Rupert Spira 'discovered' clay when, at the age of fifteen, in 1975, he visited Michael Cardew's retrospective exhibition at Camden Arts Centre, London. Silenced by the beauty and strength of what he describes as 'potent objects', which had 'a raw, vital, organic quality' and a 'capacity to communicate', he knew that this was what he wanted to do. The finding of clay was part of a life-long investigation into oriental mystic writing and religions, and a search for an alternative to the purely rational and conceptual in favour of a wider, more fulfilling and all-embracing philosophy. Voraciously he read books on Zen as well as such classics as Pioneer Pottery by Cardew, Leach's A Potter's Book and Yanagi's Hie Unknown Craftsman, enthralled by the notion of a Buddhist aesthetic and the world of possibilities they presented. At the age of seventeen, much against the advice of his teachers and his father, he left school to enter the foundation course at his local art school, West Surrey College of Art (WSCA), at Farnham. With singular determination, Spira shaped the course to suit himself. He eschewed areas such as print-making, photography and weaving for almost full-time potting. In due course he moved on to the BA ceramics course at the college, which was then under the direction of Henry Hammond, a potter renowned for thrown bowls decorated with delicately painted fish, a motif that was later to appeal to Spira. Eclectic and wide-ranging, the course enabled him to spend much of his first year building and firing kilns with third year students, and learning about the way clay, heat and flame could work creatively together. During his second year he helped fire the large wood kiln at Wenford Bridge, and, when Hammond suggested that he might take a break in his studies and apply for an apprenticeship with Cardew, he jumped at the chance and was immediately accepted.
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