From the late 1950’s to mid-1960’s several Vancouver potters apprenticed at Bernard Leach's studio in St Ives, Cornwall. At the time, Canada’s West Coast had developed a strong culture of studio ceramics. But, positioned on the West’s very edge, Vancouver still reached back to England to establish aesthetic and cultural roots from which it could grow its own voice.  

Glenn Lewis was at St. Ives from 1961 to 1963, and while he acknowledges Bernard’s importance in conceiving a studio practice, it was Janet Leach who inspired his actual pot making. Janet had spent time in Japan during the early 1950’s with Shoji Hamada in Mashiko. There she learned the importance of clay itself and the pot’s body, rather than the surface and its decoration, which was Bernard’s preoccupation. 

Janet’s practice represented for Glenn an importance amalgam of western and eastern practices. Coming from the West Coast, he saw Vancouver as a hybrid city with feet spanning the Pacific. In 2014, he was given a residency in Shigaraki where he was able to continue exploring this blend of cultures that continues to inspire his practice. 

Glenn formed this lugged jar from a light and soft coloured Shigaraki clay. The surface is studded with feldspar inclusions that pebble the surface and make it sparkle in the light. He incised a simple motif of radish and leaves on both sides. And banding along the shoulder and above the foot ground the vegetation in a landscape. 

And while there’s a light coating of soft green ash glaze, it really is the clay and soil that are key: the torn edges of jar’s ears and the roughly carved foot let the clay shine. Wood-fired for eight days, the pot’s waving curves and lines celebrate the Shigaraki ware's rough and raw textures.