Jason Wason
Born Liverpool, 1946
Jason Wason became a potter after travelling the world for eight years with the aim of exploring the cultures of the Balkans, Mediterranean, Middle East and Asia. To pay his way he practiced various crafts in many different places. In 1972 he set up a co-operative with a weaver, a saddler and a jeweller, based on a farm in Scotland, where they carried out their crafts and grew their own produce. This is where Jason started potting.
In 1976 he left for Cornwall and was taken on in Bernard Leach’s St Ives Pottery as assistant in the production of domestic pottery thrown on the wheel. After Bernard Leach’s death in 1979 his wife Janet closed down the production section, but Jason continued to work at the Leach Pottery with two other potters until setting up his own studio near St Just on the Penwith Peninsula in 1981.
Awards/Commissions/Collections
1990 South West Arts Council Development Award
1992 Work commissioned for British High Commission, Dhakar, Bangladesh
1997 British Council Grant for lecture tour of Israel
1998 Grant awarded by South West Arts Council to study ceramics in New Mexico
2002 Artist-in-Residence, Seto City Art and Glass Centre, Aichi Prefecture, Japan
Work purchased for permanent collections of Seto City Art and Glass Centre and
Togei Messe, Mashiko, Japan
Work goes on permanent display at Gallery Bizan, Seto Shi, Aichi, Japan
2002 Appointed project officer for Japan 2001, responsible for inviting Yasuo Terada
From Seto, Japan, to visit UK and build a charcoal fired raku kiln similar in design to that which Bernard Leach first encountered in 1918.
2002 Appointed project officer for Ceramica, International Festival of Ceramics run by
St Ives International, Tate Gallery, St Ives, Newlyn Gallery and Truro Museum.
Solo Exhibitions
1989 to 1999 Austin/Desmond Fine Art, London
1990, 92, 94 Vincent Gallery, Exeter
1990 National Museum & Gallery, Liverpool
1992 Maruzen Department Store, Tokyo, Japan
1993 Aberystwyth Arts Centre, University of Wales
1995 Boymans Van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam, Holland
2000 Six Chapel Row Gallery, Bath
2000 Seto City Cultural Centre, Aichi Prefecture, Japan
2002 Seto City Cultural Centre, Aichi Prefecture, Japan
Yasudo Terada and Jason Wason
Austin/Desmond Fine Art
Group Exhibitions
1991 Natural Resources: Crafts Council, Dublin
Plymouth Museum & Art Gallery
Museo San Telmo, San Sebastian, Spain
Shipley Museum
1994 Raku, Tate Gallery St Ives (Education Room)
Andrew Usiskin Gallery, London
1995 Gallerie Inart, Amsterdam, Holland
Gallery Gilbert, Dorchester
Japanese Connections: Group Show incl. David Leach, Janet Leach,
Cornish Crafts Assoc., Helston, Cornwall
Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro
Textile and Ceramics, Rufford Art Centre, Nottingham
1996 Ten Pieces, Tate Gallery St Ives
Out of the Dark, Group Show incl. Liz Fritsch, Janet Leach, Colin Pearson
Austin/Desmond Fine Art
1997 First Choice: The Devon Guild, Bovey Tracey.
Group Exhibition, Joanna Bird Gallery
Mixed Exhibition, Six Chapel Row Gallery Bath
1998 Group Exhibition, Running Ridge Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico
2000 Bizan Terada, Yasuo Terada and Jason Wason, Stage One Gallery, Nagoya
2000 Group Show: with David Leach, Shinsaku Hamada, Kenji Funaki, Tatsuso
Shimaoka and Kazutoshi Yamada, Dartington Hall, Devon
2001 Japanese Connections, C Square Gallery, Nagoya
2001 British Studio Ceramics: Works from the New Millennium, The Clay Studio
Gallery, Philadelphia, USA
2002 Artist-in-Residence in Seto, Seto City Cultural Centre, Aichi, Japan
Group Exhibition with Bernard and Janet Leach, Penlee Museum, Penzance