Tchalenko, Janice
 

Janice Tchalenko was born in Rugby, Warwickshire in 1942. She studied at Putney School of Art and Harrow School of Art. In the early 1970s she started teach at the Croydon School of Art and the Camberwell School of Art. She specialized in undecorated domestic stoneware and developed a reputation as a highly competent thrower.

In the late 1970s she discovered she also had a talent for decoration and started making high-fired stoneware with bright and colourful designs. She became a tutor at the Royal College of Art in 1981 and this was shortly followed by two exhibitions - one with John Hinchcliffe the textile designer and the other as a one-woman show at the Blum Helman Gallery in New York - that established her as one of the top British potters.

Around the same time her association with Dartington Pottery started. She has provided many designs for the pottery and is now their principal designer. Her innovative work continues to develop in an inventive and original way.

Further Reading:

Janice Tchalenko: Ceramics in Studio by John Tchalenko and Oliver Watson

Dartington Pottery
 

The Dartington Pottery Training Workshop, now known as Dart Pottery or Dartington Pottery, was set up in 1975 in South Devon. David Leach had the idea of forming a 'community workshop' in 1972. His father had worked at the site in the 1930s. Marianne De Trey worked there until the early 1980s.

The pottery was bought out by Peter Cook, Stephen Course and Peter Hazell in 1984, and is now run by Sue Cook and Stephen Course, who employ around fifteen people. Janice Tchalenko and Tavs Jorgensen have strong connections, providing designs to augment those that originate from within the company.