Meet Our Ghost - Master Potter Alex Leckie
My mother is a firm believer that people that care about you visit you before, during and after their deaths. Usually a death is announced to my mum by a loud series of knocks at the door. A black crow follows me on the anniversary of my uncle’s death. For some time now, someone has been making their presence known in our house. In the middle of the night, my husband woke up with someone stroking his cheek. Today, we found out that my husband’s mentor and friend, the Master Potter Alex Leckie recently died. I wish we had known sooner. We could have offered him a dram. This is the next best thing that we can do for him, posting a short memory and appreciation of him.
This appreciation appeared in the Scotsman newspaper http://news.scotsman.com/obituaries/Appreciation-Alex-Leckie.6066443.jp
Potter, lecturer and sculptor
Born: 2 June, 1932, in Glasgow.
Died: 7 February, 2010, in Paisley, aged 77.
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SHORT, stocky and powerful, Alex Leckie was a wee bull who caused havoc in many a china shop as he charged headlong through life.
Potter, lecturer and sculptor
When the musician Robin Hall died I wrote that his passing drew a line under an important part of my life, but that relationship was a professional one, and Robin’s sad death was predictable. The news of Alex’s passing was much more shocking; a violent body blow, for although circumstances meant that we had seen less of each other in recent years, I still regarded him as my ancient, trusty and frequently drouthie cronie. Alex and I enrolled at the Glasgow School of Art in 1950. We went in by the back door, both having left school at 15 without the necessary qualifications; me for financial reasons, he because of a natural resistance to authority which remained with him all his life. The art school took in a handful of people each year on the basis of perceived potential. Alex more than justified that faith, setting new standards in the 1954 diploma show and being awarded a post-diploma year. Having consulted me on the joys of national service, he took off for Australia. After discovering that he was the only qualified ceramicist anyone seemed to have heard of, he set about establishing a pottery department in the South Australia School of Art. His energy, enthusiasm and natural warmth made him enormously popular with the students, but inevitably there were clashes with the authorities, and after a six-year tenure, he was ousted on a technicality – to wit, swimming in the scuddy in an inappropriate public place. Freelance work was challenging and exciting for Alex and he started working on a large scale with timber, glass and concrete. Using huge ceramic drainage pipes he constructed his Ned Kelly monument, which is now on display in a major art collection, as are a number of other pieces. When he came back to Glasgow and the School of Art in 1966, he took a moribund pottery department by the scruff of the neck, completely transforming it and turning out students who were a credit to the school. Around this time he phoned me at my home in London. “Fancy some walking in Crete?” “Well, OK. When are we going?” “Tomorrow.” I managed to arrange it, and visits to the palace of Knossos and the wonderful museum in Heraklion got Alex’s creative juices flowing and resulted in some truly lovely semi-sculptural pots. There are people whose passing hardly causes a ripple, but the force of nature that was Alex Leckie will long be remembered by his many friends and admirers. Alex was twice married and divorced, but it was his near 30-year partnership with his staunchly loyal Sandra which gave him the peace and stability that had always eluded him. Alex died peacefully at 4.45pm on 7 February with Sandra’s head on his chest. Apart from Sandra, he leaves three children, two grandchildren and his stepson, Calum.
