From humble beginnings . . . his parents Philip and Lucy began the pottery business in east Cork over 50 years ago . . . Stephen Pearce has become a brand name, known all over the world.

Talk to Pearce and you get the sense that this almost happened by accident. He loves what he does, and he does it because he loves it. If it sells well, so much the better.

"To me pottery is about freedom, " he says. "When I left school in 1962, my father's pottery business was a disaster area, and so I said would give two years of my life to try and help him. I could see that there was maybe a possibility of making it work. But it was the mid-'80s before we were able to make a real living out of it. It never worried us though.

We were into it. It was very hit-and-miss."

Later, he expands a little: "I express myself through design, " he says. "My pottery has a very simple, spiritual message."

It's also the reason, he believes, that people are attracted to his work. "I say to people, 'why do you like my pottery?'

and they say that there is something very basic in it that they respond to. I regard this as very important. That's the wonderful thing about Ireland and Cork. Despite all the money, and the Celtic Tiger, there is such an amount of people doing alternative things."

Of course, Pearce also has a business side. Despite his recognition that he's not "the sort of person who does well in an office", he would not . . . could not . . . have got where he is today without some savvy awareness of marketing, sales and commerce. Five years ago, he pulled out of the daily grind, escaping to a villa in Italy with his wife and children.

He thought he was going to retire, and set about painting every day (these artworks are regularly exhibited in the Stephen Pearce centre in Shanagarry). He discovered, however, that he's not the "retiring type". "That five years was very necessary, " he says, "I was regenerating myself.

But now I'm ready for the fight. It's my in my nature to grasp with the impossible."

Grasping with the impossible means trying something new. While he has no interest in moving away from the earthy browns and reds and blacks of the pottery model that has worked so well, he is thinking of beginning a new range of work, which will have one vital difference: colour.

"I've always avoided colour, " he says, "and I've no desire to change or move on from the work we do. But the world out there is changing so fast. I thought it would be valid if we did some brightly coloured stuff for young people. A lot of people these days choose to live in a white house, and place brightly coloured things in it. There's a whole mood of 'non-design' out there. People choose a vase like that, or a fruit bowl like that. I can see a way of doing it with a relevant Irish spin to it. So I'm working on designs for some coloured glass, and some brightly coloured pottery. It will all be done under my name, but there will be a clear differentiation between the classic ranges and the new playful ranges."

The five years away gave him time to think. It also made him realise he was working too hard. If he comes back now, he's already told his people he won't do more than one or two hours of meetings a day. He's in the fortunate position that he can delegate things like VAT returns, and concentrate on what he loves best: working with his hands, making designs, being creative. If he can focus on that, he won't mind doing things like going to the US to once more raise consciousness of his brand name. He won't mind going on TV, making people laugh, hoping they'll buy a pot or two for Christmas or as a wedding present, or for a birthday.

For an artist, Pearce is fortunate. He has the ability to split himself in two. He has a big personality, is garrulous, loves to talk, and can play the sales and media game as required.

But most of the time he prefers to think about other things:

spirituality, the cosmos, developing himself. As he talks, his conversation wanders in and out of issues like the problem with organised religion today (it's outdated) the importance of individual spirituality (it's been one of the most exciting things to happen in the past 20 years) and his reverence for women.

"All religions have it in for women, " he says. "They have a total fear of women. What major religion will even let a woman in? They all say they adore women, and they all have their 'Virgin Mary'. But the world is running on one cylinder, a male one. The chaos in the world will only change when there is male and female collaboration. I'm so happy to see a woman chancellor in Germany. And I hold out hope for Hillary Clinton in the US. I say to my friends in America: 'this country will only come of age when there is a woman, Indian president'."

Pearce expounds these views on life while sitting in his living room next to a glorious open fire. Shanagarry, in east Cork, where Pearce has his Irish home and pottery store, and where Darina Allen has her cookery school, is one of the busiest, most interesting areas in the south; there is a feeling of creative possibility the moment you drive the winding roads down there.

Creative possibility is everywhere is Pearce's life: from the beautiful, earthy tiles that cover the floor of his house, to the handmade furniture that litters its rooms. The pottery workshop . . . just across the way . . . is equally welcoming, exuding as it does care, time and attention. Stephen Pearce's work is high-quality, and it costs top bar. He'd prefer if it didn't . . .

he wants good design in everybody's homes and would be as happy selling in Dunnes Stores as in somewhere like Meadows and Byrne in Cork city. But he's not prepared to lower his standards, and the demand for his work has long proved that there is a market out there for type of quality he produces.

