Hugh West
Hugh West's GalleryI was born in York in 1950 and lived in Yorkshire until I was six years old. I moved to Wales when my father took over the management of a large farm estate in Breconshire and at seventeen I left to study at Hereford School of Art and Design, transferring to Redruth Art School to take a further ceramics course. After work experience with several established potters, I opened my own pottery in Newquay in 1971.
An opportunity arose in 1975 to begin a larger production pottery in Devon on the Flete estate. After this, in 1982, I took my family to La Borne in the department of Cher, France, where an ancient pottery village still survives, repeating the traditional forms and ways of wood-firing important to that region of central France, using an anagama kiln.
Since 2000 I am again living and working in La Borne. Exhibitions and memberships include numerous one-man shows in Britain; collective shows in Europe, Japan, USA and Saudi Arabia; and in 1996 a 25th Anniversary exhibition in Truro. I used to be a member of the Cornwall Crafts Association, the Westcountry Potters Association and Penwith Society of Arts. Now I am a member of the Association of Potters of La Borne.