It didn't quite work out that way as he and his wife-to-be Joan ended up washing dishes in St Mawes. Cornwall was, however, where his artistic career began. He set up his first studio in an old cow shed and spent six happy years there. Then came the letter inviting him to Lesotho for 18 months. The year and a half became 10 years during which time he set up a pottery in Lesotho employing 28 people and oversaw many projects in Swaziland and Botswana. At weekends he would take to the mountains, watching women coil pots with clay from the river bank and burnish them with pebbles.

All this time in Africa had a profound effect on his philosophy and his life had changed forever.  Indeed he hadn't been back in England very long when he was asked by the Commonwealth Secretariat to head up a team to travel to Japan, Korea and Western Europe to develop new techniques and products.  It was in Japan that he first discovered raku and the whole Shinto idea of working with opposites -- fire and water, rough and smooth, humble and powerful, ying and yang.

On his final return to England he settled in Bath where he has had his studio since 1985 -- about the time that we first met, when I was opening the gallery in Salisbury.  I showed his work during the '80s but then our paths diverged as we both followed different tracks in our professional lives.  We have talked on and off about doing this show for several years and I am really happy that the points of time have brought us back on to the same line again.

Peter is now one of the leading exponents of his art. His ceramic sculptures are heavily influenced by all he has learned on his travels -- the found objects which he started collecting as a boy and then in Cornwall, the texture of the leather water bags (dry and crinkled when empty, voluptuous and youthful when full) carried on the pack mules in Africa, monolithic stones on the Cornish landscape and deep red slip (as first observed in Lesotho) added to some of his pieces.

Peter tries to achieve opposites of rough and smooth by building up layers of textured clay combined with burnishing and polishing of surfaces.  Leaving the pieces in the sea at Cornwall or in the riverbed outside his studio is an integral part of the process as the salts oxidize the copper and the verdigris transports into the white clay to give a blue/green blush to the work. He also uses clay that is not meant to be suitable for raku firing, so that it cracks in the kiln and produces the surface which is the signature of any Peter Hayes work

Hayes has always 'flown by the seat of his pants' in making his pieces.  He is a truly great ceramic artist and his ceramics -- from the very small to the huge totems and discs -- are a mere extension of his own character. Everything about Peter and his work vibrates with life and enthusiasm. Don't miss it -- it may rub off on you!

Ian Courcoux

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