Neil Brownsword on Bernard Leach

NB: I suppose the obvious thing that strikes me immediately is, looking at it from a purist point of view - I'm not a purist by the way - I suppose it's [the] lack of proportion. And I suppose it's just [that] these things were made by these icons of studio pottery, [and] when you see them actually in the flesh, you think today, in the cabinet, would you walk past them? Do they have an impact? Do they have a relevance today? And people making this kind of stuff, how do they manage to survive with the kind of industrial products ... again you've got these cups and saucers that you can get from Ikea for about 75p or a pound. Who's going to pay £50 for a cup and saucer? I don't know.

Speaking from a personal perspective, now I drink from an Ikea cup and saucer. But I suppose handling something, again  it's like handling a piece of archaeology. You trace the marks of the maker, the flow of the clay from the the making technique. But as an object it doesn't really have any resonance to me or strike any chords really. I'll probably be damned by all the sandal brigade now, won't I?

MP: I suppose it's a period of studio pottery when they were seen as pioneers.

NB: Yes.

MP: There wasn't much advice about how to do these things.

NB: [video clip starts] I suppose what strikes me, as a relevance as the struggle they went through to do what they wanted to do. The years of being near bankrupt to finally achieve something. But just the dogmatic approach to this is how things should be done, I think has stifled ... There could have been a generation of makers which just hopped onto this bandwagon, but could have pushed or had some kind of individuality away from this kind of Leach towards a standard thing. [video clip ends] I've never read 'A Potter's Book'. I'm only familiar with Leach from lectures [by] Mick Casson, who was a tutor at Cardiff at the time. And I suppose that's the only connection I have with these things is remembering Mick's lectures, which I think I've still got on some audio cassettes from when I was a student. Some badly taped lectures, but they were fascinating to skip through a thousand years of pottery within an hour. But no, sorry Bernard.