A Humble Legacy Exhibition Catalog

A HUMBLE
LEGACY
A HUMBLE LEGA
7/18 - 9/19
CRAFT IN AMERICA
craftinamerica.org
CENTER

A HUMBLE LEGACY
7/18/2020 – 1/2/2021
CRAFT IN AMERICA CENTER

Upon the centennial of the founding of Leach Pottery, the
Craft in America Center presents A Humble Legacy, an
exhibition celebrating the yunomi, or drinking cup, as object
and the impact of Bernard Leach on studio ceramics.
This international exhibition is organized in consultation with former
Leach apprentice, Jeff Oestreich, who worked at the pottery from
1969-1971.
Text by Emily Zaiden
Designed by Alex Miller

A Humble Legacy is an exhibition of over two dozen historic and
contemporary cups made by a selection of artists affiliated with
Leach Pottery and others who continue in its tradition. Artists
Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada established St. Ives Pottery
(Leach Pottery) in Cornwall, England in 1920, and their imprint
on 20th century ceramics cannot be overstated. Leach’s
conception of the artist-potter and his advocacy for studio
pottery in England came at a time when industrially-produced
ceramics were dominant. His role in communicating Eastern
ceramic tradition to the West had a ripple effect on the global
history of contemporary studio ceramics, and craft overall. The
utilitarian cups featured in this exhibition speak to Leach’s
ideology and outlook.

Artists
Andy Balmer – 4-5
John Bedding – 6
Pat Burns - 7, 33
Linda Christianson – 8
Carson Culp – 9
Guillermo Cuellar – 10-11
Shoji Hamada – 11-13
Shigeyoshi Ichino – 14-15
Janel Jacobson – 16
Randy Johnston – 17-18
David Leach – 19
Warren MacKenzie – 11, 20-21
Jim Malone – 22
William Marshall – 17, 23
Jan McKeachie Johnston – 24
Jeff Oestreich – 15, 25, 33
Kenneth Quick – 26
John Reeve – 27, 35
Phil Rogers – 28
Will Swanson – 29
Shimaoka Tatsuzo – 30-31
Roelof Uys – 32
Kat Wheeler – 33-36
“The yunomi to me is a benchmark piece that potters can make to establish their
identity. Made easily and comfortably it can contain everything a potter wants
to say about balance, proportion, surface, care, but at the same time it’s a form
that is not encumbered by technical activity and complication.”
-Andy Balmer

Andy Balmer
Yunomi, 2020
Porcelain, soda fired
Portland-born and based, potter Andy Balmer trained at Berea
College in Kentucky. He and wife Pat Burns soda and salt fire
useful porcelain and stoneware pots that are meant to be handled
and enjoyed.
5

John Bedding
Untitled, 2020
High-fired earthenware
John Bedding apprenticed at Leach Pottery starting in 1969 along
with Jeff Oestreich and Shigeyoshi Ichino, and then joined the
staff in 1973 after a year in France. He was influenced at Leach
by William Marshall’s take on shape and form, and Janet Leach’s
sculptural approach. In 1978, urged by Janet and Bernard Leach,
Bedding went to Japan where he worked with Ichino, as only
the second potter to be sent to Japan by the Leach Pottery. He
returned to England in 1980 and set up his own practice that he
maintains today.
6

Pat Burns
Yunomi, 2020
Porcelain, soda fired
Minnesota-born Pat Burns shapes her quiet, understated yunomi
by keeping the gestures of holding hot liquid in mind by the foot
and rim, and embracing a cooler cup with a full hand. Burns studied
at Berea College and worked at potteries in England, Canada
and Minnesota before setting up a studio in Portland, Oregon with
husband Andy Balmer. She worked with Jeff Oestreich soon after
he returned from his Leach apprenticeship in the 1970s, and they
later shared a joint residency at Leach in 2014.
7

