Ray Pinch, who this year celebrates seventy years of potting, has long been recognised as one of this country's leading makers of handsome tableware. Since working first with slip-decorated earthenware, then stoneware and later porcelain and saltglaze, Finch has consistently produced beautifully crafted pots mostly for use on the table. For many years his pots graced the tables of Cranks Healthfood Restaurants and became a byword for work that was simply made, delightfully executed and stylish in concept. Along with Leach standard ware, Finch's pots became a benchmark for useful pots around the country. Still potting at the age of ninety-two, Finch is a quiet, unassuming potter who allows his pots to speak for themselves. In 1936 Ray Finch, then aged twenty-two, began making pots with his mentor Michael Cardew, at Winchcombe Pottery, a workshop that specialised in slipware, fired in a large traditional bottle oven. An adept student, Finch quickly learnt his craft and within three years was left in charge when Cardew moved to Cornwall to establish a new pottery. Maintaining full production during the war proved impossible and full-scale output was only re-established in 1946 when Finch bought the business. Although production was fraught with a series of technical problems, the pottery continued to make slipware until it moved to the stronger and more practical reduction-fired stoneware in 1960, a move that luckily coincided with a flourishing demand for useful handmade pottery. Winchcombe's standard wares led the field. In the following decade the pottery began firing with wood, which added an extra quality of richness to the work, and continues to do so.
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