Week 2 of My Favourite Things.

This month I am enjoying spending a moment or two with some of my favourite potters.  This week is it the turn of Lucy Rie.

I  came across her when my sister gave me a book on her work and I look back now and feel ashamed that it had taken me so long to discover such a rich and wonderful selection of work!

The introduction to Tony Birk’s book on her life and work comments on her willingness to try new things and to ‘combine her experience and intuition with radical experiment’,

Lucy Rie: Tony Birk, Stenlake Publishing Ltd, 1987.

I love the idea that a thrower with as much skill as she had who was content to ignore serious wobbles and manipulate exhausted clay into a shape and I find myself wondering how far Lucy Rie would have got on the Great British Throw Down!

Here, for your enjoyment are a few of her pieces:

Here is the only bit of video about her that I can find and post here, although, if you can find time to visit the Victoria and Albert Museum you can watch an enchanting video of her talking to Sir David Attenborough about her work and see a reconstruction of her studio.  What comes through in all her work is the message to keep things simple – something we would all do well to remember!