BRIAN THOMAS NOBBS
27TH JUNE 1939 TO 27TH AUGUST 2022

Brian was born in London during the 2nd world war. His mother was a housewife and his father was a bookbinder. However, his father joined the Armed Forces and was away until Brian was six years old.

After secondary school, his father wanted Brian to be a bookbinder, but he resisted as he wanted to go to Art School. He was unable to go to Art School and he had various jobs until he had a conversion to the Catholic Faith at the age of eighteen. He joined the Quarr Abbey on the Isle of Wight as a postulate (novice monk).

He stayed for four years, and he was assigned to be the sculptor of the Abbey making Altar pieces. One of his pieces is still on the Altar of Quarr Abbey.

He had a crisis of faith before he took his vows and left the Abbey after four years and at age twenty-two, he went to Teach Training College. He qualified with a speciality in art and joined the faculty at Sunderland Secondary School.

In the 1960’s the occult practice of the OUIJA board was becoming popular and Brian and other members of the faculty were becoming concerned as some of their pupils were having strange and disturbing experiences.

The faculty had no experience of the OUIJA board so were unable to judge whether there were other mental health issues at play with the students or whether it was their experiences with the Board. To try and find out about six members of the faculty (including Brian) decided to use the Board themselves.
Immediately they started getting messages and guidance themselves. The Board kept spelling out Scotland. None of them had been to Scotland and were, at that stage, not planning of travelling or coming to Scotland. As they continued with the sessions, the Board spelt out that there was a community in Scotland that they would join.

At this time there were articles in the national newspapers concerning a community in Scotland and mentioned that this community was based on spiritual principles and that they were keen to start an Arts and Crafts movement as part of the community.

When the faculty asked the Board whether they should make contact with this community, it spelt out YES. They then contacted Peter Caddy and an investigatory trip was arranged. During this visit Peter Caddy told them that Eileen Caddy had received guidance that artists, who would make themselves known, would be coming to start the Arts and Crafts within the community. Peter then told them that he had been expecting them.

Around 1967 six of the Sunderland faculty, including Brian moved to Findhorn community.

Peter Caddy (in about 1968) founded a company called Findhorn Studios Limited, as the guidance had also said that the Arts and Crafts would create the money earning arm of the community. This was before experience week and other programmes had started.

The Pottery Studio was the first of the studios to be built and Brian became its first Studio Manager and potter, as well as being a director of the company.

At this stage Brian had not had any experience in pottery, except at secondary school. However, a potter from Holland happened to come to the community for six months and taught him the basics. It was then that he discovered his natural aptitude for clay.

Once the studio had been built, kilns obtained, practise completed, Findhorn Pottery opened its doors for business in October of 1972.

Dorothy MacLean, who was in the community at this time, started getting messages from Nature Spirits when she was working in the Original Gardens. She was writing articles for the weekly magazine but wanted to illustrate her text as she felt visual images would better describe and communicate her experiences. However, not being an artist, she was dissatisfied with her efforts. She then asked Brian if he would make some illustrations. At first Brian tried the drawings from her descriptions and used the drawing techniques he had become familiar with. However, these efforts also did not satisfy either of them.

Brian then decided he would try and meditate in the gardens to see if he could get any inspiration. From these meditations his drawings of ten nature spirits emerged. Before meditation he was trying to draw them using lines, but during the meditation, he saw them in points (dots) of light. He then created the “dot” drawings which were then published in the magazine and later turned into prints.

Deva of the North dot drawing by Brian Nobbs

Towards the end of 1973, Brian had another crisis of Faith and left the community and joined Pluscarden Abbey. His artistic talents were not encouraged at Pluscarden and Brian’s main duty was roasting the coffee! This is probably where he developed a taste for the very finest of coffee and it became an important daily ritual. However, after three years he again decided to leave before taking his vows.

In 1976 Brian left Pluscarden Abbey and returned to the community. It was during this period of time that he met a couple from America who had fallen in love with Findhorn and were in the process of setting up a community in Pennsylvania using the principles of Findhorn. They also wanted to have a strong showing for the Arts and Crafts and invited Brian to come and train a pottery team for them.

Brian then went to America, and it was at a dinner party being given by the couple that Brian met his lifelong partner Franck Darte.

Merlando Mask

Instead of returning to the UK after he had finished training the team, Brian stayed in America. He and Franck then bought a pottery in the Appalachian Mountains and Brian settled down to see if he could earn enough to convince the American Authorities to give him a green card. It was during this time living in the mountains that Brian had a profound experience with an Indian apparition, who appeared to Brian in green. Brian made many versions of this Green Indian in clay.

In the meantime, Findhorn Studios Limited had collapsed as had the Findhorn Pottery. While Brian was in America, Peter asked him to come to the community for a short time to train up a new pottery team with a view to restarting the pottery as a business. Brian duly came back and trained a new team, but the team disbanded after about a year and the Pottery reverted to a creative space.

Back in America Brian was unable to create a large enough income to convince the Authorities and he returned to England around 1985 with Franck and they had acquired some outbuildings on a farm to try and start a pottery studio in the South of England.

Towards the end of 1989 Brian received a call from Gay Smith, who was running the Pottery as a creative space. She told him that the Community was restructuring from a Trust to a Foundation. This meant that the Community had to sell off all the departments that had the potential to be profit making and they were selling these departments to interested community members to turn into their own independent business. Gay (an American) had to return to America and was not in a position to buy the Pottery. She told Brian that it would be turned into a maintenance shed if no one came forward to buy it.

Along with Franck, Brian returned to the community and bought the Pottery which became his own independent business within the community in 1989. In 1990 the Pottery again opened its doors for business.

As the business still had to be built up, Brian worked at the Steiner School both as a class and art teacher until 1995. It was then that the Pottery was producing enough income for Brian to be full time in the Pottery.

Accommodation was hard to find, and they moved around for around 5 years when they eventually settled into Mansewood House in 1995 where they lived for the rest of their lives.
Franck died in February 1999 and Brain never truly recovered from his loss.

Due to the legal situation at the time within the UK and America, Franck could not live full time in the UK. It became their routine that Franck and Brian would be in the UK for nine months and then they would spend three months in the winter in America. During this annual three month stay in America Brian took the opportunity to paint. It was through these paintings that he expressed his spiritual experiences.

Rose Deva

The second time Brian came back to the Community in 1990, Brian became very involved in Community activities which included presentations at the courses run by the Foundation. These included experience weeks, LCG, Foundation programmes etc. He taught pottery classes as well as providing the pottery experience for the Essence of the Arts in the Community course. He was very generous with his time, and he could be found in the Pottery over a cup of coffee mentoring and guiding people in need. He was also a supportive and generous teacher in the Pottery.
Brian was a sensitive, kind, and generous man.

Until 2005 Brian worked full time in the Pottery and upon turning sixty-five, he wanted to retire. He then sold the Pottery to Belia Biesheuvel who had been working alongside Brian since 1996. He continued to work part time and was a valuable team member until 2011 when he had his first serious health crisis, fully retiring in December 2011.

He continued to live in Mansewood House until his death.

He wrote many articles, particularly in the early years of the community and his paintings and sculptural work featured in various books by other Authors. Many of his articles and writings can be found in the Foundation’s Archives in Edinburgh.

Biography collated by Belia Biesheuvel from many conversations with Brian