Linda Christianson
Yunomi, 2020
Wood fired stoneware, wheel thrown
Christianson’s daily practice in rural Minnesota begins with the
making of four cups. While seemingly a simple form, the cup contains
all the challenges she likes: the paring down of an essential
lively form, comfortability that is visually compelling, and a volume
that suggests a specific liquid. Being put to the lip, Christianson
views the cup as the most daunting personal pot one could
make. It has the capacity to change daily life. In her household,
the favorite cups never make it into the cupboard because they
“always end up in the shard pile, for they are loved to death.”
8

Carson Culp
Yunomi, c. 2019
Glazed stoneware
Collection of Jeff Oestreich
For Culp, the process of throwing a yunomi is more meditative than
any other wheel-based process. Culp worked under Roelof Uys,
lead potter at the Leach Pottery, in 2017 and is based in Portland.
9

Guillermo Cuellar
Yunomi, 2020
Glazed stoneware, wheel thrown
Cuellar, like many, first fell in love with pottery in college where he
discovered Bernard Leach’s A Potter’s Book, which defined a set
of values celebrating beautiful handmade objects that resonated
with his love of nature, asymmetry, imperfection, and irregularity.
At the same time, he met Leach Pottery apprentice Clary Illian and
visited her studio nearby his Iowa college. In 1981, as an aspiring
potter in his home country of Venezuela, he met Leach Pottery apprentice
Warren MacKenzie at a workshop in Caracas. Every summer
for two decades, MacKenzie shared his studio in Stillwater,
Minnesota with Cuellar and their friendship continued through the
years. Cuellar’s decorative kaki glaze is an American recreation of
a Japanese glaze Shoji Hamada often used.
10

Warren MacKenzie & Guillermo Cuellar inspect
the results of a firing, 2015. Courtesy of Guillermo Cuellar
Shoji Hamada & Bernard Leach. Courtesy of Clary Illian.
11

Shoji Hamada (1894 - 1978)
Brushwork Yunomi, 1959
Glazed stoneware
Collection of Nate Saunders
Shoji Hamada, one of the most important potters of the 20th century,
was a master Japanese ceramicist and central figure of the Mingei
movement. He had a tremendous influence on potters around the
world through both his work within Japan and his involvement with
Bernard Leach. Influenced by English medieval pottery, Korean
ceramics, and Okinawan stoneware, Hamada produced unique works
that drew upon these diverse folk craft traditions. His designs focused
on function as much as they did aesthetics, which conveyed simple,
but elegant and beautiful forms.
Hamada’s artistic input and technical knowledge were vital to the
formation of the pottery at St. Ives, where he contributed to the
construction of their climbing kiln. After three years working with
Leach in St. Ives, Hamada returned to Japan in 1923 and established
his own pottery in the town of Mashiko. The studio was known for
using locally sourced clay and sustainable, hand-crafted glazes and
brushes. In 1955, Hamada was honored by the Japanese
government, designated as a Living Nation Treasure, the first time
such an award was given to someone from the folk craft tradition.
12

“No craft is easy to master. Pottery is among the most difficult to
encompass...The right way lies in plainness and naturalness..”
- Shoji Hamada
13

Shigeyoshi Ichino (1942 - 2011)
Yunomi, 1971
Ash glazed stoneware
Collection of John Bedding
Shigeyoshi “Shige’ Ichino was born into a family of potters in 1942
in Tachikui, Tamba, Japan, where ceramics have been made for
hundreds of years. Ichino studied at Kansai University and met
Janet Leach when she stayed with his family to study in Japan
from 1954 to 1955. She later invited him to come and work at the
Leach Pottery. In 1969, he went to Leach Pottery and after a year
embarked on a tour of Europe along with potter John Bedding.
Shigeyoshi, who died in 2011, combined traditional firing and
modern methods to make useful pots for everyday life.
14

Dinner at Bernard Leach’s home (l-r):
Shigeyoshi Ichino, Bernard Leach, Jeff Oestreich, 1970.
Courtesy of Jeff Oestreich.
Warren MacKenzie, 2010
15

