Bentley Le Baron—potter & painter

An Enchanted World of Clay

Potter and painter Bentley Le Baron (1937 – 2025) spent over 40 years creating his own ceramic world—a place of beauty and magic, inhabited by creatures both real and mythical: gods and goddesses, ravens and owls, bears and bulls, cats and dogs, and dragons. These stand alongside functional tableware and painting as his main artistic legacy.

Bentley started out not as an artist but rather as a philosophy professor. “I was pushing 30 when I first touched clay,” he said in an interview. He did his doctorate in politics and philosophy in London, England, and then taught in Ontario for six years.

All that time, he was hanging out with artist friends and regularly visiting the art department,  thinking, ‘I’d like to do that too.’ He began learning pottery as a sideline to academia. By the time he moved to Denman Island in 1979, he was ready to devote himself fully to art.

“I just hung out a shingle as a guy who made dinnerware,” he said. Soon he was getting commissions for dinner sets. He then branched into hand-built sculpting, which allowed his creativity to flourish. Over the decades he exhibited throughout BC and Ontario.

Bentley’s themes evolved out of the ceramics process. “The kiln always seemed like the Great Mother Dragon, the Transformer, and so just hanging out with the kiln got me interested in mythology. The elementals—earth, air, fire, water—got me interested in those themes. Then I started finding imagery from mythology around the world—the sun and the moon, the dragon, and animal creatures that had been sacred to early peoples in different parts of the world,” he said.

Bentley filled the woods on his Denman Island property with his art—a playful Pan, a soulful goddess, and more, placed among the cedars and Douglas Firs. He was a mentor for younger potters and a valued member of the the island’s arts community.

Since Bentley’s death in September, 2025, his widow Danni Crenna is managing the remainder of his works.

Contact info: dannicrenna07@gmail.com

See Bentley’s work on Denman: in the Arts Denman Sculpture Park (two works); at the Denman Craft Shop; and by appointment with Danni Crenna.