Ellie Woods

In July 2024, Ellie completed a three-year Apprenticeship at the Leach Pottery where she trained alongside our skilled potters to learn the craft of making Leach Standard Ware. Now a graduate, she continues as a Production Potter in the Studio.

Since 2022, Ellie has been exploring the techniques of wood-firing alongside John Mackenzie. In 2025, she further developed her knowledge during a three-month residency at Driving Creek Pottery, New Zealand, where she dug and processed local clays to make pots reflecting the characteristics of these materials and wood-firings.

Ellie continues furthering her wood-fired practice in Cornwall, alongside making gas-fired pots in response to her training at the Leach Pottery.

Ellie hails from Cumbria and graduated from Liverpool John Moores University with a Fine Art degree in 2018. She commenced her Apprenticeship at the Leach Pottery on 5 July 2021, joining the Studio alongside our highly skilled team of production potters, learning the craft of making Leach Standard Ware.

“I like the intimacy of creating work that is going to be used, for example a mug for someone’s morning coffee. I am playing with slip underneath glazes to add texture and decoration to the pots. Some slips are watered down clay, others I have mixed from powdered clays and added colouring oxides. All with the hope of creating an individual style in combination with using the traditional Leach Studio glazes. "