreciate it yeah designing parts and making them by hand that's great today in this sort of rather plastic push button one things yesterday age you know III takes longer it's more expensive but it's if you can manage it it can be viable oh we brought my wife and I if she's Lizzie she's our she's part of the business she doesn't make pots but running the business and we brought up our five children here is it going to kind of become a family trait then are they well uh it knows a matter of fact they're not but they've all helped at various stages you know when you want a little bit of help they knuckle to sort of things so yeah yeah but none of them actually take it out taking it up my eldest Benedict leach he's he's a sculptor and he actually hangs the exhibitions that we have in our gallery yeah so is there quite a lot of work from kind of the idea to the point where it gets to exhibition because I mean my knowledge of Potter it like just the phrase puttering around come from pottery I wouldn't know but we certainly don't potter around in that sense yeah this if I if I'm asked to have an exhibition I think I like a a year 15 months or even longer depending on where the exhibition is going to be held and how many pieces they want you know other galleries yeah so yes there's quite a lot of preparation and it's sometimes it's very difficult to just switch on to doing exhibition pieces you know you takes a little time for it to evolve yeah and then so when you're when you're making the parts how much will go effort will go into like kind of a typical piece by let's say I don't know like a mug or a bowl like well we have a catalog an online shop and the catalog which echoes exactly what we've got up on the website and those are repeatable items take a half-point mug twelve ounces or there abouts of clay we know the measurements we've got them all written down and we throw up and out to the mouth and that could take one and a half two minutes all right but that's the quickest bit there's a lot of processes after that you've got to fettle the bottom by hand you've got to seal it you've got to stick a handle on it's got to go into the biscuit kiln which you can hear switching off and on as we talk then it comes out it's glazed could be decorated then it goes into this big kiln here and it's fired up to thirteen hundred and thirty degrees centigrade over thirty seven hours you know so it's in fact we don't this kiln here on my left is it holds 2,000 pots so it takes the three of us that's Nick Reese mark Mel Bourne and myself it takes three of us two months to make enough work and have a turnaround of the next kill get quite hot in here when you yeah yes it does it's okay winter but it's you know in high summer it's a little bit too warm yes yeah how long do they have to be burning for and how long does it take before they're they cool down enough well if we fire on a Monday Tuesday finish Tuesday about six seven o'clock in the evening it cools that night Wednesday Wednesday night Thursday Thursday night we take the the crusts off here you know from from the door let it breathe and then on the Friday we take the pots out I mean in terms of quality control because obviously we're talking about the factory living in a yes well we're always struggling to get it just right you know and the last firing was good and the one before that so but every now and then you know we're all sort of them were just human beings you know we might get something wrong and then we got to correct it and so on and it's it's very exciting because when we have a fun it's the harvest of the previous two months work for three of us who are throwers you know we we throw and make pots so it's very important it's something to look forward to but you never know quite how it's going to come out did you have out the kind of light with you're so disappointed in a batch that they get thrown out or is there well there is some that are seconds you know we still sell them but they're sold at a reduced price just occasionally something happens and the pot is rendered absolutely useless and then it's only fit for hardcore yeah and you mentioned the time throwing is well that's the process of making on the potter's wheel yeah which is kind of I think that's probably what most people think of when they think that this is kind of famous as a films like ghosts and stuff yes yeah well it is it's a very evocative kind of process the lump of clay human hands come and Center it you know with scale and then shape it and it's magical the way you can get a form from spinning wet clay on the potter's wheel so in terms of spinning it is with your is it with your foot well when I started my apprenticeship it was a kick wheel you know yeah like that but now I have to say I use an electric wheel which is it's easier for bigger pots I have any other of the tools of the trade changed is white since you can do well a lot of the tools are very personal to the Potter or thrower you know so we we adapt we improvise we have certain ribs which can be made out of slate or wood I use one which is my credit card what's flexible yeah my flexible friend yeah you you can you can and you can shape shape it yeah and when you've made a piece work you're really proud of do you find it hard sometimes to sell it yes I do yes it's it's partly because it's it's it's more unique oh oh you feel my gosh you know it's a little bit of serendipity that's happened but why is it happened can I repeat it and you and you you I put it away and till I'm you know I've seen it enough and then I might sell it you know but that could be you to three years yeah yes this this is the exciting part you know you get your distant pot a disappointment sometimes but you do get you your more serendipitous times yeah was kind of likely the big names in terms of pottery they're kind of people that you look up to also especially comes from sinage because that's kind of got artists face well and my grandfather Bernard leach you see he started that pottery in 1920 and then my father David Leitch they're both dead my uncle Michael he's died now so these are people are in the family I looked up to my father David Leitch it was my first teacher you know but I also work for Colin Pearson who he ran a pottery at the Friars ales for there was a monastery so I was working with her for the monks there and then I went to winch Campari near Cheltenham to work on the Ray Finch who's a very well-known Potter and then back down to be totally finished off with my grandfather who was a great critic yeah no I we had a very good relationship but it was famous well because we were fairly close family he could speak or shoot straight from the hip you know and that was good yeah it is in terms of like a critiquing on pottery is that quite important because yes you're aiming for perfection so much well yes it's the next pots always going to be better than the previous one that's that's your motivation and then you know there are a lot sort of ideas pent up here and you you want to release them sometimes at work sometimes they don't it's quite a humbling process you can get extremely excited when you're fashioning a pot on the potter's wheel and you can get it right and but there are other processes the trauma of fire and you're no good without fire that strengthens it and melts the glaze and we often say some pots can be blessed by fire others can be dashed by fire you know it's it's that that's that's perhaps some of the more humbling points you know making a pot on the wheel get getting an idea into three dimension but it hasn't worked in the kiln that's disappointing I got to live with that did you think that because it