Jason WASON
This outstanding studio potter was born in Liverpool.
Six years at the Leach Pottery (from 1976) gave Jason a strong sense of workshop discipline and technical competence in glaze techniques, and the ability to throw whatever shape he had in mind; after completing his commitment to producing the standard ware range of the Leach Pottery, he had the freedom to experiment with his own designs. He endeavoured to introduce into a pot a sense of motion, energy and vitality, and his pots are of a ritualistic and ceremonial nature, much inspired by travels in Africa, India and the Middle East, where his search for a nation's pottery caused him to become involved in concerns for the preservation of indigenous peoples' physical and cultural survival.
Wason teaches ceramics at the Penzance School of Art. He is married to the ceramics artist Joanna WASON, who works and teaches at the LEACH POTTERY, St Ives.
After meeting Japanese ceramicist Yasuo TERADA in 2000, Wason was invited to work with him at his studio in Seto, Japan's oldest centre of continuous ceramic history. Since then they have exhibited and worked together on many occasions, showing in galleries in Japan and London, and several locations in Cornwall. Together they have built a coal-fired kiln at the Leach Pottery.
In 2005, South West Arts and the Sasakawa Foundation Japan funded Wason to work for three months alongside Yasuo Terada at the Seihoji Ancient Kiln Park, as part of the EXPO international festival of Japan.
In 2017 Wason (together with Yasuo Terada) became LSG Withiel's first artist in residence.
In 2019 one of his pieces on show at A View from the Edge, entitled 'Metallic Gold and Red Vessel' was acquired by the V&A for their permanent collection.
media
Potter
exhibitions
'2016: 'Inside Out', Lemon Street Gallery, Truro (Sept)
2017: Public Hanging 2, Penwith Gallery, St Ives (May-June)
2017: Playing with Fire III, LSG Withiel Sculpture Garden (Oct)
2019: A View from the Edge, LSG Withiel (14 Sept-12 Oct)
2023: Public Hanging, LSG Withiel (25 Feb-18 Mar)
references
Whybrow (1985) Potters in their Place; (2006) The Leach Legacy
Digital Museum of Ceramics (Cornwall)