Alumni profile: Gregory Tingay

from The Fountain Issue 31 Summer 2022

A day in the life of Romane Thomas

(1985 English and Art History)

Artistic Director of Studio Pottery London, Gregory Tingay shares his passion for clay, community, and connection.

My career has been unusual – pottery a constant thread. Born in Zimbabwe, I first threw on the wheel aged fifteen. Sixth Form at an English monastic school was where I discovered the pull of monastic life. I wanted to join immediately; the monks sent me off to take my place at Trinity. I read English and Art History and established lifelong friends, one of them being Anthony Wilson (1985), who would later marry my sister. I worked with another, Edmund de Waal (Trinity Hall 1983), on the Students’ Committee of Kettle’s Yard. We made performance art with food: a Marinetti Luncheon and a Dining Triptych. Pineapple chunks in coffee. A pudding-themed panel with a rose of cake and Blakean inscription ‘Oh Rose thou art sick’ in whipped cream. We were young.

After graduation, I taught Art History in Harare and tutored child stars on a film. Film-set friends spoke of Buckfast Abbey, Devon, and its stained-glass tradition. This appealed and I joined as a novice in 1990. I was soon drawn to the pottery run by Mary Boys-Adams. Deaf from birth, she lip-read and instructed me with the rigour of her own training as an apprentice of Bernard Leach in 1940s St Ives. Leach pioneered Studio Pottery, fusing Japanese Mingei aesthetics with dying English artisanal traditions. Mary’s stories birthed me into this lineage. She took me to drink tea with his son, David, from his fluted celadon cups. His son John gave me a masterclass in pulling handles. Mary encouraged me as I first explored sgraffito: scratched decoration through polychromatic slips. A perennial obsession with pattern.

At the millennium I moved to Quarr Abbey, Isle of Wight, where I was mentored by Molly Attrill with Arts Council funding. Molly encouraged me to throw bigger and bolder forms to match my decoration. In 2008 I made the momentous decision to leave monastic life after nearly twenty years.

I came to London to live with my family. My brotherin-law chanced across a quiet pottery in Dartmouth Park with space. Ten happy years ensued. I started to teach and to exhibit. When it closed in 2018, a pupil – Lucy Attwood – suggested we collaborate on a larger membership and teaching studio. As this took shape, I had three exhilarating and productive months as Artist in Residence at Hauser & Wirth, Somerset.

Studio Pottery London, Belgravia, was designed by another pupil echoing Bauhaus and Japanese minimalism. Edmund de Waal opened it in 2019, describing it as a place of beauty. We offer our members use of our facilities and strive to build community. People come to learn how to throw individually and in groups. Working with clay can be a therapeutic experience. To centre the clay on the wheel as it spins is to centre the person. It connects us with our humanity: useful vessels have been shaped of clay for millennia. Rooted in function, pottery aspires also to beauty. Mentoring members, teaching newcomers to make their first cylinder – the pleasure this gives is always fresh. It is a good path.