ABOUT WREN HOUSE

After working in the shipyards during World War II, Janet Darnell Leach was in the beginning of began her life as a potter when she moved to Threefold Farm, a community dedicated to development of the arts, sciences and pedagogy. This community still thrives just 20 miles northeast of New York City. Here she found herself drawn to the resident wrens that flitted about in the woods around her little house, offering her bouts of inspiration. She wanted to design a home for them, and watched them closely to interpret their needs.

The end result was a decorative prototype, a handcrafted wren house that served the needs of the birds and represented Janet’s blossoming talent as a potter. Not long after, the houses were Audubon Society approved.

Janet continued to create her Wren Houses until she left for Japan, to further her studies with acclaimed potter Shoji Hamada. She was there along with potter Bernard Leach, a friend she met while attending Black Mountain College in North Carolina, and her future husband.

The couple returned to Cornwall, England where Janet managed Leach Production Pottery and maintained her own private studio. Before moving, she gave the Wren House molds to Sally (Sayre) Burns, a dear friend from Threefold Farm. The molds put in storage and eventually lost, but Sayre never lost hope in resurrecting her friend’s beautiful designs.

And that’s when artist Jeanne Wesley-Wiese came into the picture.

In 1988, Jeanne and Paul Wiese moved from Montana to Threefold Farms where Jeanne started a painting training at Threefold Painting School. Their new neighbor was Sally (Sayre) Burns, and Jeanne noticed a beautiful, handcrafted birdhouse hanging in her yard.

“Where did you get that bird house?” Jeanne asked. “I want one.”

Sally laughed and prophetically answered, “If you want one, you will have to make it,” and then told the story of the Wren House.

Five years later, after spending two years teaching in Boulder, Colorado and one year living in Switzerland studying painting, Paul Wiese took a teaching position at the Green Meadow Waldorf School in the Threefold Community. When Jeanne saw Sally again, Sally immediately declared, “You and I are going to be business partners. We are going to start a ceramic studio and make Wren Houses.” Two years later, with Janet’s blessing and guidance, the artists fired their first batch, and Jeanne finally got her Wren House.

To this day, Janet’s original weathered Wren Houses can be found throughout the Threefold Community, serving as homes for the birds for over 50 years. And now these decorative designs are created by Jeanne Wesley-Wiese. Her small studio, that once housed horse buggies and wagons, is nestled off a dirt alley in the historic brewery district in the northeast neighborhood of Bozeman, Montana.

The distinctively handcrafted Wren House is finally back.