Christmas confessions of a Mud, Water & Fire man…

This is a cosy Christmas blog post. In fact my family is spread out across the world and we don’t really do Christmas. However living by the sea it’s often good and stormy around December January and so to be sitting by a huge log fire with a nice glass of wine in the hand is a great feeling.

During my life I have planted more than a thousand trees so when I go out with my chainsaw a few times in the winter and lop a few branches off here and there I have a clear conscience for the future of the planet. I usually light a fire with enormous logs when the weather gets cold and keep it glowing non-stop until the spring begins to warm the air.

There are many things about being a potter that I really enjoy. I think a potter could aptly be called a ‘Mud, Water & Fire Man’. I started lighting fires for my parents when I was eight years old and, while I am definitely not a pyromaniac (I don’t fiddle with it the whole time), I really enjoy keeping the home fire burning which is a very basic instinct in me. I very much enjoy every stage of the pottery process. Since I was ten years old we have dug our clay in a very romantic valley by the River Blackwater. At first it was digging by hand… and then god sent the JCB. Saviour of slavery.

When working closely with clay it has a very distinct and satisfying smell (I wish I could think of a kinder word than ‘smell’.) When the clay is won and sitting in a big pile at home it is like a farmer harvesting his crops. I know there is a year’s supply there and I always enjoy the preparation process as the clay becomes finer and then ages. Not until it has aged for many months do I know how good it will be for throwing pots. Usually it is fine, however sometimes nature goes in another direction. Feeling the clay slip in my fingers and watching the shapes grow is extraordinarily satisfying. Then there are the kilns, and each time the pot comes out of a kiln it is reborn. When a pot is finished it has a completely different feel to when it is being lifted, soft and pliable, from the wheel. I suppose because I have worked with wood-fired kilns in France, England and Japan there is a strong emotional connection for me between sitting beside my log fire and quietly thinking and the excitement of when a wood-fired kiln comes up to temperature with a rich harvest inside.

Anyway it’s lovely to sit by a log fire and feel these deep emotions of the earth, the heat and my labour and not be working for a few days.

Have a happy and peaceful holiday…

Stephen

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There is still time to order pottery in time for Christmas delivery to the UK and Ireland – but you’ll need to get your skates on!

Recent Popular Posts:

Terracotta Warrior: How I started my Classic range…

How Shanagarry Pottery began… and how it went black

Why Stephen called his book “Warrior Spirit”

Read more of Stephen’s confessions in his new book, Stephen Pearce: Warrior Spirit – a combined autobiography and 60-year history of Shanagarry Pottery now available with free shipping to Ireland, the UK and the US.

272 pages, over 200 colour photographs by the renowned photographer Kevin Dunne, 24x30cm (coffee table format) and almost 2kg!

Order your copy here.

I am very lucky

I have an acupuncturist, Pierce Hennessy, who loves me very much and constantly has new ideas about holistic health and whenever I visit him I come away walking on air. His latest thing this week is touching my head gently with his fingers and I thought I was in heaven. Then on Sunday I went to my masseur Sean Blake for the first time in months and came away the most enlivened and enriched for a long time. I am so lucky to know these people who do things to me and love me and enrich my life. And I am even luckier than that… So many people are emailing and speaking to me telling me how much they are enjoying my new book Warrior Spirit which I put together with my wife. While I am really excited and happy about the quality and content of the book it never occurred to me that it would touch other people in the way that it does. I suppose in life one of the things that really turns us on is feeling nurtured by other people. For me firstly it was my mother, then girlfriends, and now it seems like almost everybody.

I am a very lucky man.

Popular:

Terracotta Warrior: How I started my Classic range…

How Shanagarry Pottery began… and how it went black

Why Stephen called his book “Warrior Spirit”

The story of Shanagarry Pottery and Stephen’s own adventure, Stephen Pearce: Warrior Spirit, is now available with free shipping to Ireland, the UK and the US.

272 pages, over 200 colour photographs by the renowned photographer Kevin Dunne, 24x30cm (coffee table format) and almost 2kg!

There is still time to order your copy here for Christmas.

Terracotta Warrior: How I started my Classic range…

As every man who has a father knows working together in your late teens brings out a certain rivalry and resentment. So having been to Japan to finish my pottery studies and then having spent a year in the rock and roll business in London in the 60s, when I returned to work at Shanagarry Pottery with my father I began to feel trapped and frustrated. It had nothing to do with my father but I was at that stage of development when a young man needs to get out and plough his furrow. At first I was considering creating a completely different sort of pottery with different clay and different colour glazes. However I realised that I was very much in love with our earthenware clay having gone to the field with my father as a young boy to dig it on the banks of the River Blackwater. There was the memory of the camaraderie of digging with picks and shovels, the preparing of the clay by hand at home, the unique smell and sloppy texture – and finally the satisfaction of making pottery with it. So I decided that I would stick with the earthenware clay from Youghal.

Early days, early pots. The shapes have evolved ever so slightly over the years – sometimes for simplicity, sometimes as I learnt what customers really want and sometimes to keep up with the modern world: dishwashers for example.

Then the next two choices. Firstly while in Japan making pots that were not glazed on the exterior I became very fond of holding pottery that was slightly rough on the outside. In addition, as a young designer with simplicity as my number one priority it seemed obvious to me that I needed to continue using my father’s white glaze on the inside of my work. So put all of that together and you have the essence of my Classic range. What I find most extraordinary is that a few simple changes like I made really change the feel of my father’s and my pottery completely. And yet they are of the same family.

Recently I have been noticing in life that small adjustments can have a major impact. Like getting up half an hour earlier in the morning, being slightly more attentive to your partner or simply not putting sugar in your coffee. Anyway, that was the beginning of the Terracotta and White range of pottery which I started in 1972.

Still going strong: Our bestsellers from the Classic Range in 2013

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Previously:
Read about how Stephen’s father Philip started the Shanagarry Range

Why Stephen called his book “Warrior Spirit”

The story of Shanagarry Pottery and Stephen’s own adventure, Stephen Pearce: Warrior Spirit, is now available with free shipping to Ireland, the UK and the US.

272 pages, over 200 colour photographs by the renowned photographer Kevin Dunne, 24x30cm (coffee table format) and almost 2kg!
Order your copy here for Christmas.