Plaisir d'offrir, interview with Stephen Knott

Florent Dubois was born in 1990 in Besançon. He studied at Lyon’s art school and lives in Cherbourg en Cotentin.

This interview was conducted by Stephen Knott, editor of The Journal of Modern Craft via videoconferencing software on May 24, 2021.

SK: In the last year, during lockdown, where have you been? Have you been in your studio and what have you been able to make?

FD: I was born in Besançon, a city in the east of France, and just before the lockdown I was invited to do a workshop at the local art school there. During the trip I went to say hi to my parents and then the lockdown came into force and I was stuck there. They have a big farm and my old studio with my first kiln is still there, so I set to work. But  in France everything closed. So I have the kiln, I have the table, I have the glaze, I have everything, except clay. I had only one or two bags of clay so it was really slow and careful work. Instead of working a lot with ceramic I just finished all the stuff I had kept in my studio. A lot of artists are like me and have studios that are full of crap: the things they didn’t finish, the things they have forgot, things in drawers. So I just fired all the ceramic that was laying around in my studio. After the second lockdown I was back in the city where I live - Cherbourg in Normandy - and could return to normal ways of working.

SK: Have you continued with working in ceramics? 

FD: No, I’ve worked more on drawing, on painting. Drawing is more an interior practice. Craft, or ceramics at least, is not something you can do so easily on your kitchen table, or on the couch. 

SK: Were you able to make some interesting pieces from the ceramics lying around your old studio?

FD: They were half-finished… so I tried to mix them, not with ceramic, but using plaster, or resin, and expanding foam.In fact I used everything lying around in the studio. [possible image]. I tried to mix ceramics with wool, painting, found objects; half-painting, half-plaster, plastic toys. [more examples - image]. But everything was so slow during the lockdown. The hardware stores were closed. Even if you wanted a small bag of plaster, it was really hard to get. 

I worked on very small [ceramic] objects - cups, ashtrays - and I put aquarium decorations [on them]. I was focused on how to mix ceramics to other things - even natural materials … wood, leaves, grass, rock,  this kind of thing. I sacrificed some of my old ceramic work to made these strange things. It was not so successful at my old studio but more successful here [in Cherbourg].

SK: Was that because of the lack of materials?

FD: Yes, only old spray paints and not enough painting to paint my ceramics. Everything was a bit in-between. But thanks to this way of working, I discovered how to technically put plaster on ceramics and to mix expanding foam. And the balance you can find between using ceramic as a way to build sculpture. I discovered new ways of thinking the uses of clay and to push the boundaries of this media.

SK: What processes you use? Coiling, throwing? 

FD: I use coiling. It is my favorite technique. I don’t know how to throw and I love this idea of ceramic as a slow way of working. Coiling is very slow and you need to always be aware of what you are doing. If I put this coil this way it will go left, and if I put another one to equilibrate it will go right. I love working centimeter by centimeter. With throwing… I don’t like the idea of cylinder, cylinder, cylinder. I know you can do tricky cylinders but it is always the same shape.  With coiling I don’t know exactly what I’m doing, and the faces of the characters I sculpt on my pots appear almost accidentally as I coil. 

SK: In French ceramics is coiling common?

FD: Not so much, although younger ceramicists tend to use coil building or hand building. This is an aesthetic exemplified by little espresso cups where you clearly see that it’s handmade. They are very handmade. 

SK: One of the things that I always remember from French holidays are the local pottery towns. For example, in the south of France a few years ago I visited St-Quentin-la-Poterie. These are towns that are little known yet they have quirky ceramic traditions. Looking at your work sometimes makes you recall these.

SK: These are examples of regional production using clays from the local area. But they depend on a tourist market, from both within France and internationally.

