Yesterday’s entry was written so that I could write about this 9 cm (3.5″) bottle with an impressed “LB” insignia on the base. It was posted on eBay earlier this year with a tentative attribution to Les Blakebrough. I am continuing to count it amongst my mystery pots.
Here are the names of the potters I know with the initials LB:
Leigh Bailie, Lyn Baker, Lesley Barnes, Lee Bartley, Leonard Bell, Louise Bennetts, Louise Boscacci, Lorna Boucher, Lisa Boyter, Lorna Brady.
Leigh Bailie, Lyn Baker and Louise Bennetts were students whose work featured in Pottery in Australia in the 1980s. I don’t know whether they went on to become practicing potters. The rest are, or have been, practicing potters in various locations around Australia.
Lesley Barnes, who sold her work at Warrandyte in the 1980s and 1990s, used her full name as an insignia. Leonard Bell, who established a pottery near Bendigo, Victoria, in 1976, used a mark very similar to Les Blakebrough’s “LB” but in conjunction with a “WP” mark for Woodstock Pottery. I don’t have a record yet of the marks used by the other LB potters.
Oh, Oh! A scary thought. What if it doesn’t say LB at all…
Postscript: I am now fairly certain that this is the mark used by the New Zealand potter Lindsay Bedogni.
Australian Pottery 