Bernard Leach
After meeting Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada at Black Mountain College, North Carolina, she gained Hamada's agreement to work with him at Mashiko after he had returned to Japan. She travelled there in 1954, by cargo boat. Darnell spent a great deal of time with Bernard Leach and eventually they agreed to marry, initially intending to live in Japan. However with Bernard's son David Leach leaving the Leach Pottery to establish his own studio, they returned to England in 1956.