Janel Jacobson
Untitled, 2020
Porcelain, wheel thrown
Jacobson, who founded Sunrise Pottery in Minnesota in 1975,
delights in the tactile nature of yunomi and explores the contrasts
between interior and exterior. Although the yunomi as a form “is
unremarkable in that it pushes no boundaries of technical wizardry,
it presents the touch of the hand by leaving the finger rings
from the throwing process. Such features can sometimes influence
the carbon deposition during the firing.”
16

Randy Johnston
Yunomi, 2020
Stoneware, coarse shino glaze, iron slip and iron brushwork
Johnston, who incorporates Japanese methods and a Mingei
approach to making his innovative pieces, has been at the forefront of
American wood kiln technology. He studied with Warren MacKenzie at
the University of Minnesota, and in Japan at the Pottery of Shimaoka
Tatsuzo, who was a student of Shoji Hamada. He shares a studio with
wife Jan McKeachie Johnston and is professor emeritus at the University
of Wisconsin – River Falls.
17

“The reality that is the starting point is the choice to
investigate the formal range of the vessel structure in
clay, and the belief in the potential that the pieces
must entertain, suggest a narrative, and allude to
things outside themselves.”
-Randy Johnston
L-R: Michael Cardew, William Marshall, Bernard Leach.
Taken while picnicking at Cardew’s pottery, 1970.
Courtesy of Jeff Oestreich.
18

David Leach (1911 - 2005)
Yunomi, n.d.
Celadon glazed porcelain
Collection American Museum of Ceramic Art, gift of Bill Burke [2009.2.124]
David Andrew Leach was the eldest son of Bernard Leach and
Muriel Hoyle Leach. David was born in Tokyo, Japan, around
the time when his father first met Shoji Hamada. In 1920, he was
brought back to England with his parents, and in 1930 he began
an apprenticeship with his father at the Leach Pottery. He eventually
would be tasked with managing the pottery, modernizing its
equipment, and selecting the workforce and apprentices. In 1955
Leach left St. Ives to set up the Lowerdown Pottery in Devon, where
he became known for his porcelain. In contrast to Bernard’s rough,
thick and bold work, David made ceramics that were thin, smooth,
precise, translucent. He was chairman of the Craft Potters
Association of Great Britain in 1967 and his work was widely
exhibited internationally. In 1987, he was appointed OBE and
recognized for his work in craft and studio pottery.
19

Warren MacKenzie (1924 - 2018)
Grey & Kaki Yunomi, 2012
Stoneware
Collection of Nate Saunders
After studying at the Art Institute in Chicago during the 1940s,
MacKenzie and his wife, Alix, traveled to England to become the
first American students at Leach pottery from 1949-1952. His
utilitarian, wheel-thrown pottery was heavily influenced by Shoji
Hamada while at St. Ives and also by Korean and Japanese
pottery. He went on to a luminous career and to teach pottery in
the US at the University of Minnesota, bringing the Mingei-Hamada-
Leach aesthetic and ideology to the St. Croix Valley in Minnesota
where it took root. The area became known as “Mingei-sota,” a nod
to the Mingei movement and the inspiration MacKenzie imparted
on his students. MacKenzie embodied his own philosophy of pottery
with a dedication to the ideals of simplicity, serviceability and rough
beauty. Following the death of Alix in 1962, MacKenzie continued
his work and teaching, influencing the next generation of potters in
the region and far beyond from his own studio in Stillwater, MN.
20

Warren MacKenzie (1924 - 2018)
Yunomi, n.d.
Porcelain, reduction fired, tenmoku
Collection of Will Swanson & Janel Jacobson
Warren MacKenzie (1924 - 2018)
Yunomi, n.d.
Porcelain, reduction fired, carbon trapped
Collection of Will Swanson & Janel Jacobson
21

