Hugh West | Featured Artist

HUGH WEST Featured Artist

1st to 29th September 2021

Celebrating 50 Years of Ceramics During his 50 year career, Hugh West has experienced every possible connotation of life as a potter, and has finally reached his paradise.

In this show Hugh has selected his favorite twenty

Seven

pieces

created

since

November 2020.

“I was destined to be a farmer” says potter Hugh West, “but many things put me off that way of life, including being struck by lightning on our farm in the Brecon Beacons”. This curious act of God was the catalyst for the next half century of Hugh’s life, over which time he has risen from lowly art student to Hugh’s First College Piece Not For Sale

respected Master Craftsman.

It has been a circuitous journey: talent, hard work, and an education from world class potters have all influenced Hugh’s incredibly productive career, and have brought him this September to a celebratory 50th Anniversary exhibition at Whitewater Contemporary in Polzeath, Cornwall.

“After my recovery from the lightning strike”

“Their way of creating pots was the opposite

says Hugh” I took a foundation course at

of the industrial methods I had learned”

Hereford College of Art which included an

says Hugh. “Everything was handmade

industrial ceramics module”. Soon after,

and so free”.

while on holiday in Cornwall, he visited St

fortunate enough to meet potter Lucie

Ives Pottery and saw the great Trevor Corsar

Rie in her studio, and her work made an

throwing on the wheel. Instantly inspired,

early impression on him. “And others have

Hugh enrolled on the ceramics course at

influenced me since” says Hugh, “Richard

Redruth School of Art, where Mary Rich and

Godfrey, for his innovation and use of colour;

Roger Veal were his tutors, and Bernard

Seungho Yang, for his calm and unorthodox

Leach, Janet Leach and Michael Cardew

approach, Alfred Hering, for his tenacity and

were visiting lecturers.

creativity, and David Leach for his friendship and support”.

As a student, Hugh was

Vase Porcelain WE531 | 10.5cm x 9.5cm x 10.5cm £395

At the age of just 21 Hugh set up his first pottery in Newquay, but soon found that his skill would need to be backed up by serious business acumen. “I borrowed £1,000 – that’s the equivalent of £12,500 today! - and bought a wheel, clay and raw materials to set me up” he tells me. “Realisation came fast though - I had limited time to make glazes and get selling, and I remember thinking ‘what have I done?’.

I actually stood in my new workshop and cried!” Things improved after Truro shop owner Pru Danby gave Hugh his very first order for £50, but the ceramics market around Newquay was limited and the pottery studio was too small to be viable.

Vase

Open Bowl

Porcelain WE532 | 8.5cm x 11cm x 8.5cm £185

Porcelain WE533 | 18cm x 12cm x 18cm £225

Looking to expand, Hugh found a barn on the Flete estate near Modbury in Devon and set up West Pottery, employing trainee potters including Chris Hawkins, who is now a successful raku potter. Hugh quickly found success creating tableware for Harrods, Heals, and Liberty of London, “and I supplied the original Cider Press Centre in Dartington” adds Hugh. “Miss Jewel, the head buyer,

Hugh’s business success in Devon eventually

insisted that all pots be inspected by her

lost its attraction, and he began to look for

to check quality. I would tremble before an

an opportunity to explore the wider world of

appointment!”. It was there that [potter]

ceramics. “I answered an advert in Ceramic

David Leach befriended Hugh. “I am ever

Review for someone to go and live and

grateful to him and to Pan Henry of the

work in the village of La Borne, in France

Casson Gallery” says Hugh, “for introducing

[an internationally significant centre for

my work to the gallery scene”.

ceramics]” explains Hugh.

Small Open Vase

Vase

Porcelain WE534 | 7.5cm x 7.5cm x 7.5cm £125

Porcelain WE535 | 7.5cm x 9.5cm x 7.5cm £165

Open Bowl Porcelain WE540 | 33cm x 11cm x 33cm £450

Open Bowl Porcelain WE541 | 22cm x 9cm x 22cm £250

“It was part of a project to recreate the

“By then I was fast at throwing and earned

traditional wood-firing ways of former La

well. I sold at fairs, took part in exhibitions and

Borne potters and it was an important

won a gold medal at the Munich International

chapter in my career: learning the old

Craft Fair”. Circumstance eventually brought

ways, collecting antique pots and visiting

him back to Cornwall, where he spent a brief

museums”. In France Hugh built an Anagama

time on the Killiow Estate near Truro before

kiln [a traditional Japanese wood-burning

establishing a pottery at Carnon Downs, “this

kiln].

time building a Yakishime kiln” says Hugh. “I had no time to spare for exhibitions - I was working non-stop to supply galleries”.

