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!

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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.

How Shanagarry Pottery began… and how it went black

My Dad had a dream. And so did my mother. The same dream, the same night around Easter 1952. They dreamt that if my father Philip drove to a pub in Youghal that he would find an aging potter. Which he did, and he did. Willie Greene came and taught Philip the rudiments of pottery in a greenhouse with grapes trailing from the ceiling. Willie’s family had been potters for about 200 years; this is one reason for the traditional strength of many of my father’s and my pots. Philip was an extremely gentle man, into meditation and classical music and not that interested in wealth or fame. Having learnt his trade he quietly went on to spend the second half of his life developing our little cottage industry. (Then came Stephen and Simon – but that’s a whole other story.)

In the beginning the cards were stacked against my father and his new pottery. The fashion at the time was for delicate china, with fine rims, gold and painted decorations. Along came Philip with his taste for simple, earthenware designs that he felt were much more immediate to the beauty of everyday life. It took a while for Irish people to tune into his vision of beautiful everyday pottery, and he was often advised that he could make more money by shelving his principles and filling his kilns with leprechauns and ‘more fashionable’ designs. Philip wasn’t that sort of person though – he was quietly set on his idea of what he wanted to do and he stuck to it.

Although it has evolved slightly over the years, the elegant lines of our 2 Pint Jug are rooted in a traditional pitcher shape made in the area for hundreds of years. Philip at the wheel, inset.

At first he experimented with all sorts of different colours to glaze his earthenware – purple, yellow, green – before settling on his (now iconic) black and white which meet in the middle and do something different everytime. It seemed to suit what he was trying to say, and perhaps his background as a typographer had something to do with it in the end. He wanted his pottery to be a backdrop to the food. Never out of place, never stepping forward with unnecessary flourishes or features. Everything as it should be and no more. Let me tell you that this is a deceptively difficult skill to master in design. The temptation is always to be clever, to add something new or memorable. I have spent many days, weeks and months refining a design down to what is its most useful form and my mother was a very strong influence on all of us in this regard.

Since his death in 1993 I continue to produce and develop my father’s Shanagarry range and I must say I still find it very beautiful. It has so much in common with my own range – they mix rather well on the table – but they are also very very different characters. I have often thought, looking at our pots together with Simon’s glass on my table, that they are like children of the same family.

Read more about how Philip became a Potter in Stephen’s recently launched coffee table book and history of Shanagarry Pottery: Warrior Spirit

NEXT: Read about how Stephen began his Classic Range in 1972.

More book for your buck

I had the idea to write a series of pamphlets with a few photographs and little pastiches of life in the Pottery and other random topics. These would be cheap and cheerful and given away at the Pottery Showroom. However the empire builder in me took over and the project grew and grew until we now have a lavish 272-page coffee table book with several hundred photographs which in itself was meant to end at 200 pages.

So forget Cleopatra’s needle. THIS is a monument. It’s probably a bit over the top, however I’ve really

Why I called my book ‘Warrior Spirit’

My father, myself and my son are all pacifists and refuse to go to war and shoot people. Paradoxically we are all warrior spirits.

I don’t know about you, but I am afraid, in fact terrified, about a lot of things a lot of the time. Warrior spirit is about continuing along your road despite the terror. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose.