Paul Scott Blue and White Horizons - The Scottish Gallery

Willow after Bernard LeachLeach wrote:‘Patterns may be described as concepts of decorationreduced to their utmost simplicity and significance. Theyare analogous to melodies in music and proverbs inliterature. Their significance is enhanced by directness ofpersonal statement and detracted from by mechanicalreproduction, for in such reproductions continuous vitalinterpretation is lacking, however good the original. That iswhy well painted pots have a beauty of expression greaterthan pottery decorated with engraved transfers, stencils orrubber stamps.’1The remediated object Willow after Bernard Leach lays bare the paucity of Leach’s distain for theprinted graphic. It is the reaction of stain with fire, ash and glaze that imbues the melodious andproverbial - not necessarily the hand painted, but Leach’s philosophical attachment to the handmade and oriental aesthetic makes him an unsuited commentator on the industrial heritage ofceramics. He has been thrust into this space by his role as the father of the studio pottery movementwhich until recently claimed a strangle hold on the contemporary dialogue within British ceramics.His thinking on printed ceramics probably deserve to hold as much influence as mine on the craftpottery movement.Paul Scott, October 20121. Leach, Bernard (1940) A Potters Book p. 101, Faber and Faber (1967 edition), LondonRight: Scott’s Cumbrian Blue(s) Willow, After Bernard Leach, 20 x 20 x 1 cm, screenprint, wood, salt firedtile, made at Kecskemét Hungary in 2009