sounds quite Zen in a way like do you need certain kind of personality traits to be a Potter gosh I've never analyzed that at all I I don't know we I well I do my father my uncle my grandfather were Potter's if they weren't Potter's I probably wouldn't be a Potter but it was their close at hand I enjoyed it I wasn't encouraged too much to become a butter until I'd myself made the decision then I was encouraged yeah do you think that you've maybe developed certain kind of characteristics as a result of pottery like the kind of you're talking about the like being able to let go of something after you finished with it or if it goes wrong further down the line what does it frustrate you I wouldn't know I just know I'm a very happy person and feel quite privileged to be making and creating something that and hopefully retaining my integrity about it you know you can in this world you you've got the skill to do something you can prostitute your skill and the danger is of course you often make more money but doing it because it becomes much more market lead but it the way we work it's much more product lead you know and so but if you kowtow to every Tom Dick and Harry who comes in and says oh I want you to make this John Mayer I'll give you lots of money but you know then you're selling a soul really so it is important to try and be as true an artist by keeping your integrity as possible that's quite important so is your kitchen full of the finest crockery of your own stuff Ben or is it not necessarily that it has got quite a lot of our stuff but it's um but Potter's collect other Potter's work too so I find that it's not it's not just all your own well but it's my time well I got my brother my brothers are part of two both of my brothers are Potter our Potter's what one in the states and one down in dem this is a real family business in well no we're absolutely independent of each other but yes we're it has sort of stuck in the family yeah when you get together do you can't compare work oh yeah yeah we do we show each other what we've just made you know and try this and try that you know talk about glazes and so on and kilns different kilns or many different designs or kilns yeah there's a amongst potters not just the family but amongst potters worldwide is is a really wonderful well is it a wonderful fraternity and sorority a Potter's we're not aggressively competing whit but we have got so much in common to compare and talk about and it's so much sort of trial and error in it and so we trot out our successes and our disappointments to each other you know and it's it's very comforting particularly when you're starting up in business you know which for me was 1964 but now that you kind of you're at the stage where you are now and if you were able to give advice to someone in your position back then what what kind of tip tips and tricks have you learned along the way that you could give oh god those are the too many to account but but i but I would say the first thing to do is to find somebody whose work you admire and try and get an unprepped that's a proper working training with a view to passing out and starting your own business that's that's the best way if you want to be a production Potter but there are an awful lot of people who do that's not necessary and it's not important but they want to be a Potter and that is they do their own one-offs all the time that that's sometimes rather hard to get started and you know because you're making one offs they've got to be more expensive because you spend more time you don't make runs of things which means you do quite a lot of repetitive movements in a run of 50 mugs or 100 mugs but you don't if you are doing one of a kind or one offs individual parts exhibition parts which make mark and myself do as well but the bread and butter of the business is the the more service side of the catalog range yeah oh and so in terms of the kind of that you're talking about the the green side of like your kilns at the moment using wood as well to burn how do you get the wood to burn zone well well to start the beginning that the sourcing the wood I've had it from a firm a little soya a small soy and fencing firm that seven miles from here to hatch Beecham towards Taunton and I've been having there off cuts for well over 40 years and we have to get the wood in eighteen months in advance of the time we're going to use it because it takes that time to dry out season and then we've got a kiln this kiln is a derivation of a Japanese kiln that goes back centuries the design and is called in Japanese Norbury gamma which just means chambered climbing kiln succeeding chambers step up which helps in the even distribution of heat within and it it's got lots of flus letting oxygen in and a big chimney you have the necessary pool but it's all naturally fired and it is today it's good to think that it's the the it's sustainable plantations it comes from in the West Country in Wales and wherever and goes to this little Weaver we vote fencing firm in hatch Beecham and I have their offcuts and it's larch and Douglas fir offer cuts well it's a little bit what's available now you know so and I make sure I've got some 18 months it's been drying for 18 months who knows how I've got to always order up well in advance so they even further at least for my final question to think even further ahead to the future of pottering like more than 18 months do you think that the kind of integrity and the quality you will always be able to remain as kind of a local thing where you can people can take pride in their work had you been here hit I kind of heard just in general as well for pottering like to think it's something that people because you were talking earlier about the market changing a lot and things getting cheaper yeah you can always be back on the market and demand fruit I certainly hope so people like to know how things are made and most often to who's made them I can Pitta my's exactly that feeling I'm trying to get over to you which is when I get up in the morning I put my butt on a chair made by a friend of mine it doesn't make sitting on that chair any more comfortable but I can think about him or her when I look at my dresser and I told you just now that otters collect other potters work just through choice I can choose who I'm going to commune with over my cup of coffee doesn't make it taste any better but it's a whole different dimension of appreciation of the useful artifact a mug for a cup and saucer or gruel bowl or whatever you know that that's a lot of people in this world don't know about that don't appreciate it because most of us are conditioned by the machine-made product which is the same that side is that side there's a lot more pleasure in not living that there is yes I mean anything you you use or want to well everyday things that one use continually they mean think they can mean things rather special things to you they recall perhaps a friend of yours who's made that it's just it's just like a carpenter they've got their favorite tools and don't let an apprentice pick up one of them and use them you know it's it's they're very personal things and and a teapot a mother cup and saucer a dinner plate a bowl they can be quite personal in life but for most people they're they're not their jobs just it's a machine made product it does everything you know you want it to but they don't know about this relationship that one can have if you appreciate the handmade product

Channel: Terry Flaxton

Views: 52,481

Rating: 4.9644446 out of 5

Keywords: Working, People

Id: 3sl0zhjeJWI

Length: 23min 54sec (1434 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 09 2011