Jim Malone
Yunomi, 1995
Stoneware, reduction fired
Collection of Jeff Oestreich
Malone became a studio potter after seeing Korean ceramics
at the Victoria & Albert Museum as an art student and reading
Bernard Leach’s A Potters Book. He set up his first pottery on the
Horseshoe Pass at Llandegla, Wales, with a gas fired kiln for
producing a range of domestic ware, digging clay locally for
his slips and glazes and experimenting with porcelain. Over the
years, he built various kilns and experimented with materials.
22

William Marshall (1924 - 2007)
Yunomi, 1970
Stoneware, reduction fired
Collection of Jeff Oestreich
William “Bill” Marshall was an English studio potter, born in St.
Ives, Cornwall, and cousin to fellow potter Kenneth Quick. In
1938, he became the first local apprentice at Leach Pottery at the
age of 14, eventually being appointed foreman. In Leach’s later
years, Marshall threw his larger work, which Leach would then
complete themBy the time he left the Leach Pottery in 1977 to start
his own workshop in Lelant, Marshall had clearly developed his
own style inspired by potters like Kitaoji Rosanjin and Shoji
Hamada, as well as the traditional pitchers and salting pots of
his native Cornwall. These influences would combine to evoke the
spirit of the Cornish coast in his work, fluid and assured,
characterized by a physicality that reflected the textures and color
of the landscape.
23

Jan McKeachie Johnston
Yunomi, 2020
Glazed stoneware, 446 glaze*, iron oxide, gas reduction firing
For this yunomi, Johnston used a historic glaze that she learned
about through mentor Warren MacKenzie-- the fourth glaze developed
at Leach pottery in 1946. McKeachie Johnston has created
ceramics for over four decades and works alongside husband
Randy Johnston in their Wisconsin studio. In addition to her
practice, she has advanced the Leach/Hamada philosophy
through her teaching across the U.S. and in Chile.
24

Jeff Oestreich
Yunomi, c. 2015
Glazed porcelain
Minnesota ceramic artist Jeff Oestreich was introduced to ceramics
by Warren MacKenzie while in college at the Bemidji State
University and the University of Minnesota. After receiving his BA,
he was apprenticed to Bernard Leach at St. Ives in Great Britain
from 1969 until he returned to Minnesota in 1971. His geometrically
designed functional pottery is primarily salt or soda fired, and his
work melds a foundation in British, German, and Asian ceramics with
American originality and a passion for Art Deco design. Oestreich
has been a leader in the Midwestern ceramic community and he has
taught numerous students over the decades at his studio.
25

Kenneth Quick (1931-1963)
Yunomi, 1960
Stoneware
Collection of Jeff Oestreich
Kenneth Quick, cousin to potter William Marshall, was born in
St. Ives in 1931. He joined the Leach Pottery in 1945, and was
regarded as one of the most promising apprentices. Quick
eventually taught many of the overseas students to throw,
including Alix and Warren MacKenzie. He went on to open
Tregenna Hill Pottery in St Ives in 1955, where he made
stoneware and red earthenware for the kitchen and table. He
took a six month teaching position in the U.S. in 1960 and was
then persuaded by the Leachs to return to the St Ives Pottery.
Tragically, in 1963, while on a Leach Pottery sponsored visit to
Hamada’s pottery in Japan, he drowned in a swimming accident.
26

“I make pots, and am forever fascinated by forms in space, by the way that
potters (including myself) make things with their hands, by the subsequent use
of pottery in the ordinary and extraordinary ceremonies of living.”
-John Reeve
John Reeve (1929 - 2012)
Yunomi, 1976
Celadon glazed porcelain
Collection of Pat Burns
John Reeve was the first Canadian to travel to England for an apprenticeship
with Bernard Leach. After his studies from 1958-1961,
Reeve returned to Canada, but continued to teach and make pots in
the United States, Canada, and England. In 1962, he began regular
visits to Minnesota where he worked alongside lifelong friend
Warren MacKenzie. Over the years, he worked to develop a
translucent porcelain clay body suitable for use in studio pottery. In
the late 1980s, Reeve moved to New Mexico where he created the
studio-based program at Santa Fe Clay.
27