Wide Rimmed Globe Vase

Wide Rimmed Globe Vase

Porcelain WE551 | 9.5cm x 11.5cm x 9.5cm £185

Porcelain WE543 | 9.5cm x 14.5cm x 9.5cm £250

In 2000 he returned to La Borne, where he made a significant change in focus from stoneware to porcelain, thanks to advice from his long-time friend David Leach. “David once told me ‘You are a porcelain potter’” says Hugh, “and what did I do? I went off and made stoneware! But by now I had decided to work exclusively in porcelain and to make individual pieces.

Lidded Jar Porcelain WE538 | 9cm x 12cm x 9cm £200

Vase Porcelain WE530 | 8cm x 12cm x 8cm £180

Moon Jar Porcelain WE536 | 33cm x 27cm x 33cm £550

Moon Jar Porcelain WE537 | 30cm x 27cm x 30cm £550

After years of hard work I wanted porcelain’s simplicity and purity - I wanted to really explore its possibilities”. Porcelain, Hugh tells me “has its own limits and boundaries. It requires respect. Everything on a throwing day must be right - my mood, the consistency of the clay, the music on the radio.

Celadon & Rhubarb Vase

Celadon Tea Bowl

Porcelain WE545 | 10cm x 13cm x 10cm £200

Porcelain WE553 | 9cm x 7cm x 9cm £200

I am inspired by the search for perfection, I still want to get it right, I want people to pick up one of my pots and really like it”. Hugh uses three types of porcelain - Southern Ice, Audrey Blackman and French porcelain - and makes all his own glazes. “I have never purchased a commercial glaze in my life” he says. “Sometimes I test other potters’ glaze recipes, and I enjoy honing the results to fit my type of glazing and firing, but two different potters can use the same glaze and it won’t come out the same way. Sometimes it takes a year to develop a glaze from testing to production”.

Wide Rimmed Globe Vase

Wide Rimmed Globe Vase

Porcelain WE546 | 8cm x 11.5cm x 8cm £250

Porcelain WE548 | 10cm x 13cm x 10cm £225

In 2014 Hugh returned permanently to

Now Hugh has reached a point in his life

the UK and now works from the Toll House

where he is free to work as he pleases, when

Pottery at his home in West Cornwall. “The

he pleases, and concentrate on “simplicity

studio building dates from the early 19th

and function, knowing what the clay and I are

century, when tolls were taken on a small

capable of”. Of a typical day in the studio he

road between Truro and Falmouth” says

tells me “There is no typical day. It depends

Hugh. “I love not having to drive to work, I

what mood I am in, but what I can tell you

just walk through my beautiful garden with

is that in the last 50 years I’ve never spent

my beloved Border Terrier Budleigh beside

a day in the working week without throwing.

me”.

Wide Rimmed Globe Vase

Wide Rimmed Globe Vase

Porcelain WE549 | 9.5cm x 12.5cm x 9.5cm £250

Porcelain WE550 | 8cm x 14cm x 8cm £250

Open Bowl Porcelain WE539 | 31cm x 12cm x 31cm £400

Open Bowl Porcelain WE544 | 20cm x 7.5cm x 20cm £200

In my student days I found throwing a challenge, but no matter how much time it took and how hard it was I wanted to master it, and I still look forward to working on the wheel.

I was lucky to have had two high-production workshops in my career, enabling me to hone the process of throwing hundreds of thousands of times, but it was grinding – that’s the word for it. Working repetitively like that takes such a toll on your body.

Open Bowl

Lidded Mushroom Jar

Porcelain WE547 | 15cm x 9cm x 15cm £160

Porcelain WE552 | 11.5cm x 10.5cm x 11.5cm £200

Bamboo Handled Teapot & Tea Bowl Porcelain WE556 | Teapot: 15cm x 35cm x 15cm | Tea Cup: 5.5cm x 5cm x 5.5cm £295

Bamboo Handled Lidded Swirl Jar

Large Bamboo Handled Lidded Jar

Porcelain with Bamboo WE555 | 9.5cm x 22.5cm x 9.5cm £265

Porcelain with Bamboo WE554 | 10cm x 27cm x 11cm £295

You don’t realise until later in life how taxing the process is to your joints, your back and your eyesight. We potters must be mad!”.

The beautiful porcelain work Hugh makes now has earned him a reputation as one of Cornwall’s leading fine art potters, one who exhibits all over the world, and years of experience have brought him to his 50th year as a potter, an acknowledged master of his craft, utterly at ease with any clay, wheel or form.

Raku Fired Vessel, 2007 21cm x 62cm x 24cm From Hugh’s Personal Collectiopn Price on Application

“In spite of the pain” says Hugh, “this is where pleasure comes in: no thinking is required, it’s easy, even with porcelain. Potters who have mastered throwing with it will know exactly what I’m talking about”.

Words by Mercedes Smith | Photography by Chritine West

The Par ad e , Po l ze a th , Co rn wa l l , P L 2 7 6 S R 01208 869301 | art@whitewatercontemporary.co.uk www.whitewatercontemporary.co.uk @Whitewatercontemporary