Trust your Taste (because you are different to anyone else on the planet)

I think there are a few things that stop many people from having beautiful things in their lives.

Firstly it’s easy to have a sense that we don’t deserve to have beautiful things. It’s also possible for beautiful things to appear superficial and unnecessary and I have noticed that some people think that it is a vanity to choose beautiful objects.

I completely disagree with all of these. I think living in the midst of beauty is as important as the air we breathe. I think beauty can be like heaven. We think it’s something that happens at another time – rather than ‘We are living in heaven now, enjoy’.

My rallying cry has always been ‘To bring beauty into your life, that’s my job’ and I think I got it by direct injection from my parents. As a child the chair I sat in (and covered in porridge), was handmade from driftwood in the long winter nights by a farmer in Kerry. The spoons, plates, glasses, mugs that I used were all carefully chosen by my mother, early on for their strength and durability when they bounced off the tiled floor, and later for the beauty of simplicity.

There is nothing elitist or snobbish to my attitude to good design. I would have been very happy to have had the same career as Mr. Ikea. If you are making a mug it is as easy to make a beautiful mug as an ugly mug and needn’t cost any more. I think when choosing or making something the real trick is not to worry what friends, neighbours and relations think of your choice. Being true to your own heart is a very good standard to work by. What I do may be hideous to you, so that means you’ve got to do your own thing.

As near as I can get to good design is to keep things as simple as possible. So maybe there is no such thing as good or bad design. Maybe there’s just personal taste, and for me this is cool as long as you’re following your own heart – and not what friends, magazines and shopkeepers tell you you need.

All my life my work has been design, and it may encourage you to hear that when I was kitting out my own house I had serious doubts about light fittings, curtains, and cutlery. I really had to dig deep to say ‘I like this, and I want it’. There were even a few instances where I chose things and within a year realised they were completely unsuited to my style of living.

But at least I learned what I didn’t like.

Your house is your house. And it’s fine if it’s the same as a thousand other houses on the outside. It’s inside your nest that really counts.

 

Stephen

 

Recent posts:

WHY EARTHENWARE? (AUGUST 12 2014)

“Yes, but why do you like it?”

 

“It would be easy to say ‘Because my daddy made it’ but that’s only part of the story.”, he said…

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Hairy hairy! (that’s Irish for “Scarey, Scarey!”)

My coffee table biography Stephen Pearce: Warrior Spirit with over 200 colour photographs is on a boat from Italy as we speak, and we have just started selling pre-orders from our website – all of which I will sign and dedicate.

My worst Hallowe’en nightmare this year is that when you read it you won’t love me anymore. However it’s a risk worth taking, as it’s always possible you might love me more 🙂

I suspect this is the reason most people write their life story. If people go into this project thinking they will make lotsa money let me tell you, having sat at the kitchen table writing for two years, that you can safely call them a liar.

I believe most people don’t write their own biographies, and in not doing so they miss the opportunity of meeting somebody quite extraordinary. As I wrote I got to know intimately someone who I had been so busy being, that I forgot to get to know him. And it feels really strange at the age of 70 to know that I haven’t known myself all my life.

LOVE IS

Most of the great mystics from every tradition seem to stick with this simple statement and go no further.  The best interpretation I can put on it is that love is a passive context in which stuff happens.  A bit like a big bubble, as in a BIIIIIIIG bubble, which contains the whole universe.  And this invisible quality, a bit like oxygen in the air, we breathe it in continually and if we will stop worrying for a moment and just be present with our self then this wonderful love quality is always part of us.

The importance of sex

Earlier today I wrote about Relationship.  Now it’s the turn of Sex and later in the day I will cover Love.

I have heard it said that sex is very over-rated.  It seems to me that whoever said that is missing the point.  In my life sex has been the most confusing and the most exhilarating of all experiences.  You know when you’re going there with someone new all of the embarrassment and uncertainty and fear, and yet when you have the courage to keep going it is possible to arrive at an amazing place.

Something that always amazes me is how many delicious and beautiful women think that they are overweight.  You don’t take into account those exotic love handles that so excite us men!  In French they are called ‘Poignets d’amour‘, ‘Chichitos‘ in Spanish, and my favourite is the Italian… ‘Maniglie dell’amore‘!

If you simply want to kiss it is ‘Bisou‘ in French, ‘Beso‘ in Spanish and ‘Bacci‘ in Italian.

Now that we are fully blown Europeans it is important that we should be acquainted with these important words.  There are many other exciting possibilities which I will leave til next year.

If life has been kind enough to lead you to other doors that you feel the need to add to this list, please feel free – I’m a great learner.  I look forward to covering Love this afternoon – it should be easier and less embarrassing.

Why do I write such things?  Well I suppose it’s the thrill of going very close to the line.  What line?!  An unspoken line that make a lot of conversation and society really boring.

Red Hot Passion

As a man whose life is driven by various passions I want to add 3 blog posts today on the subject of Love, Relationship and Sex.  So roll up your sleeves and prepare to participate!

I salute and celebrate lovers everywhere.  Whatever the nature of your passion and love I celebrate it with you.  I spend as much time as possible with my masseur who is an incredibly passionate man in terms of the body and spirit and the well-being of everything both on this planet and over the edge.  He has been giving me various crystals and fancy stones for years and I really haven’t related very well to them.  But recently he gave me a huge rock and in the morning I hold it between my hands and feel a connection that I have never felt before which leads me to wonder if our human relationship to trees and rocks is perhaps as profound as our relationship with another human being.  Imagine the simplicity and satisfaction and ease of having a relationship with a rock rather than another human being!  Yeah I know we would miss all those delicious, soft, little bits and bumps but the mental tranquility definitely calls for exploration.

That was all an idea.  The reality is that I am married to an extraordinary woman who is so kind and generous and gentle in all of my blunderings that I can only give thanks for being so lucky.  In a couple of hours when I have regrouped I will take love from a different angle.

Looking forward to meeting you then.

XXXX Stephen

Talking to my arm…

I was in the shower this morning and I found myself talking to my arm. For the last 6 months I have had a frozen right arm which has been quite painful and impossible to use for making pottery. Slowly, with continual exercise it is getting better. This morning in the shower I noticed that it was even better so I said “Thank you dear arm for being more use to me today” and I felt a deep sense of appreciation.

Then I thought of the integrated processes that our bodies are and I realised that my arm is not separate from my body but one and the same thing, even though the pain appears in a particular place.

Then I thought that I am part of the universe… and the game goes on and on.

I find gratitude to be a very powerful mantra.