JOHN REEVE (1929-2012)
Following an apprenticeship at the Leach Pottery, John Reeve taught and made pots in the United States, Canada and England. His talent and charisma inspired potters from Big Creek, California to the Kansas City Art Institute, and from Vancouver, British Columbia to the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Reeve’s quest to develop a translucent porcelain clay body suitable for use by studio potters began in the early 1960s. Some Notes on Porcelain, a series of technical articles he published in multiple countries, captures his pioneering work in the field. Reeve regularly visited Minnesota where he taught at the university and made pots with his lifelong friend, Warren MacKenzie. They both shared the conviction that “pots should be made easily and quickly; they should not be elaborate things”. In the late 1980s he moved to New Mexico where he created the studio-based program at Santa Fe Clay before settling in the rural town of Abiquiu.