Chez les Filles
October - December 2019, Peter Kirk Travel Fund
An exploration of regional French ceramics, tradition, community and skill.
By visiting historical and active pottery sites in France, I hoped to explore the link between clay and community, discover how craft is being taught today, in what capacity history and technique play a role within this and whether skill is being passed on. I was eager to look at the lifestyle surrounding ceramics and whether it is resistant to society’s advances, and explore whether ceramic art is innovative.
[extracts from full report]
Cliousclat
Inside the long narrow workshop three potters were at work. Down the left side were the customary drying racks, wooden brackets stretching out from the wall with boards balanced and replete with bowls, dishes, plates and drying slowly. One guy was mixing huge buckets of engobe, another sat at his bench and prepared to throw. A woman carefully trailed slip designs over the leather-hard wares. She was welcoming, recounted the pottery’s history and invited me to sit by the stove to stay warm and write.
I watched the thrower take long sausages of clay from the pugmill and masterly mark out identical sized lumps with his knife so he could begin throwing bowls. He comes to the workshop a handful of days every few months, and wheel-throws all the pottery’s wares within that time. His skill was impressive, he worked at speed, tossing bowl after bowl onto the long board placed before him. He told me how much he loves this workshop, how traditional potteries such as this one are increasingly rare because people want autonomy, to work on their own travail. Again, I was struck by the general move away from collectivism and collaboration, the search for true individual creation which seems to reflect how individualist our society has become, down to taste for objects and their creation.