Mary Rich

Having studied painting and ceramics at Bournemouth College of Art, taught by David Ballantyne, and then worked with Harry and May Davis at the Crowan Pottery, and David Leach in Bovey Tracey, I started my first workshop in Falmouth in 1962 making salt glaze domestic pots.

The move to Cowlands Creek in 1970 involved building a new salt glaze kiln in a new studio, but by the early 1980s new technology in refractory materials made kilns far more efficient in their use of fuel which already was becoming more expensive, so the salt glaze changed to making only porcelain-fired in these new kilns, which continues to this day.

I have always been influenced by Islamic and Far Eastern ceramics which first introduced me to working with gold and lustres.