Byron Temple, Romantic Pragmatist   1      2      3      4      5      6      7      8      -      PRINTER VERSION

>> In December of 1971 Temple was in a serious automobile accident that left him in full body cast for three months. He began reflecting about where he wanted to go with his work. His goal of becoming a self-sufficient potter had been realized. He now wanted to explore new shapes, and firing techniques, to add to his oeuvre. He had just begun to salt fire and that was his first chance to get away for his standard ware. He started thinking about how he could simplify his already Spartan life and work towards becoming completely solvent. After his recovery he developed new lines of work, one was a porcelain dinner set and the other was a stoneware dinner set with temmoku glaze. Both were more sophisticated, the porcelain dinner set had new handles on the bowls and thick rounded rims. The cup was now taller and more "casually" thrown. The temmoku cup had a trimmed foot and its saucer had and indented space to receive it. In 1978 he was contacted by Janet Leach and asked if he would return to St. Ives and take over running the Leach pottery. Leach, who was blind, had separated from Janet and had moved into a flat in St. Ives that overlooked Porthmeor Beach. Temple would spend four or five evenings a week with Leach, reading to him and talking about pottery. Temple had always thought of the cup and saucer as his trademark and while at St. Ives he worked on developing a new cup and saucer for the line of standard ware. He was quite proud that Leach accepted it even, he recalled with a hint of laughter, if Leach was blind at the time. When Leach passed away in May of 1979 Temple moved again to Aylesford to work at Colin Pearson's studio. He had applied for and received membership in Britain's Craftsman Potters Association and was also teaching at Middlesex Polytechnic Institute north of London. He was just beginning to work on some his new ideas for one of a kind pots and start to blend aspects of that work with his tableware. It was a bumpy time and in a letter to Sarah Bodine, dated Sunday 15 July/Aylesford 1979, he wrote about his difficulties. "I am finding and just now coming to terms with the fact that my new work sits top a fence of function (not suitable for the UK Leach purists) and not 'out' enough for those over here wanting Calif funk ten years after!" In that same letter he speaks about various job offers to teach, but never seems to focus on them, he was, as always, preoccupied with his work.

When he returned to Lambertville in 1980, he continued his line of tableware, but also began to make more one of a kind pieces. To spend time on this new work meant that he had to cut expenses, so he moved into the upstairs of the Swan St. studio. He started having more solo exhibitions of his work in the 1980s, at least one a year and sometimes as many as four a year. The transition that he had envisioned, while recovering from his accident in 1971, was beginning to take place. In 1989 he made his first trip to Japan. He spent the summer in Tokoname working and looking at pots. In 1990 he was awarded a Fellowship from the National Endowments for the Arts. He was finally solvent and made the decision to move to Louisville. He found that he wanted to work alone; he was working more slowly now, thinking more about every piece and no longer wanted the responsibility of overseeing apprentices and the grueling demands of producing a line of work. He did not reject those earlier years; he said he loved making all those pots. He saw it as an evolutionary process and said that he did not think he could have ever had made his new work without having done all that earlier production work.

He also liked traveling and teaching and now had more opportunities to do workshops. He got rid of a lot of books and pots, put his place in Lambertville up for sale and moved into a detached apartment
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