FD: Yes, you have this strange relationship between territory and object, and the uses of these objects. They are not devoid of function and have a place in familial French life. It is quite common for a ceramic to be given at a wedding from the part of France where you are living. The bol Breton is a classic for children. If you go to Brittany I think every French family has one somewhere in the kitchen and there is a story behind every bol, the bol was offered by grandparents, it’s was the bol from my mother ..;

SK: And is your ceramic work related to this regionality in French craft? 

FD: It is a complex question. For me, Valloris (or Accolay) is a very good example of a fascinating and regional ceramic. Their work reflected a distinct idea of modernity: the 1960s, the first mass holidays in France; this idea of fantasy takes root in their work with very crazy objects in terms of colours, of shapes. When you think about modernity you think about clean, streamlined, geometrical objects; you don’t think about an ashtray with sixteen colors. I like this idea of associating modernity with very elaborate craft, akin to the clocks at the Victoria & Albert Museum or the Musée des arts décoratifs that have gold leaf on marble on ceramic on a wood stool which is assorted with diamonds! Using so much material in one object is difficult. It is the way a crafty object is designed. 

SK: This sense of ‘spilling over’ seems very relevant to your work.

FD: Many ceramicists try to get a good balance between freedom and control. I saw a documentary about Sterling Ruby and I think he represents this approach. He doesn’t really know what is going to happen, he just throws everything together, puts everything in the kiln, closes the doors, waits and something happens. I like to be aware of what I am doing. For example, if I am using bubble glaze for a nose of a character that I am sculpting I want to achieve a certain effect. But if the bubbles are running on the mouth, it is not a problem because this could be a dirty bogey or tears running from the eye. The glaze is not a smooth and perfect surface; it can tell a story. You can tell very different stories just from the kind of glaze that you are using. E

SK: Why are there a lot of faces in your ceramics? 

FD: I love how basic faces are. It takes a lot of time to build my ceramics but the faces take no more than two minutes. You just poke two holes for the eyes, one strange thing for the nose and another thing is the mouth. You can use this almost child-like technique while still having an awareness of glazes and the complexity of producing ceramic form. I am also interested how my figures can work as part of installations; in dialogue with each other and my drawings, and how they can be filmed. 

FD: The music is very carefully chosen. It’s always a mix of something: of The Doors remixed with Seabass/Cybas sitar with, I don’t know, another layer like Enya. I am now working on two different videos. They are doing a big exhibition on ceramics in the Musée d’Art Moderne de la ville de Paris in October and I’ve been invited to show a video [similar to the one on the website], not to show real ceramics, so I am working on that. 

SK: What is the French relationship with the word “craft”? What are the differences between artisanat and métier, artisanat d’art and art populaire folklorique… 

FD: It is complicated. When you say artisan or artisanat it includes everything: the plumber, a chef in a restaurant, a butcher. The definition is so generous because it relates to savoir-faire (know-how): the butcher knows how to work with meat, etc. Sometimes they add artisanat d’art when they speak about craftspeople, making jewellery, making ceramic, glassblowing to separate them from butchers, bakers or plumbers, this kind of thing… The question of who is the craftsman, who is the artisan, is complex in France because we don’t have the vocabulary to describe it… 

SK: “Artisan” is not commonly used to describe butchers, bakers and similar roles in the UK and when it is, it connotes luxury, cachet, or even French cultural exclusivity. How do all of these words relate to regional traditions in France?

FD: If I took the example of the bol Breton, it is not made by artisans but by companies, by manufacturers, within a factory. There is a strange relationship between artisans and manufacturers in France because sometimes the objects made are at the same time very local, but also semi-mass produced. Do you see what I mean ?

FD: I can think of another example: Soufflenheim, a traditional Alsacian ceramic. I was born near Alsace… and every family there has an object from the Soufflenheim factory in their house, somewhere. A Moule à Kougelhopf for dessert, something special for Easter, a specific dish called a Baeckeofe. These are all everyday objects in Alsace… I’m trying to connect this to your question about modernity…. It is complex.

SK: What is interesting is that items like this have a place in everyone’s home: it’s on the shelf, as a wedding gift, or something similar… I’m not so sure if there is such a strong traditional of regionality in UK ceramics. 

