The Background of the project: by Lady Holland

We have just heard a most interesting lecture by Professor Fujita on Japanese Crafts for the 21st Century: From the Past Looking to the Future. My colleague Peter Cowling and I would like to tell you a bit about a project which we hope will commemorate the past but also look to the future.

The Leach Pottery Restoration Project will restore and revitalise Bernard Leach��s famous pottery in St Ives in Cornwall.��In 1920 Bernard Leach and his Japanese friend and colleague Shoji Hamada came to St Ives and founded a pottery. Leach was 33 and had been a potter in Japan for 10 years. Hamada was 25. How did Leach, born in Hong Kong, educated in Windsor, trained as an artist in London and as a potter in Japan, come to build a pottery in a small fishing town in the far west of Cornwall and live there, on and off, for nearly 60 years?

The reason is explained in Leach's autobiographical book Beyond East and West in which he writes: The first thing we did (on arriving in St Ives) was to walk over to Carbis Bay, a mile away, to call upon Mr and Mrs Horne, my future business 'sleeping' partner, and her husband��"

Mrs Horne had founded a Handicrafts Guild in St Ives, partly to try to provide a source of income for some of the women who had previously been employed in pilchard salting and packing, and she had advertised for an experienced potter to start a pottery in the town. Leach, still in Japan but planning to return to England with very little money, needed some capital and the Hornes provided temporary accommodation and enough capital for Leach and Hamada to get started.

A little later in the same book Leach wrote: "When building the pottery workshop in the autumn of 1920, we left a small corner area for a bedroom, which was occupied first by Hamada and later by Michael Cardew (Leach's first apprentice). There Hamada slept, looking after himself, cooking and eating at the large open fireplace in the workroom, the only heating we had at that time. It was lonely but he quickly made friends and always speaks of the following three years with nostalgic gratitude, for there it was that he found himself and the sure pathway of his life."

It is fitting that this time in St Ives provided the inspiration and foundation for Hamada��s later career just as Leach's time in Japan had provided the inspiration and foundation of his. Leach and Hamada built a three-chambered climbing kiln but were not expert kiln builders and there were problems. Three years later the specialist kiln builder Tsuneyoshi Matsubayashi rebuilt the 20-foot long kiln for Leach and both this kiln and the fireplace mentioned above can still be seen at the pottery.

Over a period of nearly 60 years St Ives was Leach's main base. He spent time at Dartington, he went away on tours, there were exhibitions, books, seminars and honours. But for most of this time his home was in St Ives and the pottery was always there. He was recognised nationally and internationally, but he was also part of the community of St Ives, particularly the art community. He was a founder member of the St Ives Society of Artists, a member of the St Ives Arts Club and a founder member of the Penwith Society of Artists. Shortly before his death he was made a Freeman of the Borough, an exceptional honour that he shared with Dame Barbara Hepworth, also a famous long-term resident of the town.

He never forgot his friends in Japan. Writing in 1919, shortly before Leach left for England, his old friend Soetsu Yanagi wrote (this is Leach��s translation quoted in Beyond East and West): "When he leaves us we shall have lost the one man who knows Japan on its spiritual side. I feel very sad that he is going, but I hope when he returns to his own land he will be able to represent the East in a more just way than has yet been done, and that not only in words will he be able to show his affection, but in works��"

I believe you will agree that he did just that.

The Project: by Peter Cowling

The intention of this project is to commemorate the past but also to revitalise the pottery as a place where work is made and where potters can learn new skills, find new inspiration and prepare to set up their own careers and businesses.

The aim of the restoration and conservation work is to interfere as little as possible with what remains from the past, but also to add two sensitively designed new buildings to house a small museum and training unit. The museum will tell the story of Leach, his family, his students and his life-long affection for Japan and its culture.

The renovated pottery workshop and kiln shed will be opened to visitors. The cottage will house a shop and a gallery where we will be able to showcase the work of contemporary potters from Cornwall, the UK and overseas.

The new training unit and modern kiln facilities will be operated in partnership with University College Falmouth, who will be sending postgraduate students to work there for periods of time. There will also be four places for start-up placements for potters aiming to acquire technical and business skills to set out on their own. We will be welcoming students and more experienced potters both from the UK and from overseas for placements of varying length depending on their needs. Places in the training unit will be very limited - there will be a total of eight work-stations - and demand is expected to be high.

Contractors are expected to begin work on site in the near future and we hope to reopen the pottery in the autumn of 2007. Major public funding totalling £1.5 million has been secured from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Arts Council, the European Union and a variety of other sources. This leaves around £250,000 of which we have now raised £100,000 towards the capital requirement of £1.75 million. Our friends at the Nihon Mingeikan in Tokyo have launched a fundraising appeal and we are most grateful to them and to our other friends in Japan for their support.

We are also very grateful to our two Honorary Founder Patrons, His Excellency Ambassador Yoshiji Nogami, Japanese Ambassador in the UK, and His Excellency Graham Fry, UK Ambassador in Japan, for their support and encouragement.

Donations can be sent to: The Leach Pottery Restoration Project, P O Box 132, St Ives, Cornwall TR26 1WY. Further details from: www.leachproject.co.uk.

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