A potter from Activity: 1) Share the background information with the students. In the old you will National Curriculum: find evidence of the technologies (the Art & Design: about great artists, architects and climbing kiln, raku firing, and brushes) designers in history that Bernard Leach brought back, but History: study of a significant society or issue in world there is one connection with Japan that history and its interconnections with other world requires a little imagination. Bernard developments didn’t return to England alone. A young man named Shoji Hamada left the town Materials needed: (optional) sketchbooks of Mashiko in Japan and made the long journey to Cornwall with him. He stayed Key Questions: Who was Shoji Hamada and what for three years to build the first climbing was his contribution to the ? How did kiln in Europe and help start the pottery. Bernard bring the styles and ideas of Japanese and Can you imagine what it must have been Chinese potters to England? like for him to leave his family and travel to a place where the language, customs, Learning Objectives: Students will practice Japanese and food were very different? Brushwork and make observations about the use of 2) The climbing kiln you see today was built this technique. in 1924 by another man who travelled from Japan to St Ives, Tsurunosuke Background: Bernard Leach was born in Hong Matsubayashi. His family had been Kong. After returning to England and receiving an potters for over five hundred years! He art education, he travelled back to Asia to Japan. In built it so well that the Leach Pottery used England ein th 1920s, almost all pottery was being it for 50 years. made by the efficient factories of Stoke-On-Trent. In 3) On the shelves in the glaze room, there both England and Japan, rapid industrialization and are mats for practicing the brushwork urbanization had changed the way many people that Leach learned in Japan. A brush with thought about the kind of life they wanted to live and ink is used for traditional calligraphy and the kinds of products they wanted to buy. Bernard painting in Japan. Alternating with was in Japan when the Mingei Movement, devoted another activity to avoid ques, students in to Japanese folkcrafts, developed. There, Bernard was small groups or pairs can try to replicate introduced to a different way of thinking about some of the decoration that both Leach pottery. He was able to learn skills and techniques and Hamada put on their pottery. See if from potters whose traditional knowledge went back you can identify the tools that were used many generations. to brush decoration onto the pots. When he returned to England, Bernard 4) You can see more of Hamada’s work in combined the English Arts & Crafts philosophies of the entrance gallery. Compare the work John Ruskin and William Morris—who valued of Leach and Hamada. Can you see craftsmanship and things made by hand— with the where they used the brush as decoration? Japanese concept that beauty could be found in selflessness, simplicity, and humility to form a new Extension: idea: the artist potter. Explore the Mingei movement in Japan Leach and Hamada continued to be friends and how it related to the Arts & Crafts and visit each other for many years. Even today, the movement in the UK. Who were the key pottery and the towns of Mashiko and St Ives have a figures/ideas and how was Leach special connection, with visitors and potters involved? travelling back and forth just like Leach and Hamada. Visit Lauren Lancy’s blog to read about her trip to Hamada’s pottery in Mashiko. http://thekindcraft.com/mashiko/ Higher Stennack, St Ives, Cornwall TR26 2HE 01736 799 703