FD: Maybe in the UK you have a stronger relationship with the craftsperson. There might not be the same thing with a local folklorique object, but you have a relationship with buying ceramic from a local craftsperson.

SK: Yes, I think one of the cultural positives of the most recent craft revival is that you meet, or at least know about the individual maker that made the object. Is this important if you are buying French craft or artisanal products? Or is it more the brand of the local factory that is key? 

FD: I think the idea of the brand might be more important. For Soufflenheim, this is the name of the village as well as the factory. When you say poterie d’Albi, you think about this specific, regional kind of ceramic object - it is a kind of pop ceramics for the garden with colorful glazes.  When you say Betschdorf, which another Alsatian ceramic manufacturer, you think of grey blue ceramic. There is a strong connection between place and company.

SK: With all this discussion of definitions and terms, how would you describe yourself? 

FD: I’m a contemporary artist. I was trained in art school. I did not receive a proper or classical education in ceramics. When I make ceramics I do not think I’m making objects, more I’m making sculpture or an installation. I like to describe myself as an artist who is working with clay. I don’t like ceramicist either, or céramiste, because it is even more in-between: nobody knows precisely what a céramiste is. At first I was very shy about this, self-conscious about my lack of skill. But now I just don’t care anymore. It sounds a bit capricious, but I just do what I want with clay ?

SK: What drew you to clay when you first worked with it? 

FD: I was obsessed with Vallauris objects: their colours and textures. I realized ceramic is was ? not only white, smooth, clean; it can be messy and dirty. The first ceramics I did were strange coral and sea creatures that I wanted to put in front of my paintings as decoration. After this I wanted to animate my small ceramic characters through video. And after that I became aware of the range of techniques in the medium. 

One example that demonstrates this range is the techniques used in Auvernes. Auvernes is a volcanic region in the middle of France and they have developed techniques to glaze the volcanic rock. I was so struck by the techniques they used I just wanted to know more about them. From this material interest I got more involved in historical issues: how community is built around ceramic manufacturing centers, about how people work around a wood-fired kiln, about the connection between regional French ceramics and local clays. 

I went to a throwing formation [do you mean course or site visit? Courses !] in St-Amand-en-Puisaye, a village right in the center of France near the River Loire where there are still small ceramic factories making traditional mustard pots for Maille - the French brand of mustard. They recently designed a mustard pot for a premium line of mustard that was inspired by traditional examples. I met this woman my age, who was working at the company and she told me something that I was not aware of at all. I thought the work would be quite nice, working in clay, in a certain tradition, etc. But she told me that she and her colleagues were factory workers. They are not potters, they are not artists, they are clay workers. They throw one, then, it’s the next one. When she told me this I was very curious… that you can work with clay in this non craftsmanlike, or non-artistic way. 

SK: So it was production line work, even though the mustard pot looks crafty, or folksy.

FD: It’s even more ambiguous when you think about this particular mustard pot. It seems handmade, but it is mass produced. It recalls to my mind, Eric Hobsbawm’s ‘The Invention of Tradition’. This book was very important for me when I was in art school because of this idea of a fake or ‘invented’ tradition. 

SK: Well, if you think of the mustard pot, it seems so insignificant and not important, but by being in people’s homes they have a connection to a notion of tradition. If you think about Sylvac ware. It is an ‘invented tradition.’ They’re mass produced but I wonder whether they offer something of a psychological comfort to their owners, a reassurance; there seems to be a profound link between objects like this and ideas of ‘invented tradition.’

FD: To go back to the young woman at the factory. She told me that we need to thank Maille and their choice to redesign this mustard pot as it kept the factory open. If you add this layer on to how you look at objects it makes them even more complex. Thanks to this strange pot there is still a little factory in this village. You’re right. A little object that is simple, humble, and very common can contain layers of history, craft, savoir faire and personal connection.