He credits his parents with his creativity, or at least, with their encouragement of his creativity. He is grateful for their attitude towards education . . . a large part of it was about becoming "happy and self-satisfied". So when a young Pearce realised that he liked working with his hands, there was never anyone telling him that he should go out 'and get a real job'.

Without them, he could not have developed as he has.

However, his style also has other influences . . . most recently the changing seasons in Italy . . . but as a young man he travelled overseas to work with potters in England and France.

In 1966, he won a year-long scholarship to study in Japan under master potter Kanhesaige Toyo, later hitching his way back through Asia and Europe to London. There, he was drawn to the then thriving music scene, but he also began to make his own pottery. By the time he returned to Ireland in 1971, he knew who he was and he knew what he wanted to do. Stephen Pearce pottery as we know it today began in 1973.

This idea of 'being yourself ' is something he wants to pass on to his own children. "I think there is some aspect to us that needs to be left float, " he says. "If you think about it, every act in life is a creative one. Every thing we do, every decision we make, the way we choose to dress. All this is creativity. To me, creativity is the building block of who we are."

So how does living in Italy . . . a country with its own creative past (in the form of art) and creative present (in the form of cooking) suit him?

He misses Ireland, of course he does. But he is back and forth a lot. And much of the Italian way of life . . . dedication to fresh food and simple cooking, dedication to the most basic of craftwork . . . has been a revelation to him. "I find I easily make friends with craftspeople there. They give love and attention to even the most simple of constructions. It's what I always dreamed of."

Yet, he may not have made it there without the influence of his wife and partner of 20 years, Lauren. "It was she who wanted us to be real Europeans, " he says. Now his children . . . 14-year-old Mirrin (Mir is the Russian word for peace) and 12-year-old Oran both attend international schools in Italy, while Pearse continues to turn to his wife over and again for advice on his art. "She is a source of inspiration, " he says, of Lauren, who is half-Vietnamese, "her training is in art history, so in all matters artistic, I can talk to her."

From the distance of Italy, Pearse can see the good with the bad in Ireland, and he's not sure he likes all of the changes. The consumerism . . . rampant or otherwise . . . distresses him; he likens it to the short-term nature of much of the American dream and its consequent search for the lowest common denominator. "We've leapt from the depression of the mid-'80s to this current phase of consumerism, and now we have to ask ourselves if we have the strength of character to overcome it." Other things, such as the waning influence of the Catholic Church, he likes better . . .

he had his own run in with the local Catholic church before he left for Italy. "I realised I could spend the rest of my life fighting the church, or just get on with it, " he says.

He lives in the Italian countryside, not far from Pisa . . . having recently moved from the city. "Being out in the countryside is much better for me, " he says. "In fact, I think there I'm going to find that the thing I really want to do is write."

He even knows what he wants to write about. Women.

"I'm dedicated to the evolution of women. I'd like to think of a way of expressing this, so that men would understand it, making it clear that it is an essential, not a possibility. Men don't get this. I do get it, and maybe I can find a way of somehow conveying it. It's the only way of going forward."

Now in his 60s, Pearce shows no sign of slowing down. He is constantly thinking, constantly moving, constantly developing. He might have wanted to retire, but found he couldn't, and the time away has given him renewed vigour to keep a hand in all the many creative things he loves to do.

Meanwhile, the businessman in him has an eye to the future of the Shanagarry centre in Cork. His website indicates plans to develop Shanagarry Castle, the ruins of which he purchased in the early 1990s and turned into the pottery store and workshops, a cafe, and gallery. Now the thinking is to open a craft shop and learning centre in the space. When this happens, you sense he will not stop there.

Meantime, despite the painting and the writing and the countryside living, it is when Pearce talks about his pottery that he really appears to dig deep into his depths. The feel, of it, the smell of it, the touch of it, still inspires him after all these years. "When I get on the wheel I have an idea of the shape of, let's say, a lamp. Then I let that shape evolve. It just comes out of me. I wouldn't say I'm so much a designer as someone who allows inspiration to come to them. I'm really fairly out of control."