Phil Rogers
Yunomi, 2020
Slip glazed stoneware with iron oxide pigment
The Leach and Hamada ethos and language has had a profound
impact on Welsh studio potter Phil Rogers, who has lectured
internationally and authored books on ash glazes and salt
glazing. Rogers views Hamada especially as an absentee mentor.
He says, “the tireless work ethic and independent lifestyle of many
potters is a direct result of Hamada in particular.”
28

Will Swanson
Faceted Cup, 2020
Stoneware, reduction fired
Will Swanson uses stoneware and porcelain clays to create serving
dishes and other useful pots for the kitchen and table. His pots are
wheel-thrown, and some are altered or assembled from wheel-thrown
parts. In all his work, he wants the character of the earthen materials
and the hand-making process to be evident. Swanson earned his MA
at the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities, and he currently lives and
works in the St. Croix River Valley in Minnesota in a studio he shares
with wife, Janel Jacobson.
29

Shimaoka Tatsuzo (1919- 2007)
Shimaoka was one of Japan’s leading Mingei potters, named a
Japanese Living National Treasure in 1996. Upon his release from
military service after WWII, he returned to study pottery as an
apprentice at Hamada’s pottery in 1946. Shimaoka went on to
work at the Tochigi Prefecture Ceramic Research Center in 1949,
where he developed a rope decoration that stemmed from Korean
tradition and would become his signature style, known as the
jomon zogon technique.
His method involved applying white-slip and impressing the clay
surface with cords, similar to the braids made by his own family of
historic makers. Shimaoka also perfected the Western salt-glaze
technique first established by Hamada, and introduced a rich
variety of glazes to his utilitarian pieces. Shimaoaka founded his
own pottery in Mashiko in 1953, next to his former teacher. He
toured, exhibited, and taught his methods around the world,
inspiring a new generation of ceramicists.
30

Shimaoka Tatsuzo (1919- 2007)
Yunomi, 1975
Stoneware
Collection of Jeff Oestreich
Shimaoka Tatsuzo (1919- 2007)
Rope inlaid yunomi, c 1980s
Stoneware
Collection of Nate Saunders
31

Roelof Uys
Yunomi, 2020
Stoneware with terracotta, wax resist pattern, porcelain slip,
and iron bearing semi-matte glaze; fired in cone 9
Uys is lead potter at the Leach Pottery, where he is dedicated to
perfecting utilitarian wares. He has worked as a studio potter in
the UK since moving from South Africa in 1998. Before joining the
Leach team, he worked at Leach apprentice John Bedding’s Goalyard
Studios. Uys supervises the training of student apprentices
and visiting interns, and oversees the design and production of the
new Leach Standard Ware.
32

Pat Burns, Kat Wheeler, and Jeff Oestreich firing the soda kiln at the Leach Pottery.
Courtesy of Matthew Tyas
33

‘Working production for 10 years in such an intensive environment
as the Leach Pottery had a profound impact on me and my work.
I enjoy the repetition of throwing simple forms and using contrasting
slips to create texture and individuality to my range of pots.”
-Kat Wheeler
Kat Wheeler
Yunomi, 2020
Glazed, incised earthenware
Kat Wheeler moved to St. Ives to work at the Leach Pottery in
2009, eventually becoming the Deputy Studio Manager from
2014-2019. Now, Kat Wheeler works in her workshop at the
Gaolyard Studios in St. Ives, Cornwall. In 2015, Kat went to
Mashiko and did a 10 week residency at the Hamada Workshop.
Her experimentations with Hakeme brush decorations in Mashiko
became a catalyst for her recent work in St Ives.
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CRAFT IN AMERICA is a Los Angeles-based non-profit with a
mission to promote and advance original craft through educational
programs and resources in all media–accessible to all via
a PBS documentary series that has aired since 2007, an archival
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impact on our nation’s evolving cultural heritage and economy.
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