Lesley Starnes

Clay Artist 

Lesley Starnes born in London, England, immigrated with her family to Canada in the 1950’s and has had an interest in drawing and painting since childhood. After graduating from high school, she attended the Ontario College of Art, her majors textile design, along with porcelain and stoneware. Lesley an honour graduate from Material Arts, taught in the ceramics department at OCA for two years. She has had extensive teaching experience in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia.

For the past thirty years Lesley has worked as a tapestry maker, calligrapher, ceramics instructor as well as in other areas of the arts and arts community. In 1989 she taught twenty Blackfoot people all aspects of manufacturing pottery using native imagery, at Old Sun College in Gleichen, Alberta. Lesley’s early work was high fire stoneware but for the past twelve years she has been working with low fire clay producing ‘maiolica’ pottery and tiles.

In 1996 Lesley and her husband Nicholas moved to Invermere, B.C. and established The Blue Rooster Pottery, in the beautiful Columbia Valley. The pottery produces brightly coloured functional pottery all year round. Designs touch on the favorite things in their lives, the garden, the environment, food, human foibles and humour. Lesley and Nicholas wants people to use and enjoy Blue Rooster pottery. For the past couple of years tiles have attracted Lesley’s interest, designing on grid is different from working in the round, Lesley is producing free-form tile items such as tables, bathroom shower enclosure murals and kitchen back splashes. Winters are used for product development and special projects, but from May to October locals and tourists are welcome to visit the studio/showroom and watch a pottery at work.

Lesley has the occasional exhibit of new works at The Croft in Calgary, Alberta, "Celebrating Hats" in 1998 and this year she produced a series of Raku vessels called Millennium Bugs, featuring insects we love and hate. Blue Rooster Pottery can be found all over North America, in Europe, Australia, Japan and even the remote Fiji Islands.