For Ellie Woods, the attraction is creating something beautiful but functional – plus the childlike joy of getting her hands grubby. “I think it’s the hands-on part of it that really appeals,” said Woods, a 25-year-old apprentice at the Leach Pottery in the Cornish town of St Ives. “I love the fact that people are going to hold and use our work; it’s so intimate, more intimate than looking at a painting or piece of sculpture.” Pottery is enjoying a boom. Applications for apprenticeships and night-school courses are pouring in and high street studios that give people the chance to work with clay are popping up across the UK. Sales of high-end wares produced with love and care at places like the Leach Pottery are soaring, with younger people prepared to invest in items they will live with for years. A report from the Crafts Council concluded that the appetite for British craft had never been greater. Highlighting shows such as the Great Pottery Showdown, it said that three-quarters of respondents to a survey it had conducted were buying British craft and a fifth of people said they would pay to attend a craft workshop. It pointed out that the mental health benefits of taking part in pastimes such as pottery was one its great attractions. The Craft Potters Association has seen its membership almost double, from 1,000 in 2020 to more than 1,800 now. At the Leach pottery its 2022 courses sold out completely within days of being advertised. Meanwhile cinema audiences looking for a change of pace from Bond or superheroes are turning to The Colour Room, the film about the life of Clarice Cliff, who rose from modest beginnings to become a celebrated ceramicist. Libby Buckley, the director at Leach Pottery, believes the impact of Covid, and people’s desire to find new ways of living, is an important factor in the explosion of interest. “I think the idea of craft and making has really taken off in the last couple of years,” she said. “Some of that is down to Covid. People who spend their time on a computer all day like the idea of having a go, getting their hands dirty. The great thing about pottery is that it’s really playing with mud. It’s very tactile.” Buckley also suggested that people had spent so much time indoors gazing at their surroundings and everyday objects they had come to the conclusion that they might as well pay a little extra for really beautiful pieces. “People are realising it’s good to have things you love around you.” In the 1960s in bohemian enclaves like St Ives, pottery became part of the counter-culture, a search for an earthier, alternative way of living, and Buckley feels that is happening again. “We’re reading a lot about the Great Resignation. So many people are re-evaluating their lives.” The Leach pottery, experimental and progressive, was founded a century ago in St Ives by Bernard Leach and Shōji Hamada. It was opened as a museum, shop and studio in 2008 but has sometimes been overlooked by culture-living visitors who are drawn to other art attractions in the town such as the glitzier beachside Tate St Ives and the Barbara Hepworth museum and sculpture garden. Not now. An exhibition called Clay and Community was launched on Friday pulling together a dizzying range of activities and events that have run as part of celebrations to mark 100 years of creativity at the Leach Pottery. It features radical, brilliantly technical pieces by professionals but also work by schoolchildren and keen amateurs who attended “Raku parties” to make pots using the fast and dramatic method of firing that inspired Leach. The interest in Leach was highlighted this week at an auction of pottery at Phillips in London, when his works were being snapped up by collectors from across the globe for five times their estimates. John Bedding, an honorary potter at the Leach studio, said he was pleased more people were taking an interest in Leach and having a go at pottery themselves, though he said: “There may be quite a lot of wheels on the secondhand market when people realise it isn’t that easy.” Simon Winn, 50, from Cornwall, who works for a pharmaceutical company, is one of those who has managed to get a place on a course at the Leach Pottery next year. He said he was looking forward to it with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. “It feels more accessible. Anyone can sit at a pottery wheel, have a go and come away with something even if it’s not pretty,” he said. “I like the idea of making something utilitarian and, of course, getting my hands dirty, making a mess.”