David Whitehead
Born in 1959, in Cape Town, South Africa, David Whitehead chose to study surveying to work outside.
For five years, 'measuring the earth' led him to travel through different countries.
In 1986, when he discovered ceramics at the 'Terra Potter' workshop in South Africa, David decided on a new professional start.
From 1987 to 1991, he went to Scotland to train with various potters: Allan Bain in Lyth, Caithness in Scotland in 1987 and 1988.
Then an apprenticeship at Caoldair Pottery, Inverness-shire, Scotland with Mick Arnold and Lynda Whitty in 1989 and 1990.
He goes back and forth for a year to work with ceramics, sometimes in South Africa, sometimes in Scotland. If it was in Scotland that he discovered cooking with wood, it was in Greece that he was told about La Borne, a French pottery village located 200 km from Paris.
He moved to La Borne in 1994. In 2012, he moved to Point du Jour, 1km from La Borne. He lives and works with Mia Jensen, where they have built workshops and a new anagama kiln. He bakes his pieces for five days. Even if his work consists almost exclusively of unique pieces made in coil modeling, the manufacture of simple and sincere utilitarian pieces is very important to him.
