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It seems reasonable to expect that beauty will emerge from a fusion of the individual character and culture of the potter with the nature of his materials.
Bernard Leach
I make functional pottery in an effort to preserve local culture in our modern throw-away society. My main goal is to inspire other people to make their own creative work.
Bernard Leach
Every artist knows that he is engaged in an encounter with infinity, and that work done with heart and hand is ultimately worship of life itself.
Bernard Leach
Bernard Leach (1887-1979) was a British potter and artist. He grew up in Asia and had close links to Japan. In his art he was strongly influenced by wabi-sabi, a Japanese concept of simplicity. He believed that function had overriding importance and he disapproved of art that was artistic for the sake of being artistic.
He established the Leach Pottery in St Ives in Cornwall in western England. He collaborated closely with a Japanese potter, Shoji Hamada. He was also involved with the Mingei functional folk art movement and its leading figure Soetsu Yanagi. He had a deep and lasting influence that went far beyond pottery and that has affected modern western concepts of design.
There are some interesting parallels with martial arts. At a basic level Bernard Leach studied with a master potter, Kenzan, and eventually developed his own style and even philosophy. But the Japanese aesthetics of simplicity and the purity of function over form go deeper than making objects.
Techniques in the martial arts should be simple and pure also. There shouldn't be any beautiful movements just because they are beautiful. Everything should be for a reason. And as we become more experienced all unnecessary and wasted movement should gradually be cut away. Not form over function. Not even function over form. Form becomes function and function becomes form. The pure essence of budo.
I have an essay in a charity e-book put together by some writers and photographers to raise money for victims of the earthquake and tsunami in Tohoku on 11 March 2011. It costs $9.99.
09-23-2011 12:16 PM 
