I’m not the only one who’s a fan of studio pottery – the market has mushroomed over the past decade, and values with it. With infinitely creative names such as Lucie Rie, Hans Coper, Bernard Leach, Michael Cardew and, more recently, John Maltby to our credit, I really do believe that our islands have contributed enormously to the development of this unique combination of art and craft.
But reading these names may make you turn away if you want to collect. Works by these grandees typically cost big money. Tens, of even hundreds of thousands for the best, by the best. But away from them, the many potters who were inspired by, or studied under, them have provided rich pickings. Cornish studios in particular have allowed those of us with smaller and less fulsome pockets to create collections. Some, like Troika, have already risen, but I believe there are plenty more whose stars are on the up, but yet to rise and shine fully. One of these is Tremaen.
The Tremaen Pottery was founded by Peter Ellery in Marazion, Cornwall in 1965. Trained in fine arts and ceramics at Bath College, Ellery took his inspiration from the beautiful Cornish landscape he saw around him. This return to the land and nature was a dominant feature of the 1960s & 70s. We may remember the hilarious escapades of Tom and Barbara Good in the BBC TV series ‘The Good Life’, but on a more serious note, also consider a new generation growing up after the horrors of World War Two and the atomic bomb, and the failure of science, modernity and technology so promoted from the 1930s-50s to solve the world’s problems. And then there’s the dratted ‘rat race’. The hippy’s chant of “Peace and love”, man, is only the start – this movement back to nature went deeper into our souls than psychedelic drugs.
Ellery’s work represents this core influence in a number of ways. Let’s look at form, colour, texture